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EDP40: Eoin’s National Cross Country / Liverpool Cross Challenge / NCAA’s · Easy Double podcast

• 0:15
  Hello and welcome back to the Easy Double Podcast episode 40.
• 0:19
  I'm joined as always by the Menzies.
• 0:22
  I'm not joined quite yet by Owen Smith, but we have it on good
• 0:26
  regard that he will be dialing in to give us his highly
• 0:30
  anticipated race recap from the Irish National Cross Country
• 0:34
  Championships on the weekend. So whilst we wait for Owen, how
• 0:38
  are you Dean? Good mate.
• 0:40
  Doing well, yeah, Excited to talk to you.
• 0:44
  Big weekend and a big week in a lot of respects, I think.
• 0:48
  Yeah, huge. It took me a second to realize
• 0:52
  what you're maybe hinting at, the huge cross country theme
• 0:56
  coming throughout this show from GB, from America and from
• 1:00
  Ireland. So hopefully people are prepared
• 1:03
  to entertain some cross country chat because we found I did put
• 1:07
  the pile outs, you know, for the cycling chat.
• 1:10
  I I held off asking you because I was, I thought maybe you'd
• 1:15
  you'd save it till now. So I I did skip ahead on the
• 1:18
  agenda and have a look, and I was pleasantly surprised with
• 1:21
  the result. Yeah.
• 1:22
  OK. So do you think that that that
• 1:24
  means we have to keep it like we didn't need 100%?
• 1:29
  I will probably fair to bring Owen in on this because he's had
• 1:33
  to sit through a lot of it. But I mean, that's pretty.
• 1:37
  That's, that's 80% more than what I thought we were going to
• 1:41
  get. Yeah, so I guess for clarity, it
• 1:44
  was an 80% upvote in people like in the chat or having some sort
• 1:49
  of interest in it. Although we did get one specific
• 1:52
  message which said, not going to lie boys, I do just press Fast
• 1:56
  forward once you once you start speaking about cycling, which is
• 2:02
  fair enough. But I must admit like I don't
• 2:06
  know my own bias but maybe some of the humour comes from the
• 2:09
  cycling chat because we're just like so oblivious to to do's and
• 2:13
  the don'ts. Yeah, I don't think if you're
• 2:17
  looking for genuine insights into cycling, don't listen to
• 2:21
  what we're talking about. We're more just trying to share
• 2:23
  a bit of insight into how we're getting by cross training and in
• 2:28
  the hope that maybe that sets us up for when we are able to
• 2:31
  resume regular training loads with running.
• 2:33
  But. And so maybe some hot light
• 2:36
  hearted relief is on top. Yeah.
• 2:39
  And I guess probably important to acknowledge, I guess if
• 2:42
  people don't find us funny, then why would they listen to it?
• 2:46
  Because they're not, they're not bothered about cycling and they
• 2:49
  don't find us funny. So that's fair enough, but a
• 2:55
  cricket going on this weekend wasn't there, which was a little
• 2:59
  frustrating. Like been building up to this W
• 3:01
  Test the the big debut of the Ashes in Australia and the
• 3:06
  opportunity to witness it first hand.
• 3:09
  Unfortunately that was sat right next to you and in front of an
• 3:12
  Australian books do. It couldn't have worked out
• 3:17
  better. I didn't think.
• 3:19
  What what? What did you think?
• 3:22
  Well, I'm not the biggest cricket fan, so I obviously
• 3:25
  understood how it was going, but then I don't know.
• 3:29
  Did you realize at the time like how what Travis had was doing?
• 3:37
  No, no I don't so. So for everyone's benefit the
• 3:40
  Ashes is a very highly anticipated 5 Test match series
• 3:47
  between Australia and England that happens so once every two
• 3:50
  years and or they rotate between England host and Australia host
• 3:58
  and this time it's held down in Australia and it kicked off with
• 4:02
  the Perth Test being in Australia.
• 4:04
  It normally goes over 5 days or goes up to five days.
• 4:06
  Each team bats twice and they they had a historic first day on
• 4:12
  the Friday where 19 wickets fell.
• 4:15
  So both teams were basically entirely out and England were in
• 4:18
  front. And I rolled in to say hello to
• 4:22
  Ryan and a few of his work colleagues, majority of them
• 4:26
  British Fair English team, team followers.
• 4:32
  And and I rolled in around lunchtime.
• 4:35
  And at that point in time, England were in ahead.
• 4:38
  And then what what transpired was, yeah, what what we have
• 4:43
  learned is like, historic, right?
• 4:45
  So I think the last time a Test ended in two days was 1921 and
• 4:49
  Travis Heads I think scored the equal third fastest test 100 in
• 4:54
  in Asher's history. So yeah, it was all happening
• 4:59
  and all all around us was some pretty vocal Australians that
• 5:03
  were keen to find any Poms and give them give them some, some
• 5:09
  thoughts as to what they were doing wrong or what we were
• 5:12
  doing right. And yeah, that box party was
• 5:15
  kicking off, which was, I found, I found thoroughly entertaining.
• 5:19
  I'm sure you did too. Yeah, it's one thing to like be
• 5:23
  aware of or witness the rivalry from living in England, but then
• 5:28
  actually like hearing how Australians feel about Poms and
• 5:32
  English people is, is another thing because they were keen to
• 5:37
  make any jobs that they could. And this one people might I
• 5:41
  thought was one of the funniest things that they said because,
• 5:44
  you know, the word Ruth is like a quite a rude word in
• 5:48
  Australian slang, isn't it? But prior to moving here, I had
• 5:52
  no awareness of like I've never heard it used in that context.
• 5:55
  So it means people would say it. So like if you sleep with
• 5:59
  someone you you're rooting or what?
• 6:02
  It's an awkward chat anyway. Yeah, now that that you're
• 6:05
  right. Yeah, but.
• 6:07
  Then what England's one of England's best players.
• 6:11
  His surname is Ruth. Joe Ruth And it so happens that
• 6:14
  the the Australian guy on the day was Travis Head and one of
• 6:18
  these fellows shouted Good Aussie head is always better
• 6:22
  than a shit English ruse. And that was good.
• 6:30
  And we even we managed to sneak into the members for the last
• 6:34
  hour, which was great because then that was that was basically
• 6:37
  entirely Aussie fans, like their long standing, what you know,
• 6:41
  Wacker and MCG members. And yeah, you got to get a get a
• 6:47
  taste of that. And everyone was well and truly
• 6:48
  lubricated by then. So what a good way to finish and
• 6:51
  and celebrate some of your, you know, recent successes.
• 6:57
  Yeah, very much part of the standard ovation for Travis
• 7:01
  Headcentury once we sat there, weren't we?
• 7:05
  That was fantastic. And yet Dean keeps alluding to
• 7:09
  I, I got engaged in the week. So it was, it was a big week in
• 7:13
  that sense too. So Congrats.
• 7:15
  Thank you. It felt that I had my head
• 7:18
  buried in the sand a little from a running perspective because
• 7:21
  we, we went away for like 3 days or so and we've got friends over
• 7:24
  from the UK. So yesterday or maybe Saturday
• 7:29
  as well. I'm starting to realize like
• 7:31
  shit, I have haven't followed like almost anything.
• 7:34
  What's been going on? So yeah, it feels like one week
• 7:38
  has been one month, but we're here.
• 7:42
  We. Are lastly on the small talk
• 7:46
  section, I guess before Owen dives in and gives us some recap
• 7:51
  because we've got these friends staying with us.
• 7:53
  I know some people like to hear about this bloody cats.
• 7:57
  I'm not going to mention it every week but it seems relevant
• 8:00
  this week. So Becky and I have been staying
• 8:03
  on a blowout mattress because we only have A1 bed apartment and
• 8:06
  we've given our bed over to the guests.
• 8:09
  And on the first night at like 11:00 PM, the cat pierced the
• 8:13
  blowout mattress with his claws. So we literally had to bring in
• 8:19
  like cushions from the outside furniture on the balcony and lay
• 8:22
  that beneath us to sleep on it. So it's probably a good job.
• 8:26
  I'm not doing much running at the minute.
• 8:29
  Probably not. Not not getting the best night's
• 8:31
  sleep at the minute. No, but they're all rolling out
• 8:36
  to Bali tomorrow, so back to business as usual.
• 8:40
  All right then. So we've got Irish national
• 8:42
  cross country results, we've got the Liverpool Cross Challenge
• 8:45
  results and we'll go through that NCAA cross country results
• 8:49
  as well because I know Dean is a keen follower of that.
• 8:54
  We'll have training weeks, we'll have YouTube Diaries as usual
• 8:58
  and I'm sure we'll find ourselves double trouble along
• 9:01
  the way. So whilst we await the arrival
• 9:04
  of Owen, because he's going to cover the Irish cross country
• 9:07
  champs soon as he was running it himself, we'll go through what
• 9:11
  happened in Liverpool, which is part of the miniseries that we
• 9:15
  spoke about last week, where Cardiff was the first of the
• 9:19
  cross challenge series in the UK.
• 9:21
  So with it being winter there now, the cross country season's
• 9:24
  well and truly underway and this Liverpool race annually forms
• 9:28
  part of the Euro selection trials for the GB cross country
• 9:32
  team. So not everyone will show up to
• 9:36
  to all of these mates, but if they are going to show up to
• 9:39
  any, it will be the Liverpool 1. So usually there's like some
• 9:42
  serious depth on offer. So for the women's results then
• 9:46
  was won by a woman called Carrie Hughes in 2717.
• 9:53
  So that's an 8 kilometer distance and she won by two
• 9:56
  seconds from Poppy Tank. Now, 2 seconds doesn't sound
• 10:00
  like a lot, but when you kind of, I think you watch the race
• 10:03
  play out, didn't you? I did, yeah.
• 10:06
  Good races. And it seemed like she won
• 10:09
  pretty easily, but obviously that was just two seconds on
• 10:13
  paper, which is bizarre. And said was Izzy Fry.
• 10:19
  I think I'll pause here because we've got the man himself just
• 10:22
  dialed in and he is on a bit of a time restriction given that
• 10:26
  it's his lunch break over in Ireland on Monday afternoon.
• 10:29
  So we want to make sure this is productive time spent.
• 10:32
  So welcome to the show. Owen Smith, how are you?
• 10:35
  Lad's Fair. He's getting on.
• 10:39
  Yeah, Good. Thanks for giving up the time.
• 10:42
  Hope you're not on the fuelling because of this.
• 10:45
  I have an hour break so it said I devote 1/2 an hour to the easy
• 10:49
  double guys. OK, that's good.
• 10:52
  Fair enough. Are you working from home there
• 10:54
  or? No, I'm in the office.
• 10:55
  In the office on Monday. Yeah, well, I'm smashed down a
• 11:00
  couple of boiled eggs before you joined us, so.
• 11:03
  No, no, I'm, I said I'd record before I'd eat, so I'll eat
• 11:09
  after. Well, I'm sort of on that egg
• 11:11
  detox still, so yeah, I've eaten enough eggs in the previous
• 11:16
  months. To me a while does.
• 11:19
  This mean that you've given up your your nap slot today?
• 11:21
  Or do you get that on top of your lunch slot?
• 11:24
  No, So I only really know when I'm training like twice in the
• 11:28
  day just to like recharge. So I haven't actually had enough
• 11:32
  and work in a while because we've got a pool table
• 11:34
  downstairs. So I'm actually getting.
• 11:36
  I'm actually. Getting pretty good at pool.
• 11:38
  To be on itself, my running career goes down the drain.
• 11:40
  I might just hop on the pool table grind.
• 11:43
  So that's what I. Spend my lunch time doing most
• 11:46
  of days. There you go.
• 11:49
  Not a bad office, that's all. No pool table, ping pong table.
