Latest / Easy Double podcast / Izzi Batt-Doyle: Resillience, Determination and Success. Injuries and setbacks in US College to Olympian and multiple Australian Record holder

Transcript

Izzi Batt-Doyle: Resillience, Determination and Success. Injuries and setbacks in US College to Olympian and multiple Australian Record holder · Easy Double podcast

• 0:17
  Hello and welcome back to the Easy Double Podcast.
• 0:20
  Today we're incredibly lucky to be joined by arguably Australias
• 0:24
  most versatile distance athlete. She currently holds world
• 0:27
  rankings between 32 and 60 across 4 disciplines ranging
• 0:31
  from the 5000 meters to the marathon.
• 0:34
  On top of this, our guest balance is 200 kilometre plus
• 0:37
  training weeks with being successful business owner,
• 0:40
  homeowner and partner. Welcome to the pod, Izzy Bat
• 0:43
  Doyle. Thanks Dean.
• 0:44
  I'm excited to be on Long Time Listener and finally on the Pod.
• 0:48
  I yeah, no, we, I thought maybe to, in terms of setting the
• 0:53
  scene, I might sort of briefly recount our first, your first
• 0:58
  encounter maybe with the, with the easy double trio.
• 1:01
  Yeah. I don't know if it's true.
• 1:02
  Yeah. So I don't know if you remember
• 1:05
  the first time you and I personally met, but that was you
• 1:08
  just crossed the finish line at Maragami, at the, at the half
• 1:12
  marathon where you just broken the Australian record.
• 1:14
  And I gave you a quick congratulations, but you
• 1:18
  probably had bigger things on your mind just running 67 17.
• 1:21
  And but fortunately, Ryan, who's a little renowned for, for, for
• 1:28
  his, his sort of initiative when it comes to DMS, messaged Brett
• 1:33
  and convinced you and Brett and a couple of others to come join
• 1:39
  Owen, Ryan and I for a drink after the race.
• 1:42
  So that was our first time we got to have a proper chat.
• 1:44
  Yeah, no, it's good. And I do actually now recall you
• 1:47
  congratulating me and I was like whoa.
• 1:48
  And Aussie, like, what the hell? And I think at the time, yeah, I
• 1:52
  was a little bit kind of yeah, over the moon with my
• 1:54
  performance and wasn't really putting two and two together.
• 1:56
  But then when we caught up in the bar after, I was like, oh,
• 2:00
  Dean Mandy's right, yeah. And like, made a connection
• 2:02
  since you'd raced, you know, Jacob and Riley a lot, too.
• 2:05
  And I knew the name from running results.
• 2:07
  So yeah, it was a fun little night and good to hang out with
• 2:10
  you guys and been a listener of the podcast since then.
• 2:13
  No, I appreciate it. It's pretty random, like
• 2:16
  Maragami's sort of a regional town in Japan.
• 2:19
  So it's not like Tokyo or one of those larger races which
• 2:22
  attracts sort of quite the contingent of Aussies.
• 2:25
  It's sort of, I don't know, it's pretty, it's pretty random, but
• 2:28
  it's sort of, it's developing quite the reputation because
• 2:31
  it's quite, it is quite a fast course as you sort of were able
• 2:34
  to prove. Yeah, a great course.
• 2:38
  I think more Aussies will go in the future, but whether or not
• 2:40
  it's one of those races, it's kind of harder to get into or
• 2:43
  you have to enter quite early. That's tends to be the case with
• 2:45
  Japanese races. Yeah.
• 2:47
  We don't see like heaps people going over there just like in
• 2:50
  terms of comparatively to other races.
• 2:51
  But yeah, it could could continue to grow.
• 2:54
  It currently has the 2 Australian half marathon record
• 2:57
  time, so showing it's fast. Exactly.
• 3:02
  Now in terms of it's been customary on our interview so
• 3:05
  far to start with a few rapid fire questions.
• 3:08
  So I might hit you with a couple if you don't mind.
• 3:11
  Yeah, sounds good. So what's your go to coffee
• 3:14
  order? And as a coffee store owner, is
• 3:16
  there any particular orders which you don't rate or aren't a
• 3:19
  fan of? Generally I just go for an oat
• 3:22
  flat white. I think that's safe because
• 3:24
  especially in Europe, that's tends to be the stronger coffee.
• 3:28
  I've made the mistake of ordering like a latte over here
• 3:31
  and you just get a cup of milk, really.
• 3:32
  So yeah, a strong oat, flat white and it's not, there's not
• 3:38
  too many orders that I think are annoying because I think my
• 3:41
  order is quite annoying. I'm like strong or flat white,
• 3:44
  extra hot. Extra hot light Ryan.
• 3:49
  Interesting. Yeah, yeah.
• 3:51
  Well, I just think some places just don't do it.
• 3:53
  Like I don't have to ask that at some places, but you just kind
• 3:56
  of tend to figure out if I get it not too warm, I'll just drink
• 4:00
  it way too quickly. So I often go for extra hot.
• 4:03
  But there you go and then running with music or a podcast
• 4:08
  in do you do it? And do you have any go to sort
• 4:10
  of playlists or or podcasts that you like to listen to?
• 4:14
  Actually I'm a fan of both. I like podcasts for what I'm
• 4:18
  just trying to get a rundown, get out the door, you know, take
• 4:21
  off an easy hour run. But if I'm trying to push or do
• 4:26
  like a session while I'm cross training, then music's more my
• 4:29
  go to. I do find I run too fast if I
• 4:32
  listen to music on an easy run. So the podcast, what I like to
• 4:36
  listen to. You're seeing one FTK inside
• 4:40
  running podcast. I am a running fan, so most of
• 4:43
  my listening is running stuff, Coffee Club, club podcast as
• 4:47
  well. And then in terms of playlists,
• 4:50
  I don't have a playlist that I've made, but I just sort of,
• 4:53
  yeah, listen to different ones on Spotify that other people
• 4:56
  listen to. There's a British runner, Silly
• 4:59
  Bell, and who has a podcast Could run fast, you little
• 5:04
  bitch. And actually, I was listening to
• 5:06
  that today on the elliptical, so that's a good one.
• 5:09
  Good shout out. All right, I have to check that
• 5:10
  one out. We have a segment on the on our
• 5:15
  podcast called YouTube Diaries. Did you have any channels that
• 5:19
  you tuned into? And we've mentioned your yours a
• 5:23
  few times and we like following yours, so feel free to to
• 5:27
  mention that. But is there anything that any
• 5:28
  particular styles of YouTube content that you like as well?
• 5:31
  Yeah, thanks. I've been trying to get into
• 5:33
  YouTube. I've only got 4 videos and I'm
• 5:35
  planning to bring more but it's just proving quite difficult to
• 5:39
  be honest. Like the cost of actually
• 5:41
  getting videos made, let alone then actually trying to film
• 5:45
  like in training or in life. But yeah, I'll, I'll keep trying
• 5:49
  to bring out some more in the future, but I've been recently
• 5:53
  when I've done some elliptical training, watching Team Macau,
• 5:57
  who's the British group based in Teddington, I think.
• 6:01
  And yeah, I've just really liked their storytelling.
• 6:03
  I think they do a really good job of being like authentic and
• 6:07
  showing behind the scenes, but also being just quite funny and
• 6:09
  engaging so that they've got a good, good channel.
• 6:12
  They put content out like weekly and it's like they race or have
• 6:16
  a session and you know, a really high quality video is out a
• 6:19
  couple days later, which, yeah, I'm jealous that I've got a
• 6:22
  media guy working for them, which is pretty cool.
• 6:25
  But yeah, I really write write their style of content.
• 6:27
  That's cool. And then in terms of training
• 6:30
  sessions, is it do you prefer morning or afternoon And if it's
• 6:33
  in the morning, do you try and squeeze in a nap?
• 6:35
  Definitely morning training, like I obviously usually train
• 6:38
  twice a day, but the second training is just an easy run.
• 6:42
  Yeah, or kind of strength. Strength training or Pilates or
• 6:44
  cross training? I do love a good nap, but I'll
• 6:49
  be honest, I only tend to really get them on training camps when
• 6:52
  I'm away. Don't do a good job of getting
• 6:54
  them in at home, I just find myself too busy.
• 6:57
  But something I definitely could could aim to do more of in the
• 7:00
  future. But yeah, I think a morning
• 7:02
  training session and an afternoon nap is the combination
• 7:04
  for. Success 100% and exclude the
• 7:08
  last one, but excluding competition shoes.
• 7:10
  Do you wear anything other than the Super blast?
• 7:14
  I wear the no blast as well and I also wear the Gel Nimbus 27.
• 7:20
  I like both of those shoes for easy running.
• 7:22
  I try and use the Super Blast only for my long run.
• 7:27
  So like my Wednesday medium long run and then my Sunday long run.
• 7:31
  And I feel like that just I love the Super Blast and you love
• 7:35
  kind of reserving it for those long run days where you want to
• 7:37
  get going a bit quicker towards the end on a Sunday or maybe on
• 7:41
  a Wednesday, you know, you're really trying to recover and
• 7:45
  look after your feet and your lower legs from a hard Tuesday
• 7:48
  session. So they feel good on a
• 7:49
  Wednesday, but then other easy running like Walmarts, worn
• 7:52
  downs, easy hours, double s. I sort of just rotate between
• 7:55
  the No Blast 5 and yeah the journey was 27.
• 8:00
  OK, that's good to know because yeah, I find the temptation to
• 8:03
  put on the Super blast like too great to Yeah, right out of it
• 8:07
  sometimes. So that's so good, yeah.
• 8:10
  So before we sort of start from the start, I just thought it'd
• 8:14
  be helpful to sort of set the scene a little bit just for most
• 8:19
  listeners would be familiar with your times.
• 8:21
  But for those that aren't. So just in 2025, you've broken
• 8:24
  the Australian half marathon record.
• 8:26
  As mentioned, in 6717, you ran an area record for the 10K on
• 8:31
  road. In 3044, you were six at the
• 8:34
  Nagoya Women's Marathon in 223, amongst other achievements.
• 8:39
  And that's just where, you know, barely halfway through the year
• 8:42
  and you're sort of you're currently in Europe chasing
• 8:45
  qualifying standards and ranking points ahead of world champs
• 8:50
  later in the year in Tokyo. So sort of hearing all that and
• 8:54
  knowing that you're sort of, you know, living and as a full time
• 8:58
  athlete, I think some people might sort of look at that and
• 9:02
  struggle to not be maybe a little bit envious at just how
• 9:05
  fortunate that position it is. But I thought I'd share a quick
• 9:09
  quote by Jimmy Carr, the comedian.
• 9:11
  And he says people are jealous of people are jealous of what
• 9:15
  you've got, not how you've got it.
• 9:18
  So with that, I was sort of just setting it up to say it'd be
• 9:22
  nice to sort of hear all the hard work that you've sort of
• 9:24
  put in to get there because it's sort of gone back through your
• 9:27
  performances over time. And it's sort of not
• 9:29
  necessarily, you know, it, it doesn't start like this.
• 9:33
  It's sort of been, you know, in some ways 20 odd years of of
• 9:37
  work that I think has gotten you there.
• 9:39
  Would that be fair to say? Yeah, definitely a lot of hard
• 9:41
  work and, and not sacrifices, but just choices that you make
• 9:44
  and decisions that you have to do along the way.
• 9:47
  And yeah, yeah, probably sacrifices is probably a word I
• 9:50
  could use for some things. So start this from wiki, it
• 9:55
  mentions that you may have. From your Wikipedia page, it
• 9:58
  mentioned that you may have started running around 8 when
• 10:01
  and you joined a little ace athletics club.
• 10:04
  And I mentioned that your parents might have been runners
• 10:06
  themselves and might have been a bit of an influence on you
• 10:08
  getting into running. Is that fair?
• 10:10
  Yeah. So yeah, I started athletics
• 10:12
  when I was 8 years old. My sister was doing little
• 10:16
  athletics, so kind of just followed her.
• 10:18
  And my parents were both like sporty, like they did marathons
• 10:21
  and not competitively, so to speak, but, you know, they they
• 10:25
  enjoyed running. They were fit.
• 10:27
  And yeah, I actually ran the City Debate 6K when I was 8
• 10:32
  years old with my stepdad. And that was kind of the first
• 10:35
  memory I have of doing like a finger race and enjoying the
• 10:40
  feeling of crossing the finish line and achieving something.
• 10:43
  And I wasn't particularly a great athlete in my junior days.
• 10:47
  Like I just did the athletics and did all the events, you
• 10:49
  know, you had to do out there. But over time, I guess I
• 10:53
  progressed and I think I made my first state team when I was in
• 10:58
  under elevens for cross country and yeah, kind of just
• 11:01
  progressed naturally from there. And with your sort of support,
• 11:05
  like I, I think I remember hearing on another podcast that
• 11:08
  even that your mum might have travelled with you recently to
• 11:11
  Japan. So do you still sort of feel
• 11:13
  that that support and has that been what sort of role have has
• 11:17
  sort of parents played? Because I know we'll have some
• 11:19
  listeners that are either parents themselves or some some
• 11:24
  sort of junior, junior athletes that are sort of have parents
• 11:28
  that are such a great influence. It's obviously worked well for
• 11:31
  you. And yeah, I was just curious to
• 11:33
  know anything that maybe stood out from.
• 11:35
  From yeah, definitely. Like when I think back to my
• 11:38
  junior days, like I made the cross country nationals every
• 11:42
  year pretty much since I was, yeah, 10 or 11 years old.
• 11:45
  And every time I made a team, it was, you know, my mom and I
• 11:49
  would go to Sydney or wherever it was.
• 11:52
  So the Nationals have a, you know, have a sort of a trip
• 11:54
  away. And it was really special to
• 11:57
  share that with her. And I feel like my running has
• 12:01
  always been really well supported.
• 12:02
  I'm lucky to come from, you know, family who who have the
• 12:05
  means to and want to support my running and even yeah, through
• 12:09
  kind of junior years into going to America for college.
• 12:12
  You know, parents came over with me when I first went to America.
• 12:16
  My mum visited me probably 3 * a year in America and even still
• 12:21
  now when she, when they can, they come over and support me in
• 12:25
  my competitions. I've been to Commonwealth Games,
• 12:27
  World Champs, Olympics to support me.
• 12:30
  And yeah, my mom ran in the Tokyo Marathon earlier this year
• 12:33
  and she completed her six stars, which is pretty amazing at 65
• 12:39
  years old. And then she stayed save Japan
• 12:42
  for an extra week so she could be there for the Nagoya Marathon
• 12:44
  where I was running. So yeah, I think that support
• 12:47
  has played a huge role in in my running career.
• 12:50
  I can 100% say that I would not be a professional athlete and at
• 12:54
  the level I am now if I hadn't have had that family support.
• 12:58
  Both not just, you know, support like mentally, but that's
• 13:04
  financial support too, because my parents really, really helped
• 13:08
  me when coming out of college and you know, I wasn't earning
• 13:11
  any money. I didn't have sort of a pathway
• 13:14
  forward. And, you know, living at home
• 13:16
  and having their support to be able to take the next step
• 13:19
  towards becoming a world class athlete and becoming a personal
• 13:22
  athlete and being out of then, like making income for myself
• 13:25
  out of it. I really needed them in that, in
• 13:28
  that stage there too. So yeah, they played a huge role
• 13:30
  in my running career and and still to do to this day.
• 13:34
  They're actually coming up to Hoyus to see me here in a couple
• 13:37
  of weeks time, so that'll be nice.
• 13:39
  That's so cool. I, I did see I did some, it used
• 13:44
  to be called old school sports when I ran it.
• 13:47
  I don't know what was this name, but I did find some under 18
• 13:51
  national results. So I think in 2012 you were 27th
• 13:58
  in National Cross in I think and was that in, in SA and Jess Hall
• 14:04
  might have been the first Aussie that day.
• 14:07
  And the following year it was in Tassie and you finished 7th.
• 14:13
  And so I can see that and there was a progression and I could
• 14:15
  see the progression as well just in terms of I think you might
• 14:18
  have been third and 4th at nationals as well in the 15103
• 14:22
  K. So there was obviously some some
• 14:26
  talent there. And I'm assuming that that
• 14:28
  perhaps around that time you would have run sometimes to help
• 14:32
  with eligibility for for college scholarship.
• 14:36
  Yeah, I think it's interesting if I go back even further in my
• 14:39
  like results, like I was so mid pack, most nationals, you know,
• 14:44
  as a junior, like ridiculous mid pack.
• 14:48
  I think there was one year where I finished 11th at nationals,
• 14:52
  but I was just so happy to be there.
• 14:53
  It was not. It was really, yeah, I was just
• 14:56
  sort of happy to be there and get the badges and maybe like
• 14:59
  have, you know, have a good time, have a trip away.
• 15:02
  But I did get a bit more serious when I was in year 11, year 12.
• 15:06
  And that's what I did come. Yeah, I think third and fourth
• 15:10
  in the 15 or 3K at the end of year 11.
• 15:13
  It would have been. And that sort of sparked the
• 15:16
  interest in going to college because I started to get, you
• 15:19
  know, a couple of Facebook messages or, yeah, emails about
• 15:23
  college and, and what that could look like for me.
• 15:26
  So once I kind of realized that hang on running could actually
• 15:30
  be something that helped me get my degree paid for or live in a
• 15:35
  new country, have a new experience, then I was even more
• 15:38
  motivated to yeah, to kind of see where that journey could go.
• 15:42
  So yeah, that that definitely was the beginning of I guess my
• 15:45
  running becoming a little more serious from from year 11
• 15:48
  onwards. I think that might like, because
• 15:52
  I know for team WA and I think Team SA might be a little bit
• 15:56
  similar, but the eastern states like Victoria, NSW and
• 16:03
  Queensland were always fairly dominant say at National Cross
• 16:05
  and we were always sort of fighting for for 4th and 5th.
• 16:09
  And I felt like the training programs and the calibre of
• 16:12
  athletes sort of meant like I know a lot of Perth, Perth based
• 16:17
  folks didn't feature that high up in some of those national
• 16:20
  teams. To know that maybe you didn't
• 16:22
  start necessarily, you know, winning every junior
• 16:24
  championship is probably something that I suspect a lot
• 16:27
  of people can relate to, which I think is is is really cool.
• 16:31
  Yeah. I didn't even win a state
• 16:33
  championship. I was like third or fourth,
• 16:35
  maybe maybe second. Like I never even won a state
• 16:38
  championship that I can recall in school.
• 16:40
  Like I was always just kind of around the mark, but not not the
• 16:43
  best. And I do think it's like,
• 16:46
  obviously I do have talent. I'm not saying that I don't have
• 16:48
  any talent, but I do think that like I just love running and I
• 16:51
  kind of outlasted a lot of people who maybe have talent
• 16:55
  earlier and sort of had more success earlier.
• 16:58
  So it's kind of like if you stick at it, then you never know
• 17:02
  where it's going to end off. You could be the last one
• 17:04
  standing. Love it.
• 17:07
  There's a couple of like inflection points in your
• 17:09
  training. One of them.
• 17:11
  So I was going to talk about college.
• 17:14
  So in 2014 you joined Saint John's Uni, but then you
• 17:19
  transferred to the University of Washington.
• 17:22
  Was it the following year And we're running with them, but.
• 17:25
  So essentially, like the reason I went to Saint John's was
• 17:28
  because I didn't go and do a college trip like a lot of
• 17:30
  people do now. They go to America and they see
• 17:32
  the college and sort of make a really informed, informed
• 17:35
  choice. I had a few offers and I wasn't,
• 17:38
  yeah, I wasn't an outstanding athlete.
• 17:40
  So they weren't, you know, top, top schools.
• 17:43
  But I decided to pick one in a place that I'd been to before,
• 17:47
  which was New York. It was a good academic program,
• 17:50
  which I was quite academic focused student athlete as well.
• 17:54
  And I had a really great time. It was a lot of fun living in
• 17:56
  New York, but the the program just wasn't, it wasn't going to
• 18:01
  challenge me to become the athlete that I wanted to become.
• 18:03
  Like I got there and I was already the best on the team.
• 18:07
  We had a lovely coach, but he was just a little bit naive and
• 18:10
  an old school. And yeah, there were just sort
• 18:13
  of some some gaps there that I felt like I wasn't going to
• 18:15
  progress to the next level. So it was my second year.
• 18:20
  I went back to St. John's, did the cross country
• 18:23
  season and then I transferred at the end of that year.
• 18:26
  So essentially did like, yeah, did like a year and a half there
• 18:29
  and then I came back to Australia.
• 18:30
  I had to, it was a bit complicated.
• 18:33
  They've changed the rules now, but my athletic department
• 18:36
  actually tried to, like, hold me back, which means that they
• 18:39
  can't make you not leave, but they can put a block on you for
• 18:42
  a year to compete. So I had to do like an appeal to
• 18:46
  actually be allowed to compete and not have to sit out for a
• 18:49
  year. And luckily I won that appeal.
• 18:52
  And I started at Washington the following March.
• 18:56
  So I went back to Australia for a couple of months because I was
• 19:00
  going from a trimester to a semester.
• 19:02
  It was a bit of a change in like the academic schedule.
• 19:05
  And yeah, I started at Washington 2016 in the start of
• 19:09
  that quarter and yeah, it was a good move because I went from
• 19:13
  being the best on the team to the 8 best on the team and
• 19:16
  really fighting for for a spot on the cross country seven
• 19:20
  person roster for nationals. But it was definitely what I
• 19:23
  needed and it's helped me progress to the athlete that
• 19:25
  I've become. And just in terms of your time
• 19:27
  at those at the Huskies, if I remember reading and hearing
• 19:32
  about you had a sort of a spate of stress fractures in your
• 19:36
  feet. Is it was that early on when you
• 19:39
  were sort of adjusting to the program?
• 19:41
  And do you know what was? Because you obviously now seem
• 19:44
  so resilient. So I'm curious to sort of
• 19:46
  understand sort of what, yeah, what wasn't going right?
• 19:48
  And then what did you manage to to do to fix it?