• 11:55
  Pretty, pretty lucky. Now, I won't steal any of your
• 11:59
  limelight or jump the gun, but you do look like you've got a
• 12:02
  bit of a glow about you there. So why don't you tell us how it
• 12:06
  all unfolded, your experience of the whole weekend?
• 12:09
  And I won't like no point gone through the right week, will I?
• 12:12
  My training week, will I or? Whatever you feel like.
• 12:18
  It's really just easy jogging and I done a little bit of work
• 12:23
  on the Tuesday morning. I don't like 20 minutes a
• 12:30
  threshold and then I don't like a 1K at 5K pace.
• 12:37
  So because Sunday evening I got actually pretty sick and I got
• 12:42
  had a vomit, like I don't know where I got a vomiting bug.
• 12:45
  So that led me not to run on a couple for Sunday and just yeah,
• 12:51
  Sunday and Monday I took it really easy because just wasn't
• 12:54
  feeling 100%. And then Tuesday I got out and
• 12:57
  done the 20 minute threshold and then AK and the threshold.
• 13:02
  I felt pretty mediocre. Now it was early in the morning
• 13:06
  and it was freezing cold. And then the one Ki done in
• 13:10
  around like 253. So the 1K felt all right.
• 13:14
  It's just like, well, it wasn't that 5K pace because it felt
• 13:18
  like all out, like I don't need like I couldn't have held that
• 13:20
  for anymore. So that was sort of in the back
• 13:23
  of my mind. But like, again, I was just
• 13:25
  asked the von and bog. So I am yeah.
• 13:28
  Then just jogged the rest of the week pretty easy.
• 13:32
  And then, yeah. So I headed up Saturday morning
• 13:35
  to to Derry. So from where I live, it's three
• 13:39
  hours up north. So yeah, headed up that around.
• 13:45
  I think I left the house at like 9:45 in the morning and just
• 13:48
  popped up. So we, yeah, we had the sort of
• 13:53
  got up there around like half 2. Who was part of the entourage?
• 13:57
  Who went up with you? So my girlfriend and then my mom
• 14:01
  and dad headed down separately while my mom, dad, my brother
• 14:04
  and sister and then my coach and his partner, his wife day and
• 14:10
  they went up separately as well. So had a little, had a little
• 14:12
  crew with me and so yeah, had hit dairy around half two got
• 14:19
  into the Airbnb and then I had it just straight from my
• 14:21
  shakeout. So I went down to the course and
• 14:25
  but like you couldn't get on the course.
• 14:26
  They were trying to preserve it and because there was, it rained
• 14:31
  a lot. And was it raining the day
• 14:34
  before? Like was it already pretty wet
• 14:36
  or? Yeah, and the week up to it was
• 14:38
  raining, so like people knew it was going to be a mud bath.
• 14:42
  Umm, So yeah, for the shake out I just jumped up to the track.
• 14:45
  Umm, so where the the course was, it was basically around
• 14:49
  football pitches. So there was like 2 or 3
• 14:52
  football pitches and then there's a little bit out to the
• 14:54
  right where it was like rougher grass.
• 14:57
  And but again, it was, I'd say there was no elevation in the
• 14:59
  whole thing, just little ups and downs and that was really it.
• 15:02
  So yeah, it wasn't out on the course, but it was a turn track
• 15:05
  beside it was sort of like a Sports Complex sort of thing.
• 15:08
  So I don't like 3200 meter strides and again, pretty
• 15:13
  average, felt pretty average. And but like day before race,
• 15:17
  like you can't really read too much into it.
• 15:19
  Like you're going to feel a bit shit.
• 15:21
  And so yeah, that evening, just feed up watched some.
• 15:27
  I'm A Celebrity, had to catch up on that.
• 15:30
  And then I yeah, race day. So I got up, I think we're at
• 15:39
  half seven in the morning. I do a little shake up for the
• 15:41
  run was either 20 minutes to half an hour and it was pretty
• 15:45
  shit weather and as we call. So I just went for 20 minutes
• 15:47
  just there. She got the legs and and then
• 15:51
  yeah, home feed up for another little bit.
• 15:53
  Took my took non meal. I took two shots an omeal double
• 15:57
  dose. Did I say that's that's an
• 16:02
  allowable? For well, on the website it
• 16:05
  says, yeah, for like a hard effort or a race, you can double
• 16:07
  dose. So I was like, if there's ever
• 16:10
  want to be a hard effort, it's going to be today, yeah.
• 16:12
  So for listeners, right, your race was, is it 2:50 PM local
• 16:18
  time 250? Yeah, in the afternoon, yeah.
• 16:22
  So I took that demshots at around 11:50 and then 12:50 I
• 16:30
  took the bicarb and that's when I headed to track as well.
• 16:35
  I'm actually we're pretty lucky with Airbnb.
• 16:37
  I checked it was at 11, but I texted her one and told her the
• 16:40
  situation and she was like, yeah, you can stay on.
• 16:43
  So shout out to Fenola from Derry for that.
• 16:46
  Stay on a little bit longer because we've been so awkward
• 16:49
  just and it was so cold and wet, like a little chill there from a
• 16:52
  little bit. I might, I might like be tongue
• 16:56
  in cheek when I'm commenting on the Irish heat wave, but when
• 17:00
  you say the reverse side of things.
• 17:03
  So like the Irish athletics had a live stream of the morn of the
• 17:07
  day and man, it looked like it looked brutal.
• 17:12
  Like super. It looked really windy as well.
• 17:14
  Like not only was it wet, it looked blowing a Gale mud
• 17:18
  everywhere. Like it looked pretty grim.
• 17:21
  It was possibly the worst like conditions I've ever run.
• 17:25
  Under yeah, like, yeah, I was. Complaining I was complaining
• 17:29
  there was no hills. I was complaining there was no
• 17:31
  hills. But thank God there was no hills
• 17:32
  because I don't need to be able to get up them with the muck.
• 17:35
  Yeah, like there was, there was, there wasn't an area where you
• 17:39
  could really get rolling. It was just pure slop like, and
• 17:43
  it wasn't good muck. It was muck that would like
• 17:46
  like. I'm pretty sure if you jumped
• 17:47
  into it you'd need to lose a spike your your shoes if you
• 17:50
  didn't tighten tight enough. And because it was 1500 meter
• 17:54
  lapse, wasn't it? Yeah.
• 17:56
  And and you're the last race of the day.
• 17:59
  So like the chord has looked, it's torn up.
• 18:02
  Terrible. Yeah.
• 18:03
  Yeah, it looked tough. Yeah and get got out to do so
• 18:10
  I've got to track at around like 1 one 1:15 and I just got my bib
• 18:17
  and all that sort of stuff and then got out from my warm up.
• 18:20
  Usual warm up like sort of 15 minute jog then 22 minutes a
• 18:25
  threshold with A1 minute jog in between and a few strides.
• 18:28
  That's just my usual thing now and then, yeah, race time, so.
• 18:36
  And I we could say on the the live stream like the women's
• 18:39
  rights is running and a lot of people like warming up all
• 18:42
  along. Were you part of that to annoy
• 18:43
  your strides sort of parallel with the start?
• 18:48
  At the end I would have literally went out 10 minutes
• 18:50
  before the race. So I don't know, like I tried to
• 18:52
  stay inside as like as late as possible and yeah, put 15 mil
• 18:57
  spikes in even though the spikes were pretty irrelevant.
• 19:00
  Like you could have had like me or long spikes and you're still
• 19:04
  wouldn't fucking slipping. So yeah, race started and it was
• 19:09
  important to sort of get out relatively hard because it was a
• 19:12
  big long straight and then there's a turn.
• 19:15
  So and then it went to Austin till I guess sort of a hairpin
• 19:18
  turn. So you sort of had to get out,
• 19:20
  sort of go to us. You would have been way, way
• 19:22
  back. And I think Efrain G'day went
• 19:24
  out really, really hard. Yeah, he he like shot out like a
• 19:28
  cannon and was clear of everyone like clear 1st and.
• 19:33
  So yeah, it's pretty like the other boys in England.
• 19:37
  The UK cross, they went out. Hard as well the Macau is it
• 19:40
  team, yeah, whatever those so yeah.
• 19:43
  And so I think I was like 22nd in my first lap.
• 19:46
  How does your start line like when you look at because I
• 19:49
  didn't watch the live stream but I've seen the Liverpool One,
• 19:51
  like how long and deep it is? How did your field compare to
• 19:55
  that? Exact same.
• 19:58
  It was 260 people in the race, so same sort of situation like
• 20:02
  the hallway like. What was it like 8 meters across
• 20:05
  and then, umm, just like 3-4 or five deep.
• 20:10
  So, umm, yeah, it's, it's, it's sort of cool.
• 20:13
  But like, and in the first lap, like, 'cause it's so compact, I
• 20:17
  was really relying on the people around me to like, sort of keep
• 20:20
  me up. And like, I just knew from the
• 20:22
  off, like, I nearly slipped twice.
• 20:26
  I was just constantly trying to keep on my feet.
• 20:28
  I was like, this is going to be a long, long day.
• 20:31
  And so, yeah, and First off, it went well, I got out nice and
• 20:36
  umm, sort of tried to settle in, but again, you're just fighting
• 20:38
  with the ground the whole time. And the second lap I started
• 20:42
  feeling a little bit shit. Like I was like, this might be,
• 20:47
  this might not be my day, but umm, still.
• 20:51
  So I was around like 20, I think I was bouncing between like
• 20:53
  22nd, like 19th, umm or 24th and 19th around there.
• 20:59
  And then the third lap I sort of got a second wind.
• 21:02
  I started feeling good again and I was Jim, I got to be on here.
• 21:06
  And then yeah, I just felt strong.
• 21:09
  I finished. So in total I was 22nd and that
• 21:15
  and I was 15th senior. So there was like 7 under 20
• 21:18
  threes ahead of me. And so like, like when you look
• 21:22
  at the top 6, like the top six are just like on a different
• 21:25
  level. Like, it was probably the
• 21:27
  deepest field in cross country in a long, long, long time.
• 21:32
  And like, yeah. So crazy because the winner,
• 21:37
  right, he he flew back from his based in Australia at the
• 21:41
  minute, right. So he's come all the way back to
• 21:43
  Ireland and it's part of the motivation there because unlike
• 21:46
  the track right cross country, this is you rock up to get
• 21:49
  selected to represent team Ireland either at Europeans or
• 21:54
  at world cross, right. So it's sort of it's very
• 21:56
  important. What if you're in shape?
• 21:58
  It's sort of is dragging everyone in, right?
• 22:01
  It's an Irish fest basically. Like I don't know how they
• 22:04
  selected people for Worlds, but I definitely know like with the
• 22:08
  lads, I think it's top three are definitely selected and then the
• 22:12
  other three are like discretionary.
• 22:14
  But like the other 3 are like Darren Mcelhenney who is like
• 22:19
  representing Ireland worlds F from G Day.
• 22:21
  And there's Jack O'Leary who's run like 28 low for 10K.
• 22:25
  Like they're all really good runners.
• 22:26
  So I'm not sure the young lad in the NCAA is, I'm not sure if
• 22:30
  he's 23 or senior. So I'm not sure what way that
• 22:33
  will because he thinks he came 9th and 8th NCAA and like for he
• 22:37
  couldn't have run nationals. So I'm not sure how that
• 22:40
  selection will work because technically if he is a senior
• 22:43
  runner, F1G day. Gets the, gets the boot.
• 22:48
  And I can imagine like dropping F1G day off a national team,
• 22:51
  like I don't know how it works, but, and yeah, and I started to
• 22:54
  get, I wouldn't like to make that call, but like I was
• 22:57
  looking at my splits and I think I started off at like a 340 or
• 23:02
  350 per cloud. I think my average for the whole
• 23:04
  thing was like three 30s. So like and the winners 330
• 23:08
  threes or something like that. And the winners, they average
• 23:11
  like three 20s. So when you put that under
• 23:13
  respective like Brian, phase five KPV is like 13 O one or
• 23:17
  something. So like that's two 30s per
• 23:19
  kilometer, like 230 high per kilometer.