• 19:51
  So it must have been like the first year was, was pretty good
• 19:55
  and then cross country 2017, I think it would have been, I
• 20:02
  broke 3 bones in my foot at the same time.
• 20:05
  So might have navicular and three metatarsals of four,
• 20:09
  sorry, 4 bones. And then from there I kind of
• 20:12
  had two years where I had 7 stress fractures in my feet in
• 20:16
  that two year period. So there was no real time in
• 20:19
  college over there at Washington where I had a clean run for very
• 20:24
  long. It was just kind of like that
• 20:26
  first initial injury. I was on crutches.
• 20:29
  I didn't run for about four months or three or four months.
• 20:32
  Then I came back and got going again, but probably was pushed a
• 20:37
  bit too quickly to get back into it.
• 20:40
  And then did another, another stress fracture, like, yeah, and
• 20:45
  had to sit out some time again. And then in my last season in
• 20:50
  2019, I ended up having two calcaneous stress fractures at
• 20:54
  the same time. So yeah, it was pretty, pretty
• 20:57
  rough period of like just constantly getting up and down
• 21:01
  and having some really long, long blocks of just cross
• 21:04
  trading in and not being able to run and questioning whether I'd
• 21:07
  ever get back to being healthy and running again.
• 21:12
  But what I think was the problem there is that really in America
• 21:15
  on a scholarship, I failed at least that, you know, I had to
• 21:20
  before I had to sort of prove my worth and and you know, yeah,
• 21:25
  kind of score points the team and and race well and sort of be
• 21:29
  of value. And also it was so competitive
• 21:31
  that as I mentioned, like I was fighting to be that top 7 for
• 21:34
  cross country. And if you if you didn't get it,
• 21:37
  you know, someone else would would get it.
• 21:39
  So it just kind of felt really quite intense and competitive.
• 21:42
  And, you know, even training was quite competitive.
• 21:44
  And we had a coach who unfortunately, you know, it
• 21:48
  meant well, but he essentially was fired in my 4th year for
• 21:56
  kind of like, I guess like a sort of an eating disorder
• 21:59
  culture misconduct, I'm not sure what you want to call it.
• 22:02
  And yeah, that was challenging during that time because I felt
• 22:07
  like I was constantly trying to lose weight or not eat and sort
• 22:12
  of in a vicious cycle of I never had a full blood eating disorder
• 22:16
  or was underweight, but I was just depriving myself.
• 22:19
  I feel. And just really up and down and,
• 22:23
  you know, not sleeping well and, you know, not feeling adequately
• 22:26
  or at the right times or in the right ways.
• 22:30
  And then with just the stress of trying to hold your spot or
• 22:33
  prove your worth or whatever you want to call it.
• 22:36
  I think that that just really meant that my body just kept
• 22:39
  crashing out. And then you add, you know,
• 22:41
  being someone who cares a lot about their academics.
• 22:43
  On top of that, I was doing an honours degree in psychology and
• 22:46
  also trying to be quite social. I just think it was just sort
• 22:49
  of, yeah, a bit of a vicious cycle of of all too much.
• 22:52
  But I was very fortunate that my last year after our coach had
• 22:58
  stepped down, we had some new coaches come who transferred up
• 23:01
  from Oregon. And I had a wonderful female
• 23:04
  coach year of my career. And she was awesome.
• 23:08
  And I really learned a lot from her being my coach.
• 23:10
  And I sort of had a breakout last year in a sense of I won
• 23:15
  the conference championships in the 10K and then I came third at
• 23:19
  the National instead of a championships in the 10K.
• 23:23
  And I broke the school record in the 10K and the 5K indoors.
• 23:27
  And yeah, it's had a really, a really strong last season, which
• 23:30
  sort of made-up for all the ups and downs of the following the
• 23:33
  previous years. But unfortunately, I still think
• 23:37
  my body was in that cycle because I did have, yeah,
• 23:42
  calcaneus stress fracture at the end of that season, which
• 23:46
  essentially meant that I didn't run from July till January 2020
• 23:51
  to 2020. Sorry, yes, in 2019.
• 23:54
  So yeah, that was a long time to be out from running, but it did
• 23:59
  force me to kind of address all those issues, addressed the
• 24:03
  strength side of things too. And yeah, definitely made me a
• 24:07
  stronger athlete. But it was kind of funny to look
• 24:08
  back on because I haven't had a bone stress injury for since
• 24:11
  2019. So like for six years and I've
• 24:14
  been out around 200 and yeah, after 210 KS a week and you
• 24:18
  know, run 3 marathons in a year and spike up and run lots of
• 24:23
  track races and yeah, not had any issues other than just some
• 24:27
  hamstring tendon stuffs. So I'm guess I've gotten that
• 24:31
  side of things right finally. I think so and I I do remember
• 24:35
  us chatting a little bit when we caught up in Japan and it sounds
• 24:40
  a little bit like maybe for you fuelling now and fuelling
• 24:43
  generally I think is better regarded like like is in
• 24:47
  everyone's there used to be a bit more old school like you do
• 24:49
  your long run fasted and you sort of, you know, sort of may
• 24:54
  avoid food to try and get lean and those sorts of things.
• 24:57
  Whereas I feel like that's a lot of that's been pretty debunked
• 25:00
  and like fuelling ahead of workouts and fuelling
• 25:03
  appropriately after running allows you to absorb your
• 25:07
  training and train more. And so do you think that maybe
• 25:11
  whilst that was a horrible experience in college, you've
• 25:15
  what you've been able to turn that into is quite a strength
• 25:18
  now? Because there's not many women I
• 25:20
  would think that are able to sustain the sort of mileage you
• 25:22
  are. And part of that must be down to
• 25:24
  fueling really well. Yeah, I think so.
• 25:26
  And I like, I'll be honest, I think that I don't think, I
• 25:29
  think most athletes, distance athletes, whether they're female
• 25:33
  or male, do have some like body image or sort of like feeling
• 25:38
  sort of like concerns at one stage in their in their career
• 25:42
  or ongoing. And I still have to remind
• 25:43
  myself that like, I'd prefer to be consistent and able to do the
• 25:48
  training and recover and perform well and maybe a little couple
• 25:52
  of kilos heavier than someone thinks is perfect race weight,
• 25:57
  then, you know, crash and burn and be unconsistent or injured
• 26:02
  or not able to handle the training.
• 26:03
  So. And I think that, yeah, you're
• 26:04
  right, like people are starting to overall see that as the the
• 26:09
  best way forward. But I think it's still
• 26:12
  challenging because it's still easy to see people on the start
• 26:16
  line and think like, oh, if I was a bit lighter, maybe I would
• 26:19
  run a bit faster. But yeah, I really have, I
• 26:22
  really have shown myself in training and in the last few
• 26:25
  years that fuelling well really can be the secret to sustaining
• 26:30
  your training and being able to compete consistently and enjoy
• 26:34
  the sport. Just a couple more questions for
• 26:37
  just on on college. First of all, I did see that
• 26:40
  that 10,000 meters, the NCAA where you finished third is now
• 26:43
  on YouTube, so that. Was the YouTube.
• 26:45
  Video that yeah so they posted it yeah I think they posted only
• 26:49
  it was three years ago that they posted it but it's OK available
• 26:52
  now so I I watched that in my research so good it's a yeah
• 26:56
  it's a cool race you feature. I wasn't really like, yeah, I
• 27:01
  wasn't really one of the favourites going in at all.
• 27:05
  I think I'd run 3220 at Stanford, which was yeah, the
• 27:08
  school record and and quite a good time at that at that stage.
• 27:11
  I think that actually the World Championships qualifying time
• 27:13
  was only 3215. I didn't even know when I ran it
• 27:15
  that I missed it by 5 seconds for Doha.
• 27:18
  Yeah, yeah. And I remember that race because
• 27:22
  my yeah, yeah, it was really hard in Texas.
• 27:24
  We, we, we did heat training for that.
• 27:27
  And I had to wear sauna suits and I did sauna training.
• 27:30
  And yeah, it was, it was really hot.
• 27:32
  But yeah, I came third and I was really proud of that result.
• 27:35
  It really kind of capped off. Yeah, what I had what was a
• 27:39
  great but challenging five years in America.
• 27:43
  But yeah, classic me leading, leading at the front, pushing,
• 27:46
  pushing the pace and making people work for it in first.
• 27:50
  Yeah, yeah. Just like every race.
• 27:54
  I know you mentioned it's like it's interesting to have context
• 27:57
  to the numbers because like on your in terms of your results
• 28:00
  from 20/14 to 20/19/2015, I couldn't find a recorded time,
• 28:05
  but say for the 5K it went 17131604161615481540.
• 28:13
  Like so to go from 7 to 1713 when you started to 1540, like
• 28:18
  that's a huge, that's quite a jump over that, that period.
• 28:22
  So yes, even that progression is pretty is still pretty
• 28:26
  impressive I I thought. Yeah, yeah, No, it was, it was
• 28:30
  good. Like I, I definitely progressed
• 28:32
  a lot as an athlete and I kind of went to college as a steeple
• 28:35
  chaser actually. That was my main event when I
• 28:36
  went over to to America. And so I was more of like a 3K
• 28:41
  staple, you know, 3K runner. And so I was, I'd only done a
• 28:44
  couple of five KS I think at like really kind of lower level
• 28:48
  races like in Adelaide or the country champs in Ballarat or
• 28:51
  Bendigo or something. And so, yeah, I kind of was able
• 28:54
  to take big chunks off my 5K each year over in America,
• 28:59
  America. And and yeah, obviously continue
• 29:01
  to do that to make Tokyo in 2021.
• 29:05
  But yeah, it's definitely easier to make those big jumps when
• 29:07
  you've got room to improve. And then, then, then the second
• 29:11
  things get a lot harder. True.
• 29:13
  Yeah, that's true. And when you made that shift,
• 29:16
  was that you did you qualify for your first Aussie team?
• 29:19
  So you was it World Uni games in 2017?
• 29:23
  And is that when you met Riley and was there did training
• 29:26
  change and did that help get your improve your your time over
• 29:30
  most of your distances like training?
• 29:31
  Will you respond? Did you respond well to more
• 29:34
  volume? Yeah, I, as I said, like I was
• 29:37
  doing the steeper chase and then 2017, I think I was having just
• 29:41
  a few little niggles in my calves and I got put in the 10K
• 29:45
  for the conference championships and I qualified for World Uni
• 29:48
  Games. My first 10K came I think 3rd or
• 29:51
  4th in that race. And then I kind of made this
• 29:53
  shift because like, no hate on the seam chase, but I didn't
• 29:57
  enjoy it. I was just sort of doing it
• 29:58
  because it was a weaker event at the time and I had been told
• 30:03
  like, oh, you're more likely to make an Australian team in this
• 30:05
  event. And I like the three K, so it
• 30:09
  kind of just makes sense to figure a super chase.
• 30:11
  But once I was good enough to do the 10K and five Ki, just sort
• 30:16
  of cab the Super chase and stuck with the stuck with the longer
• 30:19
  flat braces. And I think, yeah, naturally my
• 30:23
  training probably upped a little bit from there just with the
• 30:26
  focus being running the 10K. But yeah, we're still a little
• 30:30
  bit like all over the place. I can't really recall exactly.
• 30:34
  I think in college I was running off to sort of 80 miles a week
• 30:36
  and that could be about 140 KS, I think.
• 30:39
  And I was definitely more that the high volume athlete on the
• 30:42
  team. And I did respond, respond well
• 30:45
  to it and enjoy the training. So that's just naturally where I
• 30:47
  where I went towards the yeah, 2017 was it was a big deal for
• 30:51
  me to wait, make world indie games.
• 30:52
  Like I didn't know if I'd ever make a throwing team after that.
• 30:57
  So it was kind of like I really took it seriously and, and you
• 31:01
  know, was grateful for the experience and the opportunity.
• 31:03
  And yeah, I'd, I'd known Riley since I was nine years old,
• 31:06
  actually from running in, in SA, but we started training together
• 31:11
  because we were always doing world uni games and I was back
• 31:13
  from College in the middle of the year preparing for it.
• 31:16
  And then, yeah, we started, started dating from there.
• 31:21
  And I was supposed to be coming home, I think like less than a
• 31:23
  year later, but because I got injured, I red shirted and then
• 31:27
  took another two years to come home.
• 31:29
  So we we did long distance for a couple of years and then did
• 31:32
  body games again together in 2019, which was which was a fun
• 31:36
  experience. And yeah, I was just watching my
• 31:38
  teammate Adam Goddard last night in the Body Games 1500 meter
• 31:42
  final one. It's such a great pathway I
• 31:44
  think for athletes because it's still a really good level.
• 31:48
  Like the races I was watching, they're a really good level
• 31:50
  races, but it's just, you know, a good progression for athletes
• 31:54
  to hopefully then get experience and make national, you know,
• 31:58
  make Olympics and more championships in the future.
• 32:01
  Yeah. And I guess just on that
• 32:02
  pathway, do you think that sort of US college want to bridge the
• 32:07
  gap between, you know, high school and full time pro like
• 32:11
  professional athlete? Do you still think that the US
• 32:13
  college system is a a useful way for for people to go forward
• 32:18
  because they're wanting? Yeah, definitely.
• 32:20
  I think that I, I recommend, you know, most people do it if they
• 32:24
  have the opportunity just because it's such a great
• 32:25
  experience to live somewhere new.
• 32:27
  You get your degree paid for, like get trained like a
• 32:29
  professional athlete, you know, with being flown around to meets
• 32:32
  and getting free gear and getting a housing and all that
• 32:35
  paid for. It's just it's pretty amazing.
• 32:37
  And you know, I was in a time for the NIL deals and all that
• 32:40
  stuff, which I think could potentially ruin, ruin college
• 32:44
  athletics. But you know, it's amazing
• 32:46
  opportunities there. I do think that there's a
• 32:48
  certain level of athlete who it's not useful for.
• 32:52
  Like Cam Myers, you know, at 1718, he's got he's got a great
• 32:55
  setup. He's got everything's working
• 32:57
  for him. Why would you change anything?
• 32:59
  But in my situation, like I didn't really have a clear
• 33:02
  pathway forward of a group or a coach class like this
• 33:05
  developmental kind of group that I was in in school.
• 33:09
  So it was a no brainer to take that opportunity.
• 33:11
  And I still think that for most people, like probably like 90%
• 33:15
  of junior athletes, like it is a good opportunity.
• 33:18
  And you just see the guys who've run in college.
• 33:22
  Usually I don't think this goes for me because I'm not a great
• 33:24
  tactical racer on the track. But usually, like, you know,
• 33:28
  Adam Spencer is one of the best, best races and it's no
• 33:33
  coincidence that he's racing in the collegiate system, like
• 33:35
  racing good guys, getting different race experiences sort
• 33:39
  of all year round. And then when it comes back to,
• 33:41
  you know, a nationals or not a lower level, but you know, it's
• 33:45
  just like you can just dominate these races or, you know, racing
• 33:48
  really tactically well. So I think it's a really great
• 33:51
  experience all round, whether or not you want to just do it for
• 33:54
  the opportunity and for the degree and the, the fun and the
• 33:58
  travel or you want to do it to progress you to the next level.
• 34:01
  I think that yeah, I I would recommend people to really
• 34:06
  consider the option if it's there for them.
• 34:08
  So post college, it's 2020, you arrive home and the pandemic
• 34:15
  hit. What?
• 34:16
  What then that's obviously it was a difficult time for
• 34:19
  everyone, but I think you, you sort of mentioned a little bit
• 34:21
  before just in terms of your support, you had some great
• 34:24
  support at home for you to continue your running.
• 34:27
  But at at that time were you still working with the, is it
• 34:30
  with the coffee store? And it wasn't until 2021 that
• 34:34
  you and Riley decided to start run as one, so the coaching
• 34:37
  business as well. Yeah.
• 34:39
  So pretty much like I moved home mid 20, like end of 2019 injured
• 34:46
  and I'd signed with a manager in America and I then was just not
• 34:52
  running like I just didn't run until pretty much December,
• 34:55
  January, like not even steps. You know, I was like broken 2
• 34:59
  broken feet sort of situation. So I ended up sort of saying the
• 35:04
  manager look like I'm not doing anything for you.
• 35:06
  You're not doing anything for me.
• 35:07
  Let's just like, let's just, yeah, move on from, from this.
• 35:11
  And he was running with Riley Group was Team Temple at the
• 35:16
  time in 20/20/20. And yeah, like, obviously I was
• 35:23
  back from college. I was a bit lost.
• 35:24
  I just finished, you know, five years of studying and left all
• 35:28
  my kind of friends behind. And it was a challenging time
• 35:32
  being injured too. So I was in a bit of a rut and I
• 35:37
  was just kind of working part time and applying to uni to do
• 35:41
  my postgraduate psychology degree.
• 35:44
  And yeah, that was a really difficult time.
• 35:46
  And then go over to hit sort of 2020 and yeah, I, for me it was
• 35:52
  kind of civil lighting because I just started running again and
• 35:56
  was just trying to run for enjoyment.
• 35:57
  It wasn't about trying to get back for a race or trying to do
• 36:01
  anything or prove anything. It was literally just like
• 36:04
  running for enjoyment. And I looked back at that time
• 36:06
  and just remember going for runs with Riley from home and, you
• 36:10
  know, running new routes we'd never run before and running to
• 36:12
  my beach house and, you know, just sort of enjoying running
• 36:15
  again after having a really hard year of being so injured.
• 36:19
  And during that time, too, I was, you know, working hard to
• 36:23
  get back, you know, to strengthen my feet and ankles
• 36:25
  and calves and whatever, and working on that, too.
• 36:29
  And I ended up, yeah, getting into my kind of dream degree,
• 36:34
  which was a double degree in clinical psychology, so a PhD
• 36:39
  and master's in clinical psychology.
• 36:41
  And it took me quite a long time to get into that because I had
• 36:45
  to get my degree from America recognized, which took a year.
• 36:48
  And it was, yeah, quite, quite a long thing.
• 36:50
  So I was kind of in limbo for a while.
• 36:52
  And at the end of 2020, Riley, Jacob and I actually all left
• 36:56
  Team Tempo. So we were kind of doing our own
• 36:59
  thing. And that's was shortly after
• 37:01
  we'd started by this one sort of accident in the in the code
• 37:05
  pandemic, my mom running and a few family and friends just
• 37:09
  running. And yeah, that was kind of like
• 37:11
  we started probably August 2020 and by January we had 100
• 37:16
  vendors. And essentially Riley had just
• 37:20
  started working in the physio. He kind of had to go sort of
• 37:24
  more full time in the coaching. And I started my degree at the
• 37:29
  start of 2021. And then, yeah, my running
• 37:32
  really progressed and ended up making the Olympics.
• 37:36
  And essentially when I came back, yeah, I mean, we'll jump
• 37:39
  ahead to that. But I, I then didn't continue my
• 37:42
  degree. Like I dropped out six months
• 37:44
  later because I was sort of given the ultimatum of not being
• 37:47
  able to travel for the next 4 years of doing that degree.
• 37:50
  And that's fair enough. It's really intense degree.
• 37:52
  It's, you know, you're essentially A psychologist with
• 37:55
  patients and this was like 10 people in the course.
• 37:58
  And it's a very practical course.
• 38:01
  So I made the tough decision to drop out of that and pursue my
• 38:05
  running and pursue, you know, runners one which then led to
• 38:08
  the run house in 2022 as well. And so, yeah, I don't regret it
• 38:12
  at all, but that was definitely a challenging decision to make
• 38:16
  after, you know, working so hard at my honours degree, getting my
• 38:20
  degree recognized and actually getting into that course to then
• 38:24
  just drop out after six months. But something that you'll
• 38:27
  probably go back to when one day.
• 38:30
  Yeah, I'm not sure now. I don't think that research is
• 38:32
  actually for me as I started it and I was kind of like, it's
• 38:35
  kind of boring. I actually just wanted to like
• 38:40
  my, my interest in psychology is like working with people and
• 38:44
  like, you know, helping people thrive and, and in different
• 38:46
  situations, whether that's sport or work or life.
• 38:49
  So I think that I'll kind of work in that space in some way,
• 38:52
  but I don't think it will be in a formal kind of psychology
• 38:55
  based way. I think that it might be whether
• 38:59
  it's in coaching or, you know, being, being an agent in the
• 39:02
  future or doing something in, in the space of working with,
• 39:06
  working with sport, but we'll see later problems.
• 39:10
  Yeah, definitely long, long way down the line, all things going
• 39:13
  well. So I wanted to.
• 39:16
  So in 20, was it 2022? It was the Is it your debut
• 39:23
  marathon in in Melbourne in 2022?
• 39:25
  Is that your? Marathon.
• 39:27
  That was it. Yeah.
• 39:27
  And it felt like another when I sort of being an accountant, I'm
• 39:31
  sort of chartered and matrixed your PBS.
• 39:33
  And so like it feels like another inflection point was
• 39:36
  around 2022. After that marathon build like
• 39:40
  in 2023, you sort of your times got like noticeably quicker
• 39:44
  again. And I was wondering do you think
• 39:46
  that that Melbourne did you, when did you enjoy the, the
• 39:49
  marathon and that training for the marathon?
• 39:51
  And do you have you felt like that sort of marathon trainings
• 39:54
  really sort of set you up for just improvement across the
• 39:56
  board? Yeah, I guess so.
• 39:58
  Like to backtrack like 2021, like I improved my PB from 1540
• 40:02
  down to 1504. And like, I never would have
• 40:05
  thought I'd run that fast. I never saw myself as even a 5K
• 40:08
  runner. I always thought, you know, in
• 40:10
  college as a 10K runner. And so that was kind of
• 40:12
  shocking. Even in the sense of going to
• 40:15
  the Olympics for the 5K and the following year I just assumed
• 40:19
  that I would be able to progress and run even faster.
• 40:22
  And in 2022 I just didn't have the best track season.