• 23:22
  So it just you need to put that in your head when you're
• 23:24
  thinking about like the mock that like it was yeah, it was it
• 23:28
  was such a good experience. It was a really, really fun race
• 23:30
  and like, like looking back, I was like, oh, 22nd it's a bit
• 23:33
  shit. But when I was looking at the
• 23:35
  lads who like beat me, like it's, it is a good result.
• 23:37
  And like I came home from Australia injured.
• 23:40
  So like 6 months I'm I'm sort of like best of the rest if you get
• 23:43
  me or get it like up there. So umm, yeah, I know.
• 23:46
  Super happy with how I ran. And umm yeah, it's like sort of
• 23:50
  like use this foundation to sort of like try and get faster now.
• 23:54
  And some of the guys that you were running with, did you know
• 23:57
  any of them? Did you, you know, like, did you
• 23:59
  have people that you were targeting as the race unfolded?
• 24:02
  I knew who I should be around. So like Darren Mcelhenney's
• 24:05
  brother. Oh, Mcelhenney.
• 24:07
  Like, he's a really, really good run.
• 24:08
  He's like a 1420 odd 5K runner. And then there's another guy,
• 24:12
  Philip Maron, who's from around where I live and he's 357
• 24:19
  Miller, so like he's strung over cross country as well, so I knew
• 24:23
  I'd look out for him. So like he literally just bet me
• 24:26
  and I bet your man on my planny. I bet, but like 4 spots.
• 24:29
  So like, yeah. And there's another guy like I,
• 24:33
  yeah, I was well up there. Like I sort of exceeded my
• 24:36
  expectation. Umm.
• 24:37
  So yeah, it was good. And you, it's not unusual for
• 24:42
  you to race well over cross country there, right?
• 24:44
  Like it's sort of you tend to seem to do all right over that.
• 24:49
  Yeah, I've, I don't know whether it's got my background like a
• 24:52
  group on a farm and I'm used to running through fields or
• 24:54
  something. But yeah, cross country would be
• 24:56
  like my stronger point. Like saying that again, like I
• 24:59
  haven't raced cross country like that in my 3 years.
• 25:02
  So I don't know. I didn't know if my legs like
• 25:04
  still had like the sort of the grit and strength, but no, yeah,
• 25:08
  like it was, it was, it was good.
• 25:11
  And like cross country like it would be one of my better
• 25:13
  events. Probably hardened from that
• 25:15
  Perth cross country you did last year.
• 25:19
  We had the sound I had to run through.
• 25:24
  Where you run in a pack at any point or because like I'm
• 25:28
  thinking about the cross countries I've run, it seems to
• 25:30
  be like very strong out, but like often you'll just yo-yo
• 25:33
  back and forth. Like you'll go past someone and
• 25:36
  two minutes later they'll come back past you rather than, you
• 25:39
  know, like in a road race, you'd just automatically, everyone
• 25:42
  packs up, don't they? So yeah, I was so sort of that
• 25:46
  yo-yo sort of thing, like for the first lap, obviously it was
• 25:49
  packed up and but then I sort of strung, it's strung out there
• 25:51
  and then you're sort of like, there might have been one guy
• 25:54
  ahead of me. But it was rarely like for a
• 25:57
  group of four, like surrounded by group before or anything like
• 25:59
  that. It was more like that yo-yo
• 26:01
  stringy, which I sort of I think I preferred because I could sort
• 26:04
  of pick my line because when you're in a pack, like you're
• 26:07
  sort of forced to just run straight.
• 26:11
  But like, it wasn't always like, well, to be honest, there was no
• 26:15
  better route in the race of the weekend.
• 26:17
  Like everywhere was black. It was so, so lucky.
• 26:19
  You just had to run straight through it.
• 26:22
  What sort of temperature was it? I'm, yeah, I'm like when I was
• 26:30
  running, it was grand single digits.
• 26:32
  But like, my, my, like all the people who were there said it
• 26:36
  was absolutely like freezing When I woke up on the day, it
• 26:39
  was like, it was like 3° feels like -4 or something like that.
• 26:44
  Because the wind and the rain and yeah, it was so bad.
• 26:48
  And then I was, I was saying to the master, oh, it sort of
• 26:51
  started raining in the middle of the race.
• 26:55
  Are you serious? It was raining for like the
• 26:57
  whole day. Yeah.
• 26:59
  The heavens opened. And it was heavy, too.
• 27:01
  But before, Yeah, what it looked like, yeah.
• 27:04
  And like, I was sort of, I was wearing like the arm sleeves and
• 27:07
  gloves and like they were absolutely soaked and covered in
• 27:13
  shit and like just muck in your eyes.
• 27:16
  And yeah, it was real. It was good cross country.
• 27:19
  But I was think I was saying I was talking to Dan Michael Haney
• 27:21
  in the shower after and like for him to qualify in that shitty
• 27:26
  muck. And I think the rate Euros is in
• 27:28
  Portugal, that's basically it's pancakes that as well, but it's
• 27:31
  going to be dry. It's like them boys like Brian
• 27:34
  Fate that will suit them down to the ground.
• 27:36
  Like that Irish team, Cormac Dalton, like that is a really,
• 27:39
  really strong team. So umm, yeah, it's super
• 27:42
  exciting to see how delicate on there.
• 27:43
  Because like, like when you look at the Times Now, like they're
• 27:46
  sort of like for while Ireland were sort of like just lagging
• 27:49
  behind the rest of Europe, like for like their fast, like their
• 27:51
  national records and all that sort of stuff.
• 27:53
  But I feel like now like they're right up there.
• 27:56
  So I feel like they really can like go for a model in
• 27:59
  Europeans, like even be on the start line to be on the start
• 28:03
  line with them. Boys like those are Brian Faye,
• 28:05
  Nick Craig's Dharma planning on McDonald to make it.
• 28:08
  It was just incredible to even like be racing with them.
• 28:11
  Yeah, it's so good. And like cross country is so
• 28:14
  unique like that. Like it's the same with the NCAA
• 28:16
  guy. Like races will recap, but
• 28:19
  you've got the guys that's winning the the mile, indoor
• 28:22
  mile or 1500 meters all the way through to the guys that are
• 28:24
  winning the 10K like it. And and then when you get into
• 28:29
  open company, you've got guys that are short track guys all
• 28:31
  the way through to marathoners. And so it's like it brings
• 28:34
  everyone together and puts them all in and everyone's sort of
• 28:37
  got a maybe got a chance. And the team that they select is
• 28:40
  bigger as well. So it's like it's such a fun
• 28:43
  event where when everyone leans into it and it they're, they're
• 28:46
  such deep events that that's why I think traditional cross
• 28:49
  country was always like noted as like the hardest race to win
• 28:53
  because it has everyone in there rather than just the
• 28:55
  specialists. So yeah, it looked like that.
• 28:58
  It looked like that that from what you could hear from the
• 29:02
  commentator and and the names, there's a lot of familiar names
• 29:05
  that like for me, who was previously fairly unfamiliar
• 29:07
  with them maybe 12 months ago, it was a good was a good race to
• 29:11
  watch and. I think it's something, it's a
• 29:13
  crazy start. Like there's been 10 different
• 29:15
  winners in the last 10 years. Like no one's ever gone
• 29:17
  back-to-back, which just shows like how like deep it is and how
• 29:21
  open the air, Like anyone can really win it.
• 29:24
  Well, even the races. So I saw like the race itself
• 29:27
  was pretty unpredictable, like Brian Faye was not.
• 29:29
  He barely saw the front until the he sat.
• 29:31
  Behind I heard. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 29:33
  He was fourth for 90% of it, which was so cool.
• 29:39
  Any idea when he would have got got in from Melbourne?
• 29:44
  Haven't a clue when when was the last race he ran?
• 29:48
  Benny 10 or maybe NUSA as well. But yeah, well, he's going to be
• 29:56
  on for a while now anyway. He's got a trip to Portugal,
• 30:00
  Yeah, so. That's is it, 3 weeks.
• 30:02
  It's the 14th of December, so that'll be a little.
• 30:08
  It shows as well because if you think I remember like hearing
• 30:12
  his name and some of the results like during the summer and
• 30:14
  thinking he wasn't really having a good time.
• 30:17
  And then obviously he's just managed to, whether he's had
• 30:20
  like a bit of a break and like recess or whatever and he's back
• 30:24
  to right now, like beating Cormac Dalton and Nick Griggs,
• 30:28
  like you wouldn't be able to do that when he was racing poorly
• 30:31
  in the summer. Like when I especially when I
• 30:35
  seen the course, I was like Gina Mac.
• 30:36
  This mightn't be the race for for Brian Fay.
• 30:40
  Both Genie Max team ran well. Like just even tactically, he
• 30:44
  just sat in behind the two. Like the IT was basically like a
• 30:46
  boxing match. Like I think it was Corn
• 30:48
  McDonald and Nick Greg's. They were like just literally
• 30:50
  taking alongside of each other, like running hard.
• 30:52
  And Brian, I was just sitting in behind them.
• 30:54
  And then, yeah, when he went, he went.
• 30:56
  Hard. Yeah, he sort of got gapped with
• 30:59
  about a lap to go like he was. He was off the back.
• 31:02
  But yeah, he judged it, judged his effort pretty well.
• 31:06
  So that even like Nick Greg's, like Nick Greg's is under 23.
• 31:09
  So thank you. He's so young and he's right off
• 31:12
  there. So then the women's winner as
• 31:17
  well, just quickly, was that like kind of was she favorite or
• 31:20
  was that a surprise Fiona ever and ever wrote?
• 31:23
  No, ever had. Yeah, she'd been right up there.
• 31:25
  Like she's represented before, like she is a really, really
• 31:28
  good runner. So she'd have been like 1 1/2
• 31:30
  favorites. So she beat Neve Allen for 2nd
• 31:35
  and Danielle Donegan for 3rd and in the results it mentions like
• 31:39
  team results, is the much of A focus on on the team race?
• 31:44
  So get there there is they're trying to make it bigger.
• 31:47
  It's just like I think with the team race, it's like 6 to 6 to
• 31:52
  make a team and like like we so we I had a team like me, it's my
• 31:57
  area. We had a team going in, but then
• 31:59
  like 1 I pulled out. So like you have no sobs.
• 32:03
  So that like we didn't have a chance for a team metal then in
• 32:06
  the end. But there is because I think
• 32:09
  there is a team. I might be talking to my answer
• 32:12
  now, but I think there is a team championship.
• 32:16
  Yeah, because 6 is quite a deep team.
• 32:19
  Rarely. Isn't it like 4?
• 32:20
  Perhaps is more achievable. Yeah, I'm not sure about that.
• 32:25
  There's a European team championship, but they are like,
• 32:30
  I'd say within a good club. So let's say like Nick Greg's
• 32:33
  team, like there would have been like that team is savage.
• 32:36
  So I thought a big push for them and Cormac Dalton's team and
• 32:39
  Mullingar Harriers, like I think they had third, fourths, 8.
• 32:44
  Like they they're like really, really good teams.
• 32:48
  Umm, whereas like the and they're like the main, like
• 32:52
  there wouldn't be many other teams in that area, let's say.
• 32:55
  So they pull a lot. Whereas where I'm from, fair
• 33:00
  enough it's in the countries, but there's all the small teams
• 33:03
  so be harder for for like my team to actually do anything.
• 33:10
  If, well, I haven't actually said well done, so very well
• 33:13
  done, Huge, huge results and your season has been tailored
• 33:17
  towards that, hasn't it? So good to see you.
• 33:20
  You get what you deserve from it.
• 33:22
  Yeah, like as soon as I can all my sort of iron up this one.