• 40:25
  Like I started out quite strong. I ran like 1513 on my own in
• 40:28
  Adelaide and then I kind of went overseas and was running slower,
• 40:32
  like running 1530, fifteen 20s. And really sort of, I think it
• 40:37
  was because I was just assuming that I'd get faster after a
• 40:41
  breakthrough a year, but it's usually that's the hardest year
• 40:43
  after a breakthrough. So I actually missed the World
• 40:46
  Championships by half a second that year.
• 40:48
  And I did the Commonwealth Games 10K and 5K, which was good.
• 40:51
  But my track season had been a little bit like average to my
• 40:55
  standards of what I wanted. And Nick had mentioned to me for
• 40:59
  a long time that he thought I'd be a marathon runner just the
• 41:02
  way that I ran and the way I handled training and sort of my
• 41:04
  strengths being in the threshold and longer runs.
• 41:07
  And I agree with that too. I always thought I'd be a
• 41:09
  marathon runner. And that's actually one of the
• 41:11
  reasons I, I kind of left team tempo was because my previous
• 41:14
  coach Adam didn't, didn't seem to see me as, as that.
• 41:18
  And so, yeah, I, I was going to try a marathon and I was
• 41:22
  actually entered in London Marathon that year for October,
• 41:25
  but I wasn't willing to stay overseas for that long.
• 41:28
  So the second option that Nick gave me was to do Melbourne
• 41:31
  Marathon. And I thought that's a great,
• 41:34
  great idea. You can run my marathon debut,
• 41:36
  you know, in Australia at home in a familiar place with family
• 41:39
  and friends around and thought it'd be really fun.
• 41:42
  And I actually already committed to the race six weeks before.
• 41:45
  So it was kind of right off the back of the Comm games.
• 41:47
  So I'd run the 10K and 5K. It was, you know, I'd kind of
• 41:50
  got myself into the best shape of the season at the end of the
• 41:53
  season Comm games. And so I pretty much came home
• 41:56
  or got COVID for a week and then got into marathon, got into
• 41:59
  training, but I only had five weeks of of training.
• 42:03
  And so it was quite a concentrated build.
• 42:06
  But I really enjoyed the training.
• 42:09
  It was a new challenge. I think that Nick thought, and
• 42:13
  he was right, like I needed sort of a new stimulus, a new
• 42:15
  challenge. And I think he knew that he knew
• 42:17
  that you'd go go well. And so yeah, I really enjoyed
• 42:20
  the marathon. My goal was to break 2:30 and I
• 42:25
  felt really good. I had a friend pacing me the
• 42:27
  whole way. I had a good pack of people for
• 42:30
  quite a long way of the race. And I remember getting to 37 K
• 42:33
  and thinking I feel good. Like what's going on?
• 42:36
  Like everyone said the marathon so hard.
• 42:38
  Like Riley and Jacob have more me like, oh you're going to get
• 42:40
  to the hill at the tan and you'll be absolutely like
• 42:43
  bugging. Like it's so hard.
• 42:44
  Like just like so I was so scared, like I was terrified of
• 42:48
  the distance and of getting the wall.
• 42:50
  But I got past that hill at the 10 and I was like, great.
• 42:55
  And then I remember like starting to start to run fast
• 42:58
  and the guy that I was running with was kind of like, oh, what
• 43:00
  the hell, like, and I ran a 312 like second to last Ki think.
• 43:05
  And then about the same like, yeah, last K and I came second
• 43:09
  and ran 2/28/10, which at the time was the fastest Abu and I
• 43:13
  only missed the win by 10 seconds.
• 43:15
  One of one of roses athletes from Kenya took the win ahead of
• 43:19
  me. So never know.
• 43:23
  Luckily, since then, Nike, the Melbourne marathon stopped
• 43:26
  having as many international athletes on the start line.
• 43:30
  So it's much more of an Australian race.
• 43:32
  But that was pretty tough to to watch what he ran go 10 seconds
• 43:36
  ahead of me. That that sounds like a really
• 43:40
  fun experience, but like, yeah, and, and I remember was it Liam
• 43:45
  Adams that maybe was a bit outspoken when there was.
• 43:48
  He didn't race because he was, yeah, he made us took a stand
• 43:50
  against it. And it was pretty average
• 43:52
  because at the end of the day, Riley and I've always got drug
• 43:55
  tested afterwards. And none of the, none of the
• 43:57
  Africans got tested. Yeah.
• 43:59
  And we kind of we kind of asked questions about it and it turned
• 44:02
  out that like they didn't have jurisdiction to test them
• 44:05
  because it was for integrity. Australia could only test
• 44:08
  Australians. It wasn't a labeled race.
• 44:11
  So they were able to have they didn't have the right to test
• 44:16
  them. So that was a bit frustrating
• 44:18
  because I feel like if I'd won that it would have been for me
• 44:20
  amazing, not just financially, but like, you know, winner of
• 44:23
  the Melbourne Marathon, like that has a lot of weight.
• 44:25
  Whereas no one really cares if you get upset.
• 44:27
  Him no. Yeah.
• 44:29
  And yeah, I just feel there's quite a few.
• 44:32
  It's quite topical at the moment, a bit more with the like
• 44:37
  Ruth just to sidetrack slightly, but Ruth and get it and sort of
• 44:40
  getting drug found guilty of a not a drug itself, but like a
• 44:46
  masking agent sort of talks to just sort of how sophisticated
• 44:49
  and how sinister all that is and I don't.
• 44:52
  Do you follow Emma Bates? Did you see her?
• 44:54
  Yeah, I saw that post. Yeah, yeah.
• 44:57
  And so because she was, yeah. Second at the at the US made the
• 45:02
  Chicago Marathon in 2021 to I think yeah.
• 45:06
  Yeah, people like Sarah Hall and Emma and Emily Sisson, like,
• 45:11
  they're really like, I feel for them because they they've just
• 45:14
  missed, you know, huge moments in their career.
• 45:16
  But it affects, you know, everyone down to to me as well.
• 45:19
  Like, you know, I did a marathon in Japan where Ruth won and
• 45:24
  like, yeah, so 10 failed to come nine if it's not a big deal.
• 45:27
  But like, it just filters down, you know, so much because it's
• 45:30
  it's it's appearance fees, it's sponsorship deals.
• 45:33
  It's like it's the qualifying standards that get faster every
• 45:37
  year because of the times that are being run.
• 45:39
  So it really does affect like, you know, everyone in the sport.
• 45:42
  And, you know, I missed the Olympic final by one spot last
• 45:47
  year. I don't know in that, in that in
• 45:49
  that Olympic final, probably someone that's challenging, but
• 45:53
  I think that if you get too caught up on it, you know, you
• 45:56
  just you can't enjoy the sport. And that's why for me, like my
• 45:59
  biggest goal is what I can control is trying to run
• 46:03
  personal best Australian records, you know, get the most
• 46:06
  out of myself and try not to compare myself to other people
• 46:10
  that I don't know what they're doing.
• 46:12
  But it is pretty sad when you can't really get excited over
• 46:15
  amazing performances. Yeah, exactly.
• 46:17
  It's hard. It's hard to be a fan of the
• 46:19
  sport. And you have to sort of pick who
• 46:21
  you want to follow and, and how you want to follow it.
• 46:24
  Because I think if you just naively followed the sport in
• 46:26
  totality, you sort of, yeah, you made to feel pretty silly when
• 46:30
  news comes out where the people you're sort of backing weren't
• 46:33
  doing it fairly. And it's the same with like, I
• 46:36
  look at your rankings like, because it's sort of like, you
• 46:39
  know, 30 seconds like from the 5K10K road running and marathon.
• 46:44
  And if you applied some filters to those rankings, you know, if
• 46:47
  you excluded certain, you know, countries or, or, or a certain
• 46:51
  number of people, like they're already, it's already
• 46:54
  incredible. But you just imagine like where
• 46:56
  that probably sits. And so you sort of like, it's
• 46:58
  hard not to get like you say, you sort of just there's moments
• 47:01
  in time and you sort of people lose these special moments
• 47:03
  because of because of people cheating.
• 47:06
  And it seems so prolific. Like did you hear Brett even
• 47:09
  just was he talking about on his podcast, just about the 2023
• 47:14
  winner at Sydney was a conviction who came back and
• 47:18
  won? And then the person that won
• 47:20
  last year has since. Failed the drug testing.
• 47:22
  Yeah. And so you just, you know, like,
• 47:24
  yeah, it's pretty. Average.
• 47:26
  It's pretty average and I don't know, I just think kudos to the
• 47:29
  Melbourne Marathon who have sort of took that feedback on on
• 47:33
  board and like the races last year.
• 47:36
  The last couple of years of Melbourne Marathon the the
• 47:38
  events have been really exciting to follow and it's been Aussies
• 47:41
  that have been winning them which has been really cool.
• 47:43
  Yeah, I think it's good. It's good for the sport, it's
• 47:44
  good for good for Australians to have like a place to yeah to
• 47:48
  come and and be competitive on the on the podium.
• 47:51
  Yeah. So then like so in 20, so you
• 47:55
  ran the Melbourne Marathon and like October 2022 enjoyed,
• 48:00
  enjoyed like the marathon obviously like kick time, which
• 48:03
  is like the most fun way you can can do it.
• 48:07
  Did you then decide that you wanted to have another go?
• 48:11
  Noting that your. PBS across the board got better.
• 48:13
  Yeah, it was. It was like, OK, so that went
• 48:17
  really well. I really enjoyed that.
• 48:18
  Like, I had to run a lot faster. And so I then did Nagoya
• 48:22
  Marathon the following March. And I just assumed that I could
• 48:26
  run heats faster because like, yeah, I'd improve a lot.
• 48:29
  And like my second one and I, I ran 16 seconds faster, which is
• 48:33
  not much. And it was so much harder.
• 48:35
  Like, let me tell you, I was like, Oh, no, So far, to be
• 48:41
  fair, like the first time I'd had someone pace me the whole
• 48:45
  way, I had had a really good experience of, like, you know,
• 48:47
  coming home strong, being in contention for, you know, a
• 48:50
  podium spot. Whereas in Nagoya, yeah, like,
• 48:55
  I, I pretty much ran solo from, I don't know, at least halfway,
• 48:59
  maybe earlier. And, you know, it's a women's
• 49:01
  only race. It was a warm day.
• 49:03
  It was an unseasonably warm day In Japan.
• 49:05
  It was about 22. And I also had probably tried to
• 49:09
  fit a little too much in that preparation.
• 49:12
  Again, it was I hadn't it wasn't a normal typical marathon block.
• 49:18
  I you know, I did 10 KS out of PEC in December.
• 49:21
  I would have done I did Maragami half marathon start of the year
• 49:26
  run apbi think and then I did the World Championships cross
• 49:32
  country three weeks before. And then I also had to do the
• 49:36
  trial for that race in I didn't do no, I didn't do Maragami that
• 49:41
  you don't think. But yeah, I did the trial for
• 49:43
  that race. And then yeah, the World
• 49:44
  Champions League before was probably a little bit greedy,
• 49:47
  but I wanted to do look home World Championships and
• 49:50
  Bathurst. Like I just wanted to have that
• 49:52
  experience. And so I'm glad I did it.
• 49:54
  But I was having some hamstring problems.
• 49:56
  Well, I really have had two hamstring problems since 21
• 49:59
  ongoing till this year. But they really, really flared
• 50:04
  up from running that course, the really aggressive downhill and
• 50:06
  uphill. So unfortunately, like I
• 50:09
  remember that Nagoya Marathon like my hamstrings cramping and
• 50:12
  having some, some about issues there.
• 50:14
  But I, I got a PB, you know, and I qualified for the World
• 50:16
  Championships in Budapest. So it was still a successful, it
• 50:19
  was still an improvement in terms of my marathon career, but
• 50:22
  it was just, it showed me that it can be really hard.
• 50:25
  You don't just take. Yeah, OK.
• 50:27
  It's not that you didn't have oodles up your sleeve, albeit
• 50:30
  that maybe the preparation wasn't perfect.
• 50:32
  Like Bathurst was brutal, right, in terms of conditions.
• 50:35
  So I suspect, I suspect it's probably not the best lead.
• 50:38
  In I felt, I felt like I was in like 225 shape was what my goal
• 50:41
  was. So to run 227 high was not a bad
• 50:45
  day, but just like from what what I was sort of aiming for,
• 50:48
  it was a little a little off. And given it was 22°, probably
• 50:51
  definitely not optimal. Yeah, the weather and then later
• 50:58
  that year though, was it, did you go to Valencia?
• 51:02
  Yeah, Before that I did the Budapest World Championships,
• 51:06
  the hardest, the hardest race of my of my life.
• 51:08
  It was 30° plus. And I'd prepared for this race
• 51:12
  in Australia and I'd had, you know, as you're going through
• 51:16
  now the Australian winter, it could be, you know, it's not
• 51:19
  terrible, but it can be challenging.
• 51:20
  And I had a had the flu and then I got back to running for about
• 51:24
  a week and I had a chest infection and I managed to, you
• 51:29
  know, have a month clear before the world champs.
• 51:31
  I thought I was OK, but I think I was just a little underdone
• 51:34
  because of all the miss training from sickness.
• 51:36
  I probably missed like 3 weeks because of sickness.
• 51:39
  And then yeah, just being like 30° plus, you know, my first
• 51:44
  time doing a really, really hot marathon.
• 51:47
  It was only my third marathon. So I'm still sort of new to the
• 51:49
  event. And I just struggled early, like
• 51:52
  at 10 KZ and I was already just not in a good way.
• 51:55
  I even stopped on the third lap to try and to try and, you know,
• 51:59
  go to the bathroom in a tunnel. My stomach was feeling so bad.
• 52:03
  And I saw there's a lot of people doing it.
• 52:05
  I wasn't the only one. And it was just a really tough
• 52:08
  day. Like I'm really proud that I
• 52:09
  finished. But in hindsight, like, I think
• 52:12
  that performance is what stopped me from getting a spot on the
• 52:15
  Paris Olympic marathon team. So I feel like it's tough
• 52:19
  because I feel like that was kind of what could have been
• 52:22
  used as like, oh, well, she didn't perform very well in hot
• 52:25
  conditions. Championship race, championship
• 52:27
  record is what they go on a lot. So that was not good for me.
• 52:31
  But it was good experience and it made me so much stronger
• 52:33
  because I finished that race and I was like, I was so proud that
• 52:35
  I finished. I ended up in the medical tent
• 52:37
  for three hours afterwards. I had an ECG, you know, all
• 52:40
  those things done. I had some like concerns about
• 52:45
  just my heart and from being sick before my chest and, and,
• 52:49
  and stuff. And I was fine.
• 52:52
  But I took a week off, the only week I've taken off in the last
• 52:55
  four years. And then I, I made the decision
• 52:59
  to stay over in Europe and prepare for Valencia.
• 53:01
  And I think that that was a real pivotal turning point in my
• 53:04
  career of when I kind of was like, no, I'm, I'm serious and I
• 53:07
  want to be really good. And I'm going to take this sort
• 53:09
  of sacrifice of like what needs to be done here to to have a
• 53:12
  good performance and to try and get myself on the team for Paris
• 53:15
  the following year. And yeah, like, I ran 2/23/27.
• 53:18
  It was a huge breakthrough for me.
• 53:20
  It's just a shame that everyone else runs so well.
• 53:23
  It wasn't quite enough. It was, you know, about 10
• 53:26
  seconds off really slitting my solidifying myself on the team.
• 53:30
  But unfortunately, I was the I was the unlucky one there.
• 53:33
  I mean, so it's Lisa in the sense of as it all turned out.
• 53:36
  But yeah, regardless of how it worked out, that was a really
• 53:39
  strong performance. And yeah, a really a really good
• 53:43
  breakthrough in my marathon kind of progression.
• 53:46
  Yeah, and it sounded sounds like the first marathon was a lot of
• 53:49
  fun, and then the next two really weren't fun at all.
• 53:51
  But you still were wanting to sort of have a crack at
• 53:55
  Valencia. Like you still really enjoyed
• 53:57
  running marathons despite the sort of.
• 53:59
  Yeah. Yeah, and I really enjoyed the
• 54:01
  training. So like, I don't know, I just, I
• 54:03
  really do enjoy the training and I do, I do think that I could be
• 54:06
  really good in the event and I, and I did then too.
• 54:08
  So I just wanted to give another chance and I'm, I'm glad because
• 54:13
  that really showed me that I had like a career going forward in
• 54:16
  this event for sure. Yeah, and maybe just on the
• 54:20
  topic of like, because it's, I feel like we're talking about it
• 54:24
  a few times, but like, what do you enjoy?
• 54:27
  You obviously enjoy the track racing and the road racing and
• 54:30
  the marathons, but they're all sort of, they're all, they're
• 54:34
  all similar, but they're all different.
• 54:35
  And so they they complement each other, but you don't normally
• 54:37
  see one person putting aside maybe Sifan Hassan in terms of
• 54:43
  and yourself sort of targeting all of them.
• 54:45
  So like is that? Yeah.
• 54:47
  Is that, is that because you love love them all?
• 54:49
  Or is that because you think one they complement one another or?
• 54:52
  It's hard. I think I'm still, I'm grappling
• 54:54
  with this now and I'm I sort of coming to the terms of being
• 54:58
  ready to make the transition through the roads into the
• 55:00
  marathon and sort of go all in. But I just felt like I was quite
• 55:04
  young to be all in for the marathon.
• 55:06
  And I feel like sometimes the mistake people make is that they
• 55:10
  go to the marathon and they kind of neglect then their overall
• 55:14
  speed and, and sort of starting challenging themselves in
• 55:17
  different ways that you just run 3 marathons a year to the same
• 55:19
  marathon block and you can kind of get kind of like stale.
• 55:22
  And I just felt like I see myself as someone who wants to
• 55:25
  run for a long time. So let's say like 10 more years
• 55:28
  of marathoning into my 40s, then I don't want to just do 3
• 55:32
  marathons a year and three marathon blocks and, and every
• 55:36
  year. So I kind of just thought, you
• 55:38
  know, while I can, I'll still do the track and I still enjoyed
• 55:42
  it. But I think I'm coming to the
• 55:43
  stage this year where I'm, I'm not, I'm not probably enjoying
• 55:46
  it as much. And I'm kind of like, you know,
• 55:48
  really looking forward to those Rd. races that I've got in my
• 55:51
  calendar. And I think I'm going to be
• 55:53
  ready next year to really sort of make the jump into making the
• 55:57
  marathons and the roads just my priority.
• 56:01
  But I think it is really important to keep working your
• 56:03
  speed. Like every Tuesday.
• 56:04
  We still do, regardless of whether you're training for
• 56:06
  marathon for 5K, we still do a, you know, sort of a VO2 backs
• 56:11
  interval session on a Tuesday. And I think that that's the
• 56:14
  really good, that's a really the best part about Nick's training
• 56:17
  and the training that, you know, our group does is that people
• 56:19
  say to me, oh, you know, I don't know how you run even a 5K and
• 56:24
  A10K or A5K and 1/2 or let alone a marathon and a 5K.
• 56:27
  It's like I feel like I'm in 5K PV shaped and half marathon PV
• 56:31
  shape at the same time. Like I don't see it as being
• 56:33
  very different. I feel like if I'm in shape to
• 56:35
  run well, I'm going to run well across any distance.
• 56:38
  Obviously there's a few tweaks like I'm finding right now, like
• 56:41
  the 5K is getting harder for me. I just can't tolerate the the
• 56:45
  change in pace or like the the the high lactate as much as as
• 56:50
  other people maybe can. But I could keep going at the
• 56:52
  same pace for for a long time. But yeah, I do.
• 56:56
  I do. Yeah.
• 56:57
  It's an interesting battle and it's a good thing to have like
• 57:00
  the challenge of being good at multiple events.
• 57:03
  But I do sometimes feel like it's like, what do they say?
• 57:06
  Yeah, Jack of all trades, master of none.
• 57:08
  But I said that to someone earlier in the year and they
• 57:11
  said, yeah, but Jack of all trades, master of none.
• 57:13
  But sometimes better than those who just do one.
• 57:17
  I'm not sure if that's the same. OK.
• 57:21
  Well, yeah, it's funny you you, but like in terms of we've
• 57:26
  spoken a bit on our podcast just around the world athletic flight
• 57:28
  points calculator and your PBS, the five KS like 1180 eleven 183
• 57:36
  points, your 10K roads twelve O 8, which is the highest half
• 57:40
  marathon's 1186 and your marathon's 1183.
• 57:43
  So it's not like it's so it's all of your performances are
• 57:48
  all, you know, it's not it's not like that.
• 57:51
  Yeah, they all exactly. So you're sort of able to
• 57:53
  achieve sort of your peak fitness across multiple events.
• 57:58
  It seem like it's being detrimental at all and
• 58:02
  everything is getting faster year on year.
• 58:04
  Like this is your arguably I think, right.
• 58:07
  Would 2025 be your best year yet or?
• 58:10
  In the last, yeah, I'd say so. And like, I, I don't feel like,
• 58:13
  I feel like my track races haven't quite reflected how I've
• 58:16
  been training. So I'd like to think I could run
• 58:19
  faster in a different situation. But yeah, I did have to be, I
• 58:22
  mean, like the 10K and a half marathon records.
• 58:25
  So just, yeah, kind of, I can nearly forget them.
• 58:28
  But if I think about them as a whole in this year and even just
• 58:31
  Nagoya Marathon, like I think that was my best marathon just
• 58:34
  based on not the time, not the time, but like it was 30 seconds
• 58:38
  off my best time on a harder course running alone.
• 58:40
  We was only race off a short prep.
• 58:44
  So I actually think it was my best on performance.
• 58:48
  So yeah, this is going to be the best year and I and I hope
• 58:50
  there's still probably more to come in the second-half of the
• 58:52
  year. So, yeah, so maybe on, on some
• 58:55
  of that, like, so we've been like big fan of following along
• 58:59
  all of the recent results over in Europe.
• 59:02
  And just in the last five months or so, there's been some
• 59:04
  exceptional times in the women's 5K in particular.
• 59:09
  Are you pretty motivated by that?
• 59:11
  And are you sort of, do you still have an eye on trying to,
• 59:14
  to run quicker and and sort of get ranking points and yeah,
• 59:18
  keep chasing faster times over the 5K?