• 33:25
  And it was sort of surreal, like on the Saturday night I was
• 33:27
  like, OK, so this is what I've been not enough for like the
• 33:30
  last like 5 months. There's still one more cross
• 33:32
  country. I don't know what way it works
• 33:34
  over here. But normally like for the
• 33:36
  younger kids, you let's, you qualify, have to qualify from
• 33:41
  your like county and then there's like your province and
• 33:45
  then there's the nationals. But for some reason, like so my
• 33:49
  senior, so I can come from a place called Mead, The Mead
• 33:52
  Senior Championships is like on the 13th of December.
• 33:56
  So I still have one more cross country race to like win my
• 33:58
  county, let's say. But yeah, it's going to be all
• 34:03
  eyes sort of fixed for Valencia now.
• 34:07
  So I'll probably have a relatively easy week this week.
• 34:09
  I'll take, I'll just jog today, Drofford next like 3 or 4 days.
• 34:13
  And yeah, because I feel like because I got sick as well, I
• 34:16
  had like sort of a larger taper or a more like severe taper than
• 34:19
  usual. So I yeah, I'll pick it back up
• 34:23
  pretty soon. Just yeah.
• 34:26
  So hard training through the Christmas period then what dates
• 34:29
  Valencia? So I've I've 5K on the 27th of
• 34:36
  May, I've entered just a local road 5K and that'll just sort of
• 34:42
  be like a tune up for how I am. Just see what you have meant for
• 34:46
  Valencia. Valencia is there, it's either
• 34:49
  to 10 for the 11th. I'm not that Sunday, it's the
• 34:54
  11th, so to them, to January's Valencia.
• 34:57
  So yeah, that 5K on the 27th will sort of give me an
• 34:59
  indicator of like sort of how I'm how I'm going. 27, third
• 35:05
  December. Yeah, two days after Christmas.
• 35:09
  I'll have to lay after the sweets unfortunately.
• 35:13
  Very good, very exciting. How does it make you feel?
• 35:18
  Hair and race recaps like that Danes get you fired off to get
• 35:21
  you angry, to get you jealous, to get you motivated.
• 35:25
  Probably motivated. You sort of have to, you can't
• 35:28
  get too excited because there's not much I can do at the minute.
• 35:31
  But it's it just keeps you connected to wanting to get fit.
• 35:37
  So yes, stay inspires me to stay the course I think is the best
• 35:41
  way to frame it. So yeah, not very excited.
• 35:45
  I'm excited for, I'm excited for the Aussie cross country on
• 35:48
  Friday. Is that?
• 35:50
  Yeah. It should be actually and
• 35:53
  probably by Irish athletics. It was great that they streamed
• 35:55
  it but they couldn't. Would it be nice if they had
• 35:58
  some more commentary overlay like it was just the on course
• 36:02
  commentator only here? That was last minute.
• 36:05
  So initially they'd only a finish line camera.
• 36:08
  They'd so all during the week they're like all we have is a
• 36:11
  finish line camera and I was like, this is such.
• 36:14
  I. Wouldn't mind, athletics is
• 36:15
  booming. Yeah.
• 36:17
  You need to show people this like especially with the stacked
• 36:20
  field like it was so deep. And and there was nationals all
• 36:24
  day long, like cover the like the Aussie athletic streams
• 36:29
  pretty good just for our like all schools.
• 36:30
  You remember the one that was in August?
• 36:32
  Like it. Yeah, it's not, you know, it's
• 36:35
  not that hard to I wouldn't have thought in this day and age to
• 36:38
  to get decent coverage and get some commentary over the top.
• 36:41
  Like, I wouldn't mind. Sometimes they're in like remote
• 36:45
  areas where like, you have to run through forests and all
• 36:48
  that. So you'd lose.
• 36:49
  You wouldn't be able to view the whole thing.
• 36:51
  So I was like, fair enough. This was literally around
• 36:53
  football pitches. All you need to do is have one
• 36:55
  camera one side, another camera the other side.
• 36:58
  Easy. You could they cut away even
• 37:01
  like the Sprint finish? It's just you're just seeing,
• 37:03
  like, heads over the top of the crowd.
• 37:06
  Sprint. Yeah, like.
• 37:08
  Yeah, I literally could have put up a bit of scaffolding and
• 37:12
  recorded on my phone on Instagram or something.
• 37:15
  Yeah, so. Yeah, it's a bit of a shag.
• 37:18
  We're lagging behind in that area, but.
• 37:20
  Yeah, I think the the live stream with Athletics Australia
• 37:24
  for this race on Friday should be based on how it's been in the
• 37:28
  past. But the course looks good and
• 37:31
  the coverage is normally pretty good.
• 37:33
  They get some good drone shots and they normally have some, you
• 37:36
  know, the, the, it's, it's very well manicured the, the, the
• 37:40
  course. So you can get around it pretty
• 37:42
  easily. So yeah, should be good to
• 37:44
  watch. How far ahead of past time will
• 37:48
  Canberra be? Three hours.
• 37:51
  It's a three as well, just a few 11 hours ahead.
• 37:56
  Oh, and I'm not sure what is it like 8:00 PM starts or something
• 38:00
  Like it's quite late, isn't it? I think on Friday night local
• 38:04
  time, the Australian one. That'll actually be all right
• 38:08
  for me. It'll be early Friday morning.
• 38:11
  Watch that with a coffee. Welcome home.
• 38:14
  Exactly. Yeah, don't tell my boss.
• 38:19
  There you go. Well thanks.
• 38:21
  Thanks for providing us the recap and keeping us alive with
• 38:24
  someone doing some racing and keeping some good reputation to
• 38:29
  our name as actual runners. No problem lies now from.
• 38:34
  Albeit did you hear, Owen, what the poll results were for the
• 38:39
  cycling in keeping the cycling chat in what?
• 38:41
  What would you have guessed the percentage was if you were to
• 38:44
  guess? I think I actually personally
• 38:48
  enjoyed the cycling chat so if it's gone I'd say like 60-40
• 38:52
  keep it in. 81% to keep it in Wow, yeah, I actually like it,
• 38:59
  yeah. It's interesting.
• 39:00
  There you go. He likes it because it gives him
• 39:02
  a break to go on his phone. No.
• 39:13
  Well, yeah, look, hopefully it's hopefully for all of our sakes,
• 39:16
  it's coming to an end. But we have enjoyed it.
• 39:19
  They haven't. We run.
• 39:21
  Very much so. I actually missed my bike whilst
• 39:24
  I was down in Margaret River. I was trying my hardest to
• 39:26
  squeeze it into the car but couldn't quite make the fit.
• 39:30
  Wait, have we? Have we discussed Margaret
• 39:32
  River? What happened?
• 39:35
  We did brief, I mentioned that yeah, the the engagement.
• 39:40
  Yeah, Congrats man. He's off the ladies.
• 39:43
  Watch all the female listeners drop now he's off the market.
• 39:49
  Which was funny. There was so I had it planned in
• 39:53
  my head like where I would do it because we were going around all
• 39:56
  these different wineries for the day and I knew which one was
• 39:59
  like had the best backdrop in my opinion and all this.
• 40:02
  But I hadn't actually thought like physically when it comes to
• 40:05
  it, how is it going to happen? Like how am I going to create
• 40:08
  the exact moment? And then as we walked in, it was
• 40:12
  like quite quiet. So I was like, right, this is
• 40:14
  this is it Because two of them friends were with us as well and
• 40:17
  I'd owned a nod whether to tell them or not.
• 40:20
  You know, so they could be like on guard to fucking photo
• 40:23
  whatever, but I didn't. Like, were you like, were you
• 40:26
  like shitting yourself? Were you really, really nervous?
• 40:28
  Or were you like cool, calm, inflected?
• 40:31
  No, for like the whole day I was fine.
• 40:34
  And then I had to like keep telling myself like this is
• 40:37
  actually happening. Like you should probably be
• 40:38
  shitting yourself a bit until we got like into that venue and
• 40:43
  then I was just. Like him at a running race, I
• 40:48
  should probably be nervous at some point.
• 40:50
  So like get a bit of adrenaline going.
• 40:53
  But then what? Once I was like, stood there and
• 40:55
  decided like, I'm about to do it.
• 40:57
  I was like, I need to do it now because I'm about to lose my
• 40:59
  voice. Like I've gone.
• 41:05
  And there was there was an older couple sat there just enjoying a
• 41:08
  wine on holiday from Hertfordshire and they were
• 41:11
  getting all emotional. Like it's the first engagement
• 41:14
  we've ever witnessed in 60 years.
• 41:16
  And they bought us a bottle of bubbles.
• 41:19
  Of less. That's so nice.
• 41:21
  Yeah, so there you go. Congrats man, Congrats for
• 41:24
  playing. Cover all angles on this
• 41:27
  podcast. I've got a feeling like I might
• 41:29
  be revealing too much, but we'll find out at a later date maybe.
• 41:37
  Oh, so yeah, fun week. Alright boys, I'm going to dip
• 41:42
  off now and get some food but it's been a pleasure and chat
• 41:45
  with next week. Thanks man, recover well.
• 41:50
  Thank you very much. That was good fun.
• 41:54
  Was good as cool insight. It's good when you've seen it,
• 41:59
  like you've watched the live stream and then you get to hit
• 42:02
  what I obviously didn't watch the live stream.
• 42:03
  I flicked it on for a couple of minutes, but you watched it and
• 42:05
  then you get to hear his like kind of personal experience of
• 42:10
  it. Yeah, and you, you sort of can
• 42:14
  only see so much from the camera, but yeah, like, he, he,
• 42:20
  it looked hard. It looked really tough.
• 42:22
  So it looked like a lot of fun, too.
• 42:26
  It's sort of what cross country should be like, you know, like
• 42:29
  every, it brings everyone from all distances something to race
• 42:33
  for. And you're just racing.
• 42:34
  You're not concerned about a time and you're not because
• 42:38
  everything on the road or the track is so time sensitive.
• 42:44
  For the most part it could be a championship race, but often
• 42:47
  it's so time sensitive. So whereas this, it's so simple.
• 42:50
  You're just trying to run as best you can, which is cool.
• 42:54
  I think for like for Europeans and for Australians it's good
• 42:57
  because it has, well, maybe a little bit different for
• 43:00
  Australia, but it has its specific place in the calendar,
• 43:05
  like time of year. I guess Australia does too, to
• 43:08
  be fair. Obviously Americans are
• 43:10
  conflicted because they have the potential to do an indoor
• 43:13
  season, whereas everyone else can kind of like just fully
• 43:16
  commit to cross country, go into like it seems to be most people
• 43:19
  do a bit of like base training and just approach it a bit
• 43:25
  differently to what you would like if you specifically target
• 43:28
  and like a time trial personal best type race.
• 43:33
  Yeah, it's a shame. I think in some states like
• 43:35
  Victoria has a good cross country series and culture,
• 43:40
  we're probably just a bit biased now towards the roads.
• 43:43
  So you'll have a track season and a road season as opposed to
• 43:46
  a track and cross country season.
• 43:48
  But be good if there was a bit more of a cross country specific
• 43:54
  cross country part of your calendar.
• 43:57
  Yeah, I mean I can see why some people do shy away from it
• 44:00
  because especially in the UK, it is a real test of character
• 44:04
  getting out of bed on a freezing cold, wet Sunday morning.
• 44:09
  Yeah, yeah. No, I'd definitely be on the
• 44:11
  treadmill if I had the choice. Right then shall we finish back
• 44:17
  our results? We're at Liverpool also talking
• 44:20
  about some cross country. And I just covered the women's
• 44:23
  results to the top three of Carrie Hughes, Poppy Tank, Izzy
• 44:27
  Fry, followed by Phoebe Anderson, Abby Donnelly, who
• 44:31
  just ran that very good marathon.
• 44:34
  And I can't remember was it, I have a Frankfurt or I think it
• 44:38
  was Frankfurt and Jeff Stewart done New York.
• 44:42
  Was it 224? Is that what the commentators
• 44:45
  were commenting on? Yeah.
• 44:46
  Yeah, so like that again, that shows the depth of the the girls
• 44:51
  here. If a 224 marathoner cross
• 44:54
  country, especially AK being particularly strength elements
• 44:58
  and she's been beaten by four others.
• 45:02
  You've then got Verity Ockenden was sixth.
• 45:04
  She's coached by a familiar with Chris Thompson.
• 45:09
  He is older athlete of sent retired now I guess.
• 45:16
  Yeah, that's why I'd be familiar with him.
• 45:20
  I remember seeing No go on you go.
• 45:24
  Chris Thompson's the been qualified for the Tokyo Olympics
• 45:29
  in the marathon. Is that not the same?
• 45:31
  Chris Thompson for the marathon, maybe?
• 45:35
  Around Tuesday, that was, I was going to say his, his interview
• 45:41
  there after that race got me all emotional because he he was
• 45:44
  emotional himself and it was like just so genuine and
• 45:47
  heartfelt. I remember watching that race
• 45:50
  during COVID because it was a, the not like an artificial or
• 45:56
  contrived. It was just a, a marathon set up
• 45:58
  for the purpose of selection and people.
• 46:02
  There was a, a couple of theatre, like I think the men's
• 46:05
  standard was to 11:30 at the time.
• 46:07
  And the way the quota was filling up, it looked like you
• 46:12
  had to run the standard in order to make the Olympic team.
• 46:15
  But then for JB, I think they were selecting maybe the top 2
• 46:18
  in that race and different athletes were going out trying
• 46:21
  to sit on the standard with different pacemakers.
• 46:23
  Like I'm pretty sure it chopped and changed.
• 46:25
  And he sort of, he just timed it really well.
• 46:27
  And he'd been, I remember he was ran pretty well in some
• 46:30
  Commonwealth Games previously. But I think maybe we're still
• 46:34
  holding out hope for a bit of a breakthrough.
• 46:36
  And yeah, that sort of had the race of his life to a degree
• 46:41
  maybe. And I think it was pretty injury
• 46:43
  riddled maybe in the years leading up to it.
• 46:45
  And yeah, it was very cool, good moment and raw emotion at the
• 46:49
  end and was reason why that was the sort of why having a
• 46:54
  selection race and the trials, like the US trials are so good
• 46:57
  because people that when they run something special like that
• 47:00
  can immediately celebrate the, you know, qualifying for a team.
• 47:05
  And it's the same for this cross country as well, where people
• 47:07
  are getting auto selected off the back rather than running a
• 47:10
  time and not necessarily knowing or having to sit and wait to see
• 47:13
  if they make it. Yeah.
• 47:15
  You're not waiting to see the following Monday how your result
• 47:18
  has been interpreted by a board of people.
• 47:22
  It's all in your own hands. Yeah, interesting that he's gone
• 47:27
  into coaching now because I know I know he coaches her.
• 47:30
  I'm not sure if he has like a group of athletes or or whether
• 47:33
  it is solely just Verity because she's an on athlete as well and
• 47:39
  I see him often wearing like on train and wear.
• 47:42
  So whether it's something to do with on who knows.
• 47:46
  I guess for the men's results then.
• 47:48
  So this race was won. You can I think you watched it
• 47:51
  so you can add some colour. I'll just give the results Scott
• 47:54
  BC one from Rory Leonard. They're both actual club mates
• 47:58
  as well as Team Macau mates. They both run for Morpeth
• 48:01
  Harriers. It won by 14 seconds, 2350 to
• 48:05
  Rory Leonard's 24 O 4. Richard Slade third a further 16
• 48:10
  seconds back in 2420. And maybe some other notable
• 48:16
  names further down the list of Cam Allen, Jack Miller, Callum
• 48:22
  Elson, another team account member, and I think Alfie
• 48:25
  Manthorpe was further down than that.
• 48:27
  So Callum Nelson was 14th, Alfie Manthorpe maybe 20th.
• 48:31
  Were we saying earlier? Yeah, 2223, Yep, which I think
• 48:37
  we're, yeah, chatting offline and just saying he was first JB
• 48:41
  athlete at the Valencia half in 61 1/2 minutes.
• 48:44
  So sort of talk, it talks to the depth.
• 48:47
  I think Andy Bouchard or was maybe just behind him as well.
• 48:52
  So like just the top 30 sort of to Owen's point, just around the
• 48:56
  depth. I think a lot of people, right,
• 48:59
  they know they just rock up to this race and if they're fit
• 49:02
  enough, they can run themselves on onto a team, get a vest.
• 49:04
  So yeah, it's very deep. But in terms of how the race
• 49:10
  played out, Scott Beatty and Ori Leonard, just there was a pack
• 49:14
  and then I think it was maybe 3 minutes in.
• 49:16
  Roy Leonard just made this big move like and gap everyone very
• 49:21
  quickly and Scott went with him and didn't counter the move
• 49:28
  quickly. Like it took a a bit, a little
• 49:30
  bit of a while to bridge the gap back up to him.
• 49:32
  But when he got up to him, didn't spend too much time with
• 49:35
  him, sort of went over the top of him.
• 49:37
  And those guys just stretched, strung the whole race out and
• 49:41
  were, yeah, they looked like a class above really.
• 49:46
  They just look too strong. Everyone else was running really
• 49:49
  well, but they they sort of controlled the race and run.
• 49:54
  Yeah, from from gun to tape were too good.
• 49:57
  I had it on up until we're seeing Rory go like way off the
• 50:01
  front, and then I seen up until Scott came back on to him.
• 50:06
  So then once he went past them, that was it.
• 50:09
  And they just kind of held that gap.
• 50:12
  Yeah, more or less they sort of, yeah, maintain that that
• 50:15
  maintain that lead and sort of never looked too troubled.
• 50:17
  I didn't by the looks of it. Was it 15 seconds in the end I
• 50:21
  think. Yeah, it makes you wonder, like
• 50:23
  what the, the, what? Whatever the Team Macau
• 50:27
  equivalent of like papaya rules for McLaren and F1 would be
• 50:31
  like. What was their plan going into
• 50:33
  that? They speak about tactics that
• 50:35
  they just say let's race what? I think it was a bit more old
• 50:40
  school than modern papaya. I think they just raced each
• 50:43
  other and the better man won. Yeah, Zac Brown or Andy Hobdell
• 50:48
  in this instance must just given them free rein to go toe to toe.
• 50:53
  I think so. And he, he did a celebration
• 50:56
  coming over the finish line, didn't he?
• 50:58
  He's like kind of rubbing his shoulders like that for the
• 51:02
  listeners. If anyone's familiar with Cole
• 51:04
  Palmer, it might be similar to his football celebration.
• 51:08
  As a couple of celebrations like that have Tom as well.
• 51:12
  Yeah, he was. Airplane he was.
• 51:13
  Down the airplane. And then just crossed arms when
• 51:16
  he finished like it was not no sweat.
• 51:18
  It didn't look like he was sweating either.
• 51:21
  He looked very good. I guess that that takes us
• 51:24
  nicely into the NCAA's then. So again, you sent through a
• 51:30
  YouTube link to this, didn't you?
• 51:32
  But when actually was it our time?
• 51:39
  Gosh, I don't. I think it was overnight.
• 51:41
  It's midnight Saturday night. So is there Saturday day?
• 51:46
  OK, so let's I'll rattle off the results.
• 51:48
  So for the women's, this is a 6K race in comparison to the men's
• 51:53
  10K race. So Doris Lemon, goal LEM goalie
• 51:59
  from Alabama, won the race in 18 minutes, 25, which was a 13
• 52:05
  second gap on the 2nd place. Jane Hendgren, who I think might
• 52:10
  have been, I don't know about overwhelming, but certainly the
• 52:13
  favorite going into this, rightly or wrongly I've said was
• 52:19
  held at Illinois. Yeah, I think it.
• 52:23
  Yeah. I think there was a lot of talk
• 52:26
  about Jane Hiddengren because she's a freshman and she broke
• 52:33
  15 minutes in high school and is the American favorite.
• 52:37
  So there was a lot more media coverage.
• 52:38
  But is it Doris Lemon goal was is it 5th or 6th in the
• 52:45
  steeplechase at the most recent World Championships earlier in
• 52:49
  the year? So like to make a world
• 52:53
  championship final and be in the top, you know, 5 or 6 in the
• 52:58
  world. She's very legit like so right
• 53:05
  yeah. So I think the question mark was
• 53:07
  just around the fact that she's just come off the world champs
• 53:10
  and had a bit of downtime because she had a very long
• 53:12
  year. I think did indoors, you know,
• 53:15
  did has had a long season and the que those question mark as
• 53:21
  to whether or not she was fully fit and clearly she was.
• 53:23
  And I think they broke the course record, I think, and both
• 53:29
  Jane Heddingren was had run that course recently because as it
• 53:34
  was it Wisconsin, I think it was a Wisconsin course, but she'd
• 53:39
  run there recently in the lead up and she ran quicker again at
• 53:41
  national. So wasn't like she didn't she
• 53:45
  didn't underperform. She just got beaten by someone
• 53:47
  that was just better on the day. It may sound a little spiteful,
• 53:51
  but hear me out. It's, it's almost nice in a way
• 53:55
  to see that she didn't win because like for a college kid
• 54:00
  to just come up and take the piss out of like a, a world
• 54:02
  champs representative, you like to see them have to like and and
• 54:06
  a bit more play the long game. Yeah.
• 54:10
  And you, you'd like to think there's that's the natural
• 54:13
  order, right? Is that you the the NCAA is seen
• 54:16
  as the best breeding ground to produce athletes that are of the
• 54:19
  calibre of representing it that, you know, racing well at the
• 54:22
  world champs. I think, yeah, if it went the
• 54:24
  other way, you'd be scratching your head a little bit.
• 54:28
  And then for the the team result then, which is I guess largely
• 54:31
  like the the main results almost to come out of NCAA's, isn't it?
• 54:36
  I'm sure like most, if you quiz most of the athletes and the
• 54:39
  coaches besides the the few that might actually challenge for the
• 54:43
  individual results, everyone would say it's all on the on the
• 54:47
  team. So NC State won with a score of
• 54:50
  114, which is a combined score of the top five finishes, it
• 54:55
  looks like, and BYU was second with a score of 130 and Oregon
• 55:02
  1/3 with 153. That's a pretty close writing.
• 55:08
  Yeah, it's always interesting when you see team scores like
• 55:12
  this because it's not necessarily, not necessarily the
• 55:15
  team who has like the best athlete or the best 2 athletes.
• 55:19
  You could have like a not on average.
• 55:22
  But say your team packs out like the 10 to 20 spaces and other
• 55:28
  teams have like a couple in the top 10, but then their their
• 55:31
  last counters are like 30th and 40th.
• 55:34
  Then that just blows the score right up.
• 55:36
  So it's it's all about the consistency of the team.
• 55:40
  Yeah, and that's what it was like this year.
• 55:42
  I think BYU had three in the top 10, but it was their 4th and 5th
• 55:46
  runners that were not as strong as NC State.
• 55:50
  NC State's, you know, 4th and 5th runners were in the 20s and
• 55:55
  30s, whereas the OR in the 40's the 5th, 4th and 5th runners for
• 56:00
  BYU, which BYU's coach Ed Ice Stone, right?
• 56:06
  Yeah, and he was in the headlines leading up to this
• 56:09
  race, wasn't he having a few things to say about the
• 56:11
  recruitment policies that some clubs are adapting?
• 56:16
  Yeah, I think he was taking shots at some some of the unis
• 56:19
  that have a a very large international roster, but I
• 56:25
  think he went further than that and may have even said Kenyan.