• 59:21
  Not really to be honest now I'm not sure I could be in a bit of
• 59:26
  a more of a down headspace on it now because I, I didn't sort of
• 59:30
  run an hour quite as fast as I'd like to My in my first race, it
• 59:35
  was, you know, you could make lots of excuses, but it was kind
• 59:37
  of a race that I had to take the lead on and it was a bit windy
• 59:40
  and you know, it came down to a bit of a kick finish and I still
• 59:44
  ran 4 seconds off my PB. So I don't think it's a bad
• 59:46
  result. My second fastest 5K ever.
• 59:49
  But you know, when I, when my teammates run 1430, it's like,
• 59:53
  holy shit, like, but yeah, like different races and different
• 59:57
  athletes, you really can't, can't compare too much.
• 1:00:01
  And it is a trap that I can do is try and compare myself to
• 1:00:05
  the. Best track athletes and then
• 1:00:07
  compare myself to the, you know, best marathon athletes and, you
• 1:00:10
  know, neither one of them bar Stefan Hassan is doing both.
• 1:00:16
  But yeah, like it's definitely, it doesn't motivate me, but I
• 1:00:19
  just, I, I think that I'm sort of coming to, as I said before,
• 1:00:23
  just coming to to the acceptance of like I actually do enjoy the
• 1:00:27
  road stuff more. And I think, I think I'm just
• 1:00:31
  more naturally the way I run is gonna be more competitive there.
• 1:00:34
  So I'm still really keen to kind of progress my 10K, but the 5K
• 1:00:41
  is probably not as much for focus me anymore.
• 1:00:43
  It's just the 5K is just about helping me run a better 10K.
• 1:00:46
  And even this year, like I, I wasn't sort of, you know, it'd
• 1:00:50
  be great to run multiple events at world chance, but it wasn't
• 1:00:54
  sort of on the cards me I think to run the 5K really ever.
• 1:00:59
  It was more about running some 5 KS to to improve my 10K.
• 1:01:04
  And that 10K is pretty exceptional, like in terms of,
• 1:01:07
  because I think like double plus a minute, if you can run like
• 1:01:09
  double plus a minute, you're sort of sort of running an
• 1:01:12
  exceptional 10K performance. And so like that's pretty much
• 1:01:15
  1449. Double plus a minute is sort of
• 1:01:18
  around that 3044, right? If not, it's like really
• 1:01:21
  quicker. So it's sort of it feels like
• 1:01:24
  maybe that's where you're better suited because.
• 1:01:26
  You feel like, I think so definitely.
• 1:01:28
  I think that like I think I can run, you know, I'd like to hope
• 1:01:32
  that in the right race I can run, you know, 1520 back-to-back
• 1:01:37
  or 1515 back-to-back. And you know, I'm not able to
• 1:01:41
  run that much quicker in an all out 5K.
• 1:01:43
  So it just sort of shows naturally as an athlete where
• 1:01:47
  where I kind of fit best. And that experience, so because
• 1:01:50
  you ran was it 3112, was that sort of not controversially like
• 1:01:56
  Riley race that alongside you? Didn't he or he was probably
• 1:02:00
  around similar shape to you on that day?
• 1:02:02
  Yeah. But then.
• 1:02:04
  Yeah, but then maybe it was nice to then just at the ASICS meet
• 1:02:10
  and did they have pacing lights the whole way round on that,
• 1:02:12
  that 1K? Loop, yeah.
• 1:02:14
  So like, yeah, obviously phenomenal.
• 1:02:16
  Yeah, our park was cool because no one really told me to go for
• 1:02:19
  the record. It was just like I ran City
• 1:02:21
  Debate the week before and I went through 10K and 31 flat and
• 1:02:25
  I went, well, the Australian record's 3117.
• 1:02:28
  So like surely I could run that, you know.
• 1:02:31
  And so then we were like, let's go to, let's go to run pre next
• 1:02:34
  week and just be what I can do. I'm obviously like fit.
• 1:02:39
  And so yeah, it was like it was good because Riley was carving
• 1:02:42
  off injury and he couldn't run much faster than that.
• 1:02:45
  He wasn't even going to run with me.
• 1:02:46
  It was actually on the start, like on the start by the city
• 1:02:49
  Bay. He decided to run with me and he
• 1:02:51
  was like, I'll just try and run with you and get it going for
• 1:02:53
  it, you know, help you for a couple of days.
• 1:02:55
  But yeah, I did get a little bit of, I'm sure a few people made
• 1:02:57
  comments about like, Oh, well, she was paced my boyfriend or
• 1:03:00
  whatever. So it was nice.
• 1:03:02
  Then go to Japan and do it on my own.
• 1:03:05
  But then again, I had another guy, just a Spanish guy running
• 1:03:07
  with me. So most of the race so, but, but
• 1:03:12
  I think that's why marigami was quite special because I ran that
• 1:03:17
  race like pretty much alone. I couldn't keep up with it was
• 1:03:20
  another girl, Kelly Thackery from Great Britain, whose
• 1:03:22
  husband was facing her, tastes her the whole way.
• 1:03:24
  I mean, like in athletics, especially with women, I think
• 1:03:27
  like, you know, on the roads especially, obviously not the
• 1:03:30
  track, but you know, these long distances especially, it's
• 1:03:34
  pretty normal to have paces. I just think sometimes when
• 1:03:36
  it's, you know, it, it feels better to do it on your own.
• 1:03:40
  That's for sure. Because Marigami was like, I did
• 1:03:42
  that. No one can say that anyone like,
• 1:03:44
  you know, I could have done it without someone else.
• 1:03:46
  Like I ran that race solo. So that was quite, that was
• 1:03:50
  quite nice. And and yeah.
• 1:03:54
  I wanted to ask just in terms of, because it probably varies,
• 1:03:58
  right, depending on what time of year it is.
• 1:04:02
  But do you sort of, is it sort of periodizing training?
• 1:04:05
  Like do you sort of like right now it's sort of more, is it
• 1:04:11
  more speed focus in order to get your 5K5K10K speed before you
• 1:04:14
  then sort of move into a marathon block?
• 1:04:16
  Is that sort of how it proceeds? So maybe every six months or so
• 1:04:19
  there's a marathon, but prior to that you're trying to lift your
• 1:04:22
  ceiling. Yeah, that's it.
• 1:04:23
  I think that's kind of how it's been at least the last two
• 1:04:25
  years. It's like, you know, like sort
• 1:04:28
  of bread and butter training and sort of just like a aerobic
• 1:04:31
  base, sort of, you know, in January in Falls Creek District
• 1:04:35
  8 by K Hills, threshold quarters, log runs, you know,
• 1:04:39
  before Maragami and Nagoya. And and then you kind of move
• 1:04:43
  into track and you start to just, you know, do sort of
• 1:04:48
  sessions and a bit more speed work and, you know, maybe
• 1:04:51
  overall mileage comes down. And then coming over to Europe,
• 1:04:54
  I go to three sessions a week instead of two.
• 1:04:57
  And, you know, Tuesday is really a hard track session, often
• 1:05:02
  finishing the session in spikes, doing all out, a couple of all
• 1:05:05
  out reps, all that four hundreds, all that three
• 1:05:07
  hundreds at the end of the AK session.
• 1:05:11
  You know, we do really hard, really hard 800 hills.
• 1:05:15
  We do threshold just to kind of tick that box and then the
• 1:05:18
  overall case kind of calm down a little bit.
• 1:05:20
  And I've incorporated since being on camp, I've done, you
• 1:05:25
  know, strides on Monday night. I wouldn't do that the rest of
• 1:05:28
  the year either. So yeah, the middle of the year
• 1:05:31
  really is much more of a speed, speed, focus and fire intensity
• 1:05:36
  in shorter bursts across the week.
• 1:05:38
  And then kind of like once I go home after World championships,
• 1:05:42
  I'll just go back to two sessions a week and sort of just
• 1:05:45
  like a probably more basic training, like 8 by K or mile
• 1:05:49
  reps or 2K reps or 800 reps and straight threshold.
• 1:05:53
  And you know, he'll reps and and then build that base before
• 1:05:57
  getting into another marathon block.
• 1:05:58
  So it just period hours without without really realizing it.
• 1:06:01
  I just kind of do what I'm told and trust the trust the process.
• 1:06:05
  But if I look at it as kind of a year whole, that's kind of how
• 1:06:08
  working out to be. And I think that that the, you
• 1:06:11
  know, the speed focus in the middle of the year really that
• 1:06:13
  helps because I come back to the marathon training again at the
• 1:06:16
  end of the year and it's like you've kind of got a new, a new
• 1:06:19
  found speed or like, you know, three 20s feels easy because
• 1:06:24
  you've done heaps of volume, you know, under under speed.
• 1:06:27
  Yeah. So then it's just trying to get
• 1:06:29
  very efficient at that pace. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:06:32
  And how do you go in terms of maintaining your mileage in
• 1:06:35
  terms of like prehab and rehab like do you, are you pretty,
• 1:06:39
  pretty good with what you do pre and post?
• 1:06:42
  I am pretty good. I do a lot of mobility and
• 1:06:46
  Pilates stuff with Alice Becky on the Forerunners online and
• 1:06:50
  when I'm travelling I like the moment I've done like because I
• 1:06:55
  log it on just on my watch, but I've done like on average 90
• 1:06:59
  minutes to 2 hours of Pilates a week.
• 1:07:01
  So that's like 3, three to four classes a week usually. 2 being
• 1:07:05
  strength, one being mobility. And then I'm, I'm usually doing,
• 1:07:09
  you know, 5 minutes of sort of just basic stretching and
• 1:07:13
  activations before, before runs or sessions.
• 1:07:16
  So I try and keep my body quite mobile.
• 1:07:19
  And then yeah, I do try. And when I want camp, I do sort
• 1:07:23
  of two gym sessions a week or one if I'm sort of in a race
• 1:07:28
  period or none the last two weeks because I was racing so
• 1:07:31
  much. But normally the goal is like is
• 1:07:34
  like one to two gym sessions with the Pilates as well.
• 1:07:37
  Yeah, that's very good. And so in terms of like the like
• 1:07:42
  short term for the like the rest of this year, would it, So my
• 1:07:46
  understanding is sort of qualifying to say Tokyo is 24
• 1:07:50
  August. Do you sort of do you have an
• 1:07:52
  eye to that? Is that sort of like running
• 1:07:54
  some events up until then and then world like World
• 1:07:57
  Championships? And then will you maybe look to
• 1:08:00
  do something like Valencia later in the year is that?
• 1:08:03
  Yeah, I'm definitely do, definitely do Valencia.
• 1:08:05
  I'm definitely let's see a marathon at the end of the year
• 1:08:08
  as my like goal. And then at the moment, like
• 1:08:11
  we're sort of still in a bit of a seeing what happens with the
• 1:08:15
  with with world champs at the moment.
• 1:08:17
  But the intention is to run the 10K which is September 13th in
• 1:08:21
  Tokyo. And I'm looking good in the
• 1:08:26
  rankings from 25th out of 27. Just have to see like what
• 1:08:29
  happens this week with any national championships,
• 1:08:33
  etcetera. But hopefully, you know, I don't
• 1:08:37
  move too much and yeah, get a spot in the 10K.