• 56:28
  So he's targeted those that he was even more specific, rather
• 56:31
  than saying international, which, yeah, was controversial
• 56:37
  of itself. Think it might have been spiked
• 56:41
  by Chris Chavez done an article not so long ago about like
• 56:44
  colleges and their recruitment programs going out to Africa and
• 56:48
  Kenya specifically perhaps looking to recruit runners for
• 56:52
  their college teams. And I don't know what his
• 56:56
  conclusion was as to whether he was trying to imply or suggest
• 56:59
  that it might not be the best thing or whether he was just
• 57:03
  kind of sharing the information as a as knowledge.
• 57:06
  But certainly had I Stone made his feelings clear that he
• 57:10
  wasn't kind of a fan of this. And then the coach, Oh shit, I
• 57:17
  forget his name. I meant to write it down.
• 57:20
  The guy who bit back at I Stone essentially told him to stop
• 57:25
  bitching and coaches team which I need to find out who it was.
• 57:30
  Which is a little ironic because like part of the comment is that
• 57:37
  the fact that what rather than coaching athletes and the art of
• 57:41
  coaching, which is developing talent, they're just picking
• 57:45
  ready made products and just racing them.
• 57:48
  And so part of I think the the criticism is that they're not,
• 57:52
  you know, fostering and developing talent.
• 57:55
  They're just shopping around for the for the best runners.
• 57:59
  But I don't know, I think like the they interviewed the the
• 58:05
  first American, so the first American in the men's race,
• 58:08
  which we'll get to in a second, was interviewed about it.
• 58:12
  And he sort of passed a comment like, you know, he empathizes to
• 58:16
  a degree that there's certain US athletes that are a good calibre
• 58:21
  of athlete but aren't getting the opportunities because the
• 58:23
  opportunities are getting swallowed up by international
• 58:26
  athletes. So he acknowledges that.
• 58:28
  But at the pointy end, he's like, the fact that we have all
• 58:31
  of these great international athletes in our competitions and
• 58:34
  and as training partners is only helping take us forward.
• 58:39
  And you can say that like Grant Fisher, multiple Olympic
• 58:43
  medallist Graham Blanks, who won the NCAA cross country last
• 58:49
  year, went on to represent America in this most recent.
• 58:55
  Well, I think he represented them in the Olympics in Paris
• 58:57
  and then represented again at the world champs in Tokyo.
• 59:00
  So it is like such a good breeding ground for really top
• 59:05
  talent. And it's sort of forcing
• 59:07
  everyone to get better. So it's difficult.
• 59:11
  It's like, it's like in the, in the APL, like a, a, a majority
• 59:16
  of the English Premier League football players are not English
• 59:20
  born, right. But they English born
• 59:26
  footballers have the benefit of all the facilities and
• 59:28
  everything that comes with having the best domestic
• 59:32
  competition arguably in the world at their doorstep.
• 59:36
  So it's tricky. I think the NCAA system is
• 59:40
  phenomenally good, but you probably want to strike a
• 59:44
  balance between looking after your, you know, your homegrown
• 59:48
  people and ensuring that you you have this really great
• 59:52
  competition, which is improved upon by the fact that you
• 59:57
  recruit in really good international athletes.
• 1:00:01
  Yeah, that's what that's kind of, I was going to say as with
• 1:00:03
  anything, there's, there's a balance, right?
• 1:00:05
  And you don't have to be 100% left or 100% right.
• 1:00:10
  So you can find the happy medium and there's no point gatekeeping
• 1:00:13
  things like that because you're just going to get left behind
• 1:00:16
  and essentially other countries will probably just go out and
• 1:00:19
  recruit these people to come over anyway, so.
• 1:00:22
  Yeah, it's tricky, right? Because you look at Japan's,
• 1:00:24
  what Japan have been able to do, and they protect their culture
• 1:00:27
  at all costs. And they've got a great thing
• 1:00:30
  going in what they have with their kittens and their
• 1:00:33
  corporate runners. But you'd like you'd, you'd like
• 1:00:37
  to think that there's some sort of middle ground where maybe you
• 1:00:40
  cap the number of international athletes on your roster and you
• 1:00:45
  and you deal it that way. That way you're ensuring that
• 1:00:47
  the pipeline of local runners is being fed and met.
• 1:00:53
  And but at the same time you're, you're creating what is the best
• 1:00:59
  university or all sort of apprenticeship into professional
• 1:01:03
  athletics that there is in the world.
• 1:01:05
  Yes, good point you make about Japan.
• 1:01:07
  And when you said that when we initially talked about it
• 1:01:10
  because we shared the rail and stuff, I thought, yeah, like
• 1:01:15
  literally Japan is 100% Japanese.
• 1:01:17
  And then I've just realized they do have a couple of Kenyans and
• 1:01:22
  Africans spread amongst the the Akaden teams, don't they?
• 1:01:25
  So wonder how they managed to still create that sense where
• 1:01:29
  it's like Japanese first. Yeah, I thought some some unis A
• 1:01:35
  strict no foreign foreigner policy and then the other ones
• 1:01:38
  it's like limited to one or two roster spots.
• 1:01:40
  So it's really limited though it doesn't they then by doing that
• 1:01:45
  means that it doesn't influence the culture too much.
• 1:01:48
  But then you look at I think didn't the Japanese national 10K
• 1:01:51
  record just get broken? Might have been over the weekend
• 1:01:54
  and it could have been like 27 O five.
• 1:01:56
  I think for contact and, but for context, the guy that wins the
• 1:02:00
  NCAA cross Hab, Tom Samuel has run 2651 says he's run 15 odd
• 1:02:07
  seconds quicker than the Japanese champion.
• 1:02:11
  And he's in Col. He's in the college system, you
• 1:02:13
  know, the undergraduate to a full time professional athlete.
• 1:02:16
  So that talks to how the, the, the level that is the NCAA
• 1:02:22
  system compared to, you know, the Japanese system, which you
• 1:02:26
  know, if they could, you run an argument if there were better
• 1:02:29
  athletes going through, there's more high quality athletes going
• 1:02:34
  through the Japanese university system that they would have
• 1:02:37
  better results. The the point you make about the
• 1:02:42
  comparison to the EPL is a good one because they also have like
• 1:02:47
  a homegrown talent policy whereby like X number of players
• 1:02:51
  within any club must be English or British.
• 1:02:55
  And you think if you applied that or a similar rule into the
• 1:02:58
  NCAA teams, like you're only allowed two foreigners or
• 1:03:02
  whatever, then it could work quite well.
• 1:03:05
  Because then also, if there was maybe like two or three
• 1:03:09
  established foreigners on the team, then if they were trying
• 1:03:12
  to continue recruiting other people, then they wouldn't be
• 1:03:16
  attracted to that university because they'd be like, well,
• 1:03:18
  no, you've already got your two or three main guys.
• 1:03:21
  So I'm not going to be chosen to run anyway.
• 1:03:24
  So I'll go elsewhere. And it would just kind of spread
• 1:03:26
  the load. And I found the guy, the fellow
• 1:03:30
  who bit back at Ice Stone. It's the coach of the team who
• 1:03:34
  won. So Oklahoma State won the team,
• 1:03:37
  the team race, Dave Smith and ironically, surprise surprise,
• 1:03:43
  rarely Oklahoma State have 3 Kenyans, an Israeli and a
• 1:03:47
  Moroccan on their team. So he's just defending his ship
• 1:03:51
  really isn't he? And like the well, whilst the
• 1:03:55
  rules are the way they are, then you, you just have to play
• 1:03:59
  within the boundaries of what you're able to do so at the
• 1:04:02
  minute. And he's won at least two in the
• 1:04:05
  past couple of years so. I'm sure we recap the men's
• 1:04:09
  results. Yeah, go for it.
• 1:04:13
  So have Tom Samuel, who we've mentioned on the podcast before
• 1:04:16
  because he was very briefly a front runner athlete, should we
• 1:04:20
  dare we say? And importantly said said thanks
• 1:04:24
  for the shout out on the on the WhatsApp chat.
• 1:04:27
  Did you, did you say that? I can't believe he's still in
• 1:04:29
  the group chat. This is This is quite.
• 1:04:31
  Bizarre. Particularly when we post all of
• 1:04:34
  our workout, you know, track Tuesday's coming up guys, RA RA,
• 1:04:39
  RA. He's obviously very, very
• 1:04:42
  polite, otherwise he would have left.
• 1:04:44
  Yeah, he's lovely. But yes, he won and he made a
• 1:04:49
  move with a mile to go. There was a huge group, I don't
• 1:04:52
  know if you saw the the race, but basically there was maybe 30
• 1:04:55
  odd runners through 7 KS and that included the likes of is it
• 1:05:01
  Gary Martin? Who's The Who finished 7th I
• 1:05:05
  think yeah, he's the guy with glasses.
• 1:05:08
  So I think I tipped as one of the smokies in the US trials for
• 1:05:11
  the 1500 he so he was in there. So yeah, you had a lot of is
• 1:05:16
  quite wide open and you're wondering if this is left to a
• 1:05:19
  spurn up, you know, could he feature or what's going to
• 1:05:21
  happen? And Hab Tom has finished second
• 1:05:25
  in the last two years has not won an NCAA title and came
• 1:05:28
  across from after running in Bathurst for Eritrea whenever
• 1:05:35
  that was 2022 or early 2023 went over to New Mexico and it's been
• 1:05:41
  running for them ever since and still still chasing his first
• 1:05:43
  NCAA title. He and had had some pretty
• 1:05:47
  savage moves on him. Graham Blanks last year did what
• 1:05:50
  basically have Tom did to the field this year, which is just
• 1:05:53
  make this devastating kick with about a mile to go.
• 1:05:56
  And he's looking over his shoulder a couple of times in
• 1:05:59
  the last K or so because I think he was just making sure he could
• 1:06:03
  judge his effort. But yeah, he was too good.
• 1:06:05
  Ended up having time to do a couple of victory moves over the
• 1:06:09
  line, which was pretty cool. Second was Rocky Hanson, who he
• 1:06:16
  I think he's sort of come from the clouds a bit.
• 1:06:18
  I think was I think he might have been 98th last year perhaps
• 1:06:24
  and has gone from that to second.
• 1:06:26
  I think he's had a bit of a some injuries and a few different
• 1:06:31
  setbacks, but he was looking really good and I think he was
• 1:06:34
  one of the favourites going into it and was sort of UPS and
• 1:06:38
  commented to say he's pretty upset that he let that move
• 1:06:40
  happened because he basically just didn't react in time, Knew
• 1:06:43
  something was going to happen. But Hab Tom was sitting back for
• 1:06:46
  a lot of the race and then when he went to the front just went
• 1:06:48
  bang and was too good. And then Solomon Kit Jogi was
• 1:06:54
  was third. But yeah, good race, Hab Tom,
• 1:06:58
  too good. Yeah, it seems like it's been a
• 1:07:02
  long time in the making that went given like you said, he was
• 1:07:05
  second last year. And do you remember the the
• 1:07:07
  video? It went like one of the most
• 1:07:09
  viral running videos I reckon with because he was running over
• 1:07:13
  the line with just one shoe. Blood coming out off his toes
• 1:07:17
  and yeah, it's looked pretty. Yeah, he did.
• 1:07:20
  He did it pretty tough last year and then yeah, it was second the
• 1:07:23
  year before that as well, I think so yeah, it's pretty good
• 1:07:26
  to to see it turn into to the dub I'm.
• 1:07:30
  Sure, Raff will be thrilled with us saying this, but Drakon?
• 1:07:33
  He'll be claiming he's coached NCAA champion now.
• 1:07:39
  We'll probably we'll have to look for look to Instagram for
• 1:07:42
  that probably be a real real cut together with Raff's head on it.
• 1:07:48
  How nice is that New Mexico kit by the way, do you reckon?
• 1:07:52
  Yeah, you like the bit of a bold colour, don't you?
• 1:07:56
  Yeah, similar to my What was it, the Bunbury kiss?
• 1:08:00
  That was a bit naughty that one, to be fair.
• 1:08:03
  The the Bunbury 5 order kit. With the Bunbury wrong direction
• 1:08:10
  race. Yeah, take us back as we're back
• 1:08:15
  running then. Yeah, I know.
• 1:08:17
  Well, as Owen was going through his thing, I was thinking of,
• 1:08:20
  I've forgotten the feeling of like the night before, you know,
• 1:08:22
  like the the anxiousness, but the anticipation and the
• 1:08:26
  excitement. And then in the morning, like
• 1:08:29
  when you're struggling to go the bathroom because you know, you
• 1:08:32
  need to and all this sorts of stuff.
• 1:08:34
  Like I can't wait to get back in there.
• 1:08:38
  I. Thought you still.
• 1:08:39
  I thought you said you were having those feelings on a
• 1:08:41
  Thursday now. Ahead of the Kings Park bike
• 1:08:44
  sessions. Yeah, doesn't quite live up to
• 1:08:47
  it, unfortunately. Sorry.
• 1:08:52
  But now it's just the the feeling of racing, isn't it?
• 1:08:55
  Like just knowing that all the training that you're doing, like
• 1:08:58
  you, you get to put it on the line and hopefully get something
• 1:09:02
  back for it. Yeah, it knows you're not done
• 1:09:05
  running when you still want to have those feelings.
• 1:09:08
  Yeah, my, my 10 by 1 minutes. I'm quite I'm quite cut on it.
• 1:09:14
  No, it didn't. But in thinking about the NCAA
• 1:09:19
  stuff, it made me think how racing for a team when you're
• 1:09:23
  like motivated by helping your teammates and not just chasing a
• 1:09:27
  personal best can often bring out like more of you than when
• 1:09:33
  say, if you're running just a time trial, trying to run a new
• 1:09:36
  PB. Like when things get tough, you
• 1:09:38
  can easily be like, Oh, it's not my day, whatever.
• 1:09:40
  Whereas when that moment happens when you know that you're
• 1:09:43
  running with Dean and Owen, then you, you find something and you
• 1:09:48
  can maybe dig a little deeper. And it makes me because we used
• 1:09:51
  to have a mini series like that at home and it's, you would
• 1:09:55
  never want it to be like your main focus.
• 1:09:58
  But it's, it's nice to kind of have that in between like kind
• 1:10:02
  of your own personal a races. You, you, you don't always have
• 1:10:06
  to do them at 100%, but you could do like an an 80% effort
• 1:10:09
  and make it part of your long run and all this kind of things
• 1:10:12
  to just help the team out. It's a nice way to kind of bring
• 1:10:16
  your training together as well. Yeah, it's a sham.
• 1:10:21
  There's not a bit more of that. So it made me think we've we've
• 1:10:25
  theorized on races and stuff in the past, wouldn't a perfect
• 1:10:30
  format. I don't don't know if it'd be
• 1:10:32
  possible in Perth, but like a team focused 5K one month, then
• 1:10:37
  maybe like 4 to 6 weeks later a 10K, then another four to six
• 1:10:42
  weeks later 1/2 marathon. So you get the team elements of
• 1:10:45
  motivation. But then you're also you make it
• 1:10:49
  on a fast flat course where everyone is chasing PBS too.
• 1:10:52
  So the team drives you on and you all run PBS potentially
• 1:10:56
  rather than just being out for yourself.
• 1:11:01
  Little Echidan style. Yeah, you're chasing the who's
• 1:11:06
  who's bib would be on the back in front.
• 1:11:09
  I won't name any names but you, you attach yourself to that bib
• 1:11:12
  and you're like, I need to get past them.
• 1:11:17
  We have to start getting into events.
• 1:11:20
  Yeah, that would be a start. Do you want to quickly tell us
• 1:11:24
  what you've been up to past week or so?
• 1:11:28
  Yes. So I've gone from 15 minutes to
• 1:11:35
  20 minutes twice a day, which I did every day this week other
• 1:11:41
  than, or last week should I say, other than Saturday.
• 1:11:44
  Saturday I did a big ride, so I thought better of it than to and
• 1:11:51
  the cricket. So I, yeah, I so in short, I ran
• 1:11:58
  52 K, so 4 hours of running just with all those little 20 minute
• 1:12:04
  runs added up road just under 200 KS and elliptic cord for
• 1:12:11
  about an hour. So yeah, so that was my week
• 1:12:15
  would have been about 11 hours of of exercise Thursday morning,
• 1:12:20
  bike intervals, Saturday morning, that sort of two group
• 1:12:26
  rides, I suppose me meshed together just over 100 KS with
• 1:12:31
  some, you know, intervals or higher heart rate stuff.
• 1:12:33
  So that's where I'm getting my higher intensity stuff in.
• 1:12:36
  And yeah, just starting and a couple of gym sessions.
• 1:12:40
  So yeah, I'm, I'm up to 30 minutes this week.
• 1:12:47
  So feeling a little bit sore today, which is a bit of a
• 1:12:50
  shame. But I just see how it just see
• 1:12:52
  how it goes and keep giving feedback and I think still
• 1:12:56
  trending in the right direction, which is good.
• 1:13:00
  No, this isn't what you want to hear, but the fact that you're
• 1:13:03
  feeling a little sore almost makes me feel a little bit
• 1:13:06
  better from mine. Feeling a little sore from like
• 1:13:09
  incrementally increasing the workloads as well?
• 1:13:13
  Yeah. And so, yeah, it's a good point.
• 1:13:16
  And so I think when I first started the return to run, the
• 1:13:20
  15 minute runs felt very uncomfortable to begin with.
• 1:13:23
  And then they got to the point where there was no pain.
• 1:13:26
  Then I went to 20 minutes. First little while, 20 minutes
• 1:13:29
  felt a bit uncomfortable. Then by the end I'm like, this
• 1:13:31
  feels fine. And then to the head, like,
• 1:13:33
  yeah, it's not, it's not linear. Like some of these runs feel
• 1:13:38
  completely pain free and then other days they feel a bit
• 1:13:41
  uncomfortable, which is annoying.
• 1:13:44
  But I think what we are getting told is not unexpected.
• 1:13:48
  So I just keep sharing the feedback to you know, and keep
• 1:13:56
  getting guidance on if I need to pull back.
• 1:13:58
  If not, I just keep the progressing and I'm definitely,
• 1:14:02
  if I look back to where I was 4 weeks ago, it's it's very
• 1:14:05
  different, which is a good, which is a nice thing.
• 1:14:08
  So whilst you're feeling a little sore now, do you do to 30
• 1:14:11
  minutes again tomorrow or what's the goal with?
• 1:14:14
  That I don't know. I probably won't overthink it.
• 1:14:18
  I, I, I will, if I, if I wake up and feel fine, I will.
• 1:14:21
  I, I, if I wake up and don't have time in the morning, I
• 1:14:25
  won't. But I, it's, it's not at the
• 1:14:26
  point the pain scores, not very high pain scores like one out of
• 1:14:29
  10. So I most likely will.
• 1:14:32
  But at the same time, if I, if it feels sore when I start, if
• 1:14:35
  it I, I've, I've not done ran a couple of times because it
• 1:14:40
  clearly didn't feel right. But otherwise I'll just run and
• 1:14:43
  then just share the scores with physio and go from there.
• 1:14:47
  We've joked previously about your CDL.
• 1:14:50
  In this current environment, how did last week's activities
• 1:14:55
  cumulate to affect that? Yeah, good.
• 1:14:58
  It's just trending up. It's sort of the my CDL normally
• 1:15:02
  directionally I'm trying to increase it by two.
• 1:15:05
  My fitness score up by two a week if I'm in training.
• 1:15:08
  That's my general rule of thumb went up by two.
• 1:15:11
  So that's, that's, you know, that's fine.
• 1:15:17
  The intent is that the cycling will scale down as the running
• 1:15:20
  scales up. But the I don't, I don't want to
• 1:15:24
  scale the running up too quickly obviously.
• 1:15:26
  So the cycling will hang around for a bit, but this amount of
• 1:15:29
  training feels sustainable, which is good.
• 1:15:32
  So particularly those, the Thursday and the Saturday rides
• 1:15:35
  where you're getting like a little bit of intensity out of
• 1:15:38
  them, you'll maybe look to keep those for longer and replace the
• 1:15:41
  rest of the like just rough called it tapping, like just tap
• 1:15:47
  the pedals like the easy rides, replace them with the runs.
• 1:15:50
  Yeah, exactly. That's directionally the plan.
• 1:15:55
  How about you? Yeah, sounds good.
• 1:15:57
  Somewhat similar, although my week was a bit more interrupted
• 1:16:01
  with the trip down to Margaret River and stuff.
• 1:16:03
  So not my most consistent week, but I've been pretty consistent
• 1:16:08
  with the riding for the past eight weeks or so, so I'm OK to
• 1:16:11
  let that slide. I think I ended up only like
• 1:16:15
  maybe 120 KS on the bike, an hour elliptical.
• 1:16:19
  But then more importantly my return to run program increased
• 1:16:24
  to. So I chatted to Steve about how
• 1:16:27
  we would increase 5 by 1 minute and I said I feel like the the
• 1:16:33
  one minute interval isn't like doing any damage.
• 1:16:36
  And particularly the initially last week we were off like a 4
• 1:16:40
  minute walk or whatever. If you Remember Me saying I was
• 1:16:42
  like that just feels like a waste of time.
• 1:16:46
  So we brought that down to two minutes and made the 1 minutes
• 1:16:51
  times 10 rather than times 5, which is a big jump.
• 1:16:55
  But I said I felt more comfortable doing more reps
• 1:16:59
  rather than taking the one minute up to two minutes
• 1:17:01
  straight away because I felt like that would have been more
• 1:17:03
  of a risk. So at first similar to you, like
• 1:17:10
  even on the same day that I would do the run, the hail would
• 1:17:13
  be quite sore and then the next morning quite sore as well.
• 1:17:17
  But then after the third time, which I think was would have
• 1:17:21
  been yesterday. So today it's been fine and
• 1:17:24
  yesterday it was fine as well. So you just almost need to get
• 1:17:28
  through a couple to remind yourself that it is slowly
• 1:17:32
  getting better and reflect on how it was previously and stuff.
• 1:17:36
  So yeah, hopefully can still keep moving forward.
• 1:17:40
  I think tomorrow I'll try five by two minutes, which is the
• 1:17:43
  next step forward. So probably expect it to be a
• 1:17:47
  little sore off that. But like I said last week,
• 1:17:50
  hopefully just compound that, make sure the pains not really
• 1:17:54
  anywhere and then see where the next step is.
• 1:17:57
  Goal is to get to 30 minutes worth of interval and then start
• 1:18:02
  reducing the intervals and like pad the runs the individual run
• 1:18:08
  elements out. So finally moving somewhere.
• 1:18:12
  Just going to be a slow slow Rd. I think so, but nothing to rush
• 1:18:18
  to so and it's all about just loading, loading things upright
• 1:18:23
  like I what I've noticed the last couple of weeks is every is
• 1:18:27
  much more familiar discomfort. You know, the normal stiffness
• 1:18:31
  and in normal areas, which is good, has to be back feeling
• 1:18:35
  something that's much more familiar discomfort and
• 1:18:39
  hopefully everything's stiffening up and getting ready
• 1:18:42
  for proper running soon. I don't know.
• 1:18:45
  Have you been doing any drills? I've been doing drills before
• 1:18:48
  each of my runs and I'm enjoying doing that again.
• 1:18:50
  You know, like getting the muscles firing.
• 1:18:52
  Usually when you're running like big training weeks, the drills
• 1:18:56
  are pretty flat and stiff, whereas now I'm feeling quite
• 1:18:59
  poppy and springy, so it's a nice change.
• 1:19:03
  I've been, I've been doing activations before my runs but
• 1:19:08
  and I've been lifting a lot more.
• 1:19:10
  That's probably the noticeable thing because I've got a bit
• 1:19:12
  more capacity. The gym stuff's improved a lot,
• 1:19:16
  which has been fun. The body composition will be
• 1:19:20
  changing. You'll have big quads hanging
• 1:19:22
  off your legs. Yeah, yeah, I'll have to.
• 1:19:27
  No, no, Yeah, yeah. Not quite.
• 1:19:33
  Not quite moved into hybrid Rockstar territory just yet.
• 1:19:40
  Hi, so reckon YouTube Diaries then I am bringing one to the
• 1:19:44
  table in what feels like a rare occurrence, but we may have
• 1:19:50
  covered this channel before he kind of flicks in now, so
• 1:19:52
  Yakubinger Britain. Anyway, it was one I watched
• 1:19:54
  last week and I've also come to realize that we're not going to
• 1:19:58
  have an unlimited amount of channels to do a new one every
• 1:20:02
  single week. But maybe important to draw
• 1:20:05
  people's attention back to certain channels when they
• 1:20:08
  release like a a good or an interesting video like the
• 1:20:11
  Clayton Young cycles through a series and stuff.
• 1:20:13
  So Yakubinga Britson release one kind of like a reflection on a
• 1:20:18
  season. Obviously he had.
• 1:20:21
  By his own admission, and I'll quote him in a minute, a very
• 1:20:24
  poor season and hardly even a season at that, but he did
• 1:20:28
  manage to arrive in Tokyo and university commerce compete to
• 1:20:35
  some extent. And I think he he comes across
• 1:20:40
  like very likeable. A couple of years ago he was
• 1:20:44
  quite mustard like love him or hate him.
• 1:20:47
  And I felt like the majority of people kind of like thought he
• 1:20:51
  was quite arrogant and didn't really like him.
• 1:20:53
  But since he's come onto YouTube, he's he really shows
• 1:20:56
  his personality and he he's quite in a niche way, quite
• 1:21:01
  funny. But he gets asked by the
• 1:21:05
  interviewer who you you can't see.
• 1:21:07
  He says. So how would you describe your
• 1:21:09
  season? Then Yakub and he goes terrible
• 1:21:13
  fucking season and it's just like nice to hear someone be
• 1:21:19
  like so honest and also be able to like laugh about it so soon
• 1:21:23
  after considering he's like one of the best athletes in the
• 1:21:26
  world. He's had a fucking terrible year
• 1:21:30
  and he's just laughing about it. Yeah, I liked him a lot for his
• 1:21:37
  how he conducted himself at the world champs because I don't
• 1:21:43
  know, it's easy to to be it's easy to be OK when things are
• 1:21:49
  going well, but they weren't going well and he lost and he
• 1:21:53
  still grit and fought and threw whatever cards, played whatever
• 1:21:57
  cards he could in that 5K final was pretty humbled.
• 1:22:01
  But still there's, you know, ran what it what he ran 13 low or
• 1:22:05
  whatever he ran to finish, you know, a respectable position in
• 1:22:09
  the final. Still tried to put himself in
• 1:22:11
  the mix. And just the way he sort of
• 1:22:12
  carried himself with it and the way he was optimistic that he
• 1:22:15
  got something out of that. And hopefully it takes him
• 1:22:17
  forward. Just seemed very far more mature
• 1:22:19
  than just someone that had just found his way to the top and was
• 1:22:23
  just just wanted to stay there at the cost of everything.
• 1:22:26
  And everyone was pretty seemed pretty wise and pretty aware of
• 1:22:31
  where his fitness is AT and what he needs to do.
• 1:22:33
  And yeah, I don't know. That's that's it right?
• 1:22:36
  They try and change that narrative almost in this video.
• 1:22:40
  So like that his champs were from the outside seen as a
• 1:22:44
  failure, obviously because of how he ran.
• 1:22:48
  But it actually shows like his camp and his team celebrating
• 1:22:52
  when he runs the 5K. And they explain he's literally
• 1:22:56
  ran 13O2, which is like a second off the standard, which so many
• 1:23:02
  professional athletes throughout the world couldn't actually hit
• 1:23:05
  that standard. And he's done that basically
• 1:23:08
  often, often like no training, just cross training and kind of
• 1:23:13
  pulled a couple of sessions together towards the end.
• 1:23:16
  So that and it's, it's a good kind of like reminder as to not
• 1:23:19
  just be so blinded by like the black and white of the results
• 1:23:22
  and appreciate the process and everything else that goes with
• 1:23:26
  it. Yeah.
• 1:23:28
  The fact that they could contextualise that, when someone
• 1:23:31
  who's so accustomed to such remarkable success, when you're
• 1:23:36
  able to contextualise that and celebrate that, I think that's
• 1:23:40
  that's. Very cool and in light of his
• 1:23:44
  strange or interesting sense of humour, he there was a few
• 1:23:48
  quotes which I wrote down when when he said them and he is kind
• 1:23:52
  of like being sarcastic as well. And he's, he's in the pool doing
• 1:23:55
  some water jogging, Aqua jogging at the time.
• 1:23:58
  And he goes, it's not the pain that kills you, it's the
• 1:24:02
  realization of pain. So you just have to turn it off.
• 1:24:08
  Yeah, and it's a good reminder that he is crazy and.
• 1:24:13
  The guy says where did you get that from?
• 1:24:15
  He says. I just made it up just now,
• 1:24:17
  yeah. Exactly no one said that.
• 1:24:22
  They also ask him whilst he's on the he's on the elliptical and
• 1:24:27
  relative to how I feel like I go on the elliptical, I'm probably
• 1:24:31
  just like plodding along and he is absolutely nailing it.
• 1:24:35
  I fucking hate the elliptical. Because.
• 1:24:38
  I don't understand how people can get around it and like
• 1:24:41
  thrashing yourself on the elliptical must feel.
• 1:24:44
  It's the most awkward feeling going around.
• 1:24:45
  I've just conceded to the fact that I am no good at it, but
• 1:24:48
  I'll just do it because I have to.
• 1:24:50
  Time has slowed down to like times nought .5 on the
• 1:24:53
  elliptical surely at the least. I yeah, I just, I'm just give up
• 1:24:58
  that I can do a day, any sort of decent work out on there.
• 1:25:01
  And it's just a function of time.
• 1:25:03
  And so the only thing that I like is that you can see the
• 1:25:06
  phone and watch something on there.
• 1:25:07
  That's about the only thing that elliptical has gone for in my
• 1:25:11
  mind. And even then it's like so long,
• 1:25:13
  you watch one video and it's like, Oh my God.
• 1:25:17
  Yeah, I know. No way.
• 1:25:20
  Give me a ride any day. Literally, I have to battle with
• 1:25:24
  myself, like go in there knowing or thinking I'm going to do an
• 1:25:28
  hour and then firstly have to get to half an hour.
• 1:25:31
  Like that's some absolute main battle.
• 1:25:33
  And then you can extend to 45 and then the finish line's
• 1:25:37
  insight and you just string your way up towards.
• 1:25:40
  Sometimes I even end up ending the activity on like 58 and I'm
• 1:25:43
  just like oh fuck this. Yeah, that's it.
• 1:25:49
  This shit house. Yeah, not a fan.
• 1:25:52
  But yeah, they, they ask him what you're thinking about
• 1:25:55
  whilst you're on here and he's, what's he say?
• 1:25:59
  I call it The Cave of the brain Dead.
• 1:26:02
  No thoughts, just the clock. It's built different.
• 1:26:09
  So we've said, oh, I've said like lots of YouTube channels,
• 1:26:13
  the kind of copy and paste templates at the minute.
• 1:26:15
  But his one, to be fair, is is a bit different.
• 1:26:23
  Double Trouble. I haven't got anything massive
• 1:26:24
  for us, I'm not going to lie. We can take Owen's fume at the
• 1:26:32
  stream of National Cross an island.
• 1:26:36
  Yeah, that was poor. Like I was doing my best to try
• 1:26:40
  and get around it, but it was horrendous.
• 1:26:42
  Like the finishing shoot, the microphone was cutting in and
• 1:26:45
  out. It was, yeah, like, come on and
• 1:26:50
  all that for all the kids and stuff that have travelled all
• 1:26:52
  the way across the country to race.
• 1:26:54
  Like it'd be lovely for them to get their parents and loved ones
• 1:26:57
  and family and stuff to capture that.
• 1:27:00
  Those moments just find a way to capture it.
• 1:27:04
  Yeah. And like with him saying that
• 1:27:05
  wasn't decided until the day of or the day before or whatever,
• 1:27:09
  like surely that's come across their minds as part of the
• 1:27:13
  planning and they've obviously decided no and but and then it's
• 1:27:16
  even more weird to then throw whatever they threw together.
• 1:27:22
  And like, there must have been thousands of people that race
• 1:27:26
  over the course of the day, like Owen's race had 260 people in
• 1:27:29
  it. And there was, it was from under
• 1:27:32
  elevens the the OR whatever it was all the way through to open
• 1:27:36
  men and women like, I don't know, charge an extra dollar
• 1:27:40
  each and that would give you enough money to give a very
• 1:27:43
  great coverage of, of the event so that everyone can follow
• 1:27:47
  along. Like for those in similar
• 1:27:50
  position to Ireland where the whole season or this has been
• 1:27:54
  their main focus for ages, like how, how nice would it be for
• 1:27:57
  them to have it live streamed and be able to watch it back,
• 1:28:00
  Whether they saw one minute, one second of action or 10 minutes
• 1:28:06
  of action It's cool. Yeah.
• 1:28:09
  And to Owen's point, like the quality, the calibre of runners
• 1:28:13
  that were at the pointy end of those men and women's races,
• 1:28:16
  like there's, there's such draw cards in and of themselves that
• 1:28:21
  you would think that would warrant putting in some effort
• 1:28:25
  to to highlight that to everyone.
• 1:28:29
  Yeah, surely Athletics Ireland would want to showcase that.
• 1:28:32
  Maybe that's why they made the last minute decision, because
• 1:28:34
  they weren't aware the staff list was going to be so talented
• 1:28:37
  and then they're like, oh shit, we need to show this in some
• 1:28:40
  capacity. That's been one of the fun
• 1:28:44
  things about speaking to Ireland, particularly since he's
• 1:28:47
  moved home, is learning more about the the Irish Sea and
• 1:28:50
  isn't it? And lots of the athletes which
• 1:28:52
  maybe you wouldn't be aware of or know so much of where it not
• 1:28:56
  for Owen. Well, I'd fall down just trying
• 1:29:00
  to pronounce their names, so yeah, no, it's been very good.
• 1:29:06
  All right then just to finish this off, a reminder to everyone
• 1:29:09
  that we've got the Australian Cross Country Selection race
• 1:29:14
  this Friday night in Stromlo, Canberra.
• 1:29:18
  So we we went through the start lists last week.
• 1:29:20
  If you haven't heard last week's episode then go and check that
• 1:29:23
  out. I had an absolute nightmare in
• 1:29:25
  red a previous cross cross country start list out, but Owen
• 1:29:31
  pulled me out of the bag and we did actually eventually name the
• 1:29:35
  correct names. So they are incredibly deep and
• 1:29:38
  it makes for a very exciting race with backgrounds from track
• 1:29:43
  and backgrounds from distance road running coming together to
• 1:29:46
  fight for these places on the at the World Cross Country race in
• 1:29:49
  in the US in January. The there's a few names I can
• 1:29:55
  see the shortlist that you've got here, but there's a few
• 1:29:58
  names that aren't on this list that I'm looking at as well,
• 1:30:02
  like Seth O'Donnell