• 1:08:41
  But yeah, I don't think I'll be doing much more racing now
• 1:08:44
  before then. I'm supposed to have a race next
• 1:08:46
  week in America, but I'm just lying in bed with a rolled ankle
• 1:08:50
  with a bag of peas. So right now, right now, the the
• 1:08:55
  single feature is it's just getting this under control.
• 1:08:59
  Sure. And is and two or three
• 1:09:03
  performances, yeah, 2 best, yeah.
• 1:09:05
  So my 3050. One on the track and my 3044 on
• 1:09:09
  the road. The only downside is that with
• 1:09:11
  the road I didn't get any ranking points any sorry like
• 1:09:14
  extra points like usually if you come placing placing.
• 1:09:18
  So that was just. Like a raw.
• 1:09:20
  Score. And then my, I think I came 6th
• 1:09:24
  or 7th in Oslo, which maybe gave me like 30 points, but not much
• 1:09:28
  to like give me a real big boost.
• 1:09:30
  So I'm kind of just going based on there are girls probably
• 1:09:32
  above me who maybe have run slower but at nationals or
• 1:09:35
  whatever. So there's not heaps more I can
• 1:09:39
  do to move the needle there. Just have to yeah, sit tight and
• 1:09:43
  and yeah, should should be good. That's so cool.
• 1:09:47
  So in terms. Of like you're obviously away in
• 1:09:50
  Europe and you're, you know, you're sort of entirely focused
• 1:09:56
  in on running performance, but then you still have multiple
• 1:09:59
  businesses and a life going on at home.
• 1:10:02
  You've recently just purchased your own home.
• 1:10:04
  Sort of how do you, how do you find time, I guess to, to sort
• 1:10:08
  of balance it all? And is that a bit of a juggling
• 1:10:10
  act that you do alongside Riley? Yeah, just getting harder and
• 1:10:14
  harder I find. I do think it's good to have
• 1:10:17
  some balance in your life because I see people who, you
• 1:10:19
  know, get injured or burnt out from the sport or, you know, put
• 1:10:24
  all their kind of value into just their performances.
• 1:10:26
  And they can kind of get quite unhappy and quite, you know,
• 1:10:30
  insecure and lost without having anything else in their life
• 1:10:33
  that's sort of important to them or motivating them or, you know,
• 1:10:36
  like outside they're running. And I love having runners alone.
• 1:10:41
  And, you know, when I'm home, like the run house is awesome.
• 1:10:44
  I run from there every day. It's such a great community
• 1:10:46
  space. We've just recently opened a gym
• 1:10:47
  across the road, which is going to be really cool too.
• 1:10:50
  And it's already been quite helpful for me and my training.
• 1:10:53
  And yeah, like Ryan, I finally moved out of my parents house
• 1:10:56
  and bought our own house. And that adds another stress
• 1:10:58
  when, you know, you have your own mortgage and and bills to
• 1:11:01
  pay. And it's, yeah, been quite lucky
• 1:11:04
  for quite a few years of not having that stress.
• 1:11:08
  And yeah, like it's sort of all self afflicted because I am a
• 1:11:11
  hard worker and, you know, sort of take on things like, you
• 1:11:16
  know, business stuff. But really Riley is the driving
• 1:11:20
  force of that say like, you know, he's the CEO of
• 1:11:22
  everything. I'm just sort of like the the
• 1:11:25
  one who helps with his sort of ideas.
• 1:11:30
  So yeah, he's, he works so much and so hard.
• 1:11:32
  And I just kind of help behind the scene.
• 1:11:36
  You know, I do coach about 30 people at the moment still, and
• 1:11:41
  I'm just kind of the one who, you know, does the payroll for
• 1:11:43
  our staff and pays invoices and might help with just some, you
• 1:11:48
  know, background stuff. But they're really like, you
• 1:11:51
  know, he's working full time in the business.
• 1:11:53
  I'm just kind of doing what I can to keep things afloat.
• 1:11:57
  But I am finding it like I've got less and less time with the
• 1:12:00
  travel when I'm home, you know, when I'm even on a training camp
• 1:12:04
  where I'm quite settled, I can find, you know, 3-4 hours in the
• 1:12:08
  day maybe to to do some work. But like the last week I was in
• 1:12:12
  five countries in in one week, I couldn't even open my laptop for
• 1:12:15
  a couple of days, you know, let alone do any work.
• 1:12:19
  So it's actually gave the stage where it's like, you know, 9:30
• 1:12:22
  at 9. I just open my laptop and do a
• 1:12:24
  few emails. But that's like, that's like all
• 1:12:26
  I can find time for in a day sometimes.
• 1:12:29
  Yeah. So it is a challenge.
• 1:12:31
  And I think, you know, up until probably this year, like I
• 1:12:35
  wasn't actually really earning enough money from running to to
• 1:12:39
  not be doing something else. Now I'm fortunate that, you
• 1:12:43
  know, I've had enough success and gotten, you know, a bit more
• 1:12:46
  support going forward that running really to me is my job
• 1:12:50
  and my main income. But, you know, that's still
• 1:12:53
  quite new, so, and it's not forever.
• 1:12:56
  And like, you know, if I get injured or want to have a baby,
• 1:13:00
  like, you know, my only potential goes down
• 1:13:02
  significantly. So I feel it is important to
• 1:13:05
  have different, you know, strange income and different
• 1:13:09
  parts of your life that you also, you know, find joy in and
• 1:13:14
  find meaning. So yeah, I wouldn't try it for
• 1:13:16
  the world, but it definitely can be challenging.
• 1:13:19
  I know like if my runnings not. Like going as well, I tend to
• 1:13:23
  wouldn't quite say spit the chewy, but sort of, you know,
• 1:13:25
  might want to like turn turn Strava off and I won't watch as
• 1:13:29
  much in terms of YouTube and and those sorts of things.
• 1:13:32
  Like is there something that you will do to sort of disconnect?
• 1:13:35
  Is there like things that you like to do that just to to break
• 1:13:38
  away from running? It's one thing that I get asked
• 1:13:41
  this question, you know? Twice a year on a podcast and I
• 1:13:43
  always go, oh shit, really? It gets home and it's like, I'm
• 1:13:53
  here. Here I am again two years later,
• 1:13:55
  saying no, but I really should. Did you follow the tour while
• 1:14:00
  you're in Europe or it was? Something like.
• 1:14:03
  I have watched a little bit of it and I did.
• 1:14:05
  Actually watch some of the Netflix documentary from like
• 1:14:07
  the year before. Yeah, like I, I try and do like
• 1:14:12
  I before a race. I always just like find find
• 1:14:15
  something on on Netflix. It's just like completely
• 1:14:18
  unrelated to things that I normally watch and sort of just
• 1:14:21
  binge a series, which kind of puts me in a nice like mind
• 1:14:25
  numbed brain period of time. But ongoing.
• 1:14:30
  I don't really, I don't really find that I have time for like
• 1:14:34
  an extra hobby or thing to do. But yeah, it's good to be
• 1:14:39
  balanced obviously. But I, I mean, I just thought, I
• 1:14:41
  think it's just such a big part of my whole like not just
• 1:14:44
  identity, but like, like life, you know, it's my work.
• 1:14:48
  It's in every aspect and it's what I love to do too.
• 1:14:51
  And that's why I find it really hard to like people say, oh, you
• 1:14:54
  know, when you go home it's like just take a break, you know,
• 1:14:57
  don't run for a week or two. It's like my social time is
• 1:15:00
  going to Sunday long run with like my mates, like we're going
• 1:15:03
  to the run house and like having a coffee after a Saturday
• 1:15:05
  morning run. Like that's my social time.
• 1:15:08
  So it's hard to separate the two.
• 1:15:11
  I have a when you're. Recounting sort of what you're
• 1:15:14
  doing, what you need to do to sort of keep on top of work
• 1:15:17
  emails and those sorts of things.
• 1:15:18
  I think I do have some memories of being in some of like the
• 1:15:20
  race hotels or pre race mates and I think you being on your
• 1:15:23
  laptop and perhaps rather doing similar like basically just like
• 1:15:27
  at least like beavering, beavering away at different
• 1:15:30
  things. So yeah, I can imagine it's just
• 1:15:33
  a lot of, a lot of work all the time.
• 1:15:34
  And I think part of the magic of running is like, like I've, I've
• 1:15:39
  found that life's gotten busier like personally with family and
• 1:15:42
  and everything and work and everything else.
• 1:15:44
  But you can sort of still fit it in in terms of like it can
• 1:15:48
  double as a it's an outlet for your mental health.
• 1:15:51
  It's a social interaction by running with a friend.
• 1:15:54
  Like it sort of serves like multiple purposes.
• 1:15:56
  And so, yeah, look, I can totally relate with with not
• 1:16:00
  having too much else outside of running toast.
• 1:16:01
  And I honestly like, I think of it now like I'm.
• 1:16:04
  Like just fortunate, like I wanna have a family in the
• 1:16:07
  future. And so right now I'm like, how
• 1:16:09
  lucky am I that I can be in Europe for four months?
• 1:16:12
  Of course I miss Riley, I miss my parents.
• 1:16:13
  I miss my dog roofers, I miss home.
• 1:16:15
  But like, you know, I, this is the, a period in my life where I
• 1:16:18
  can do this. And I have to feel, you know, I
• 1:16:21
  feel really grateful for being able to do that.
• 1:16:23
  And I know it's not forever and I know that there'll be times of
• 1:16:26
  my life where I, you know, I look back and think, Oh, I
• 1:16:29
  thought I was busy there. And like, that's hilarious.
• 1:16:31
  Like now I have two kids and whatever, like trying to train
• 1:16:35
  and, and you know, you think back, I thought I was so busy in
• 1:16:38
  college and it's like, Oh my gosh, that was like, I really
• 1:16:42
  wasn't that stressful. So just trying to be grateful
• 1:16:45
  and enjoy, enjoy what I've got at the moment.
• 1:16:48
  No, love it. Well, on behalf of Owen.
• 1:16:50
  Ryan and myself, we just want to say thank you so much one for
• 1:16:54
  tuning in and in particular for like giving up like a huge chunk
• 1:16:58
  of your, your Friday for us. I think I know I got a lot out
• 1:17:02
  of like listening to your story, listening more to your story.
• 1:17:05
  And yeah, pretty excited to sort of keep following along, whether
• 1:17:08
  or not it's on YouTube or I know on your Instagram, you're great
• 1:17:12
  at sort of keeping everyone up to date with what events you
• 1:17:14
  have coming up and posting on your, your story as to what's
• 1:17:17
  happening. So I'm sure listeners can
• 1:17:20
  following along as well. So yeah, thanks so much.
• 1:17:22
  Yeah, I love the podcast. Love you guys are.
• 1:17:25
  Doing and yeah, it was honoured to be invited on as a guest and
• 1:17:28
  I thought we could talk for another two hours about about
• 1:17:30
  life and running. Happy somewhere.
• 1:17:34
  That's it. Thanks so much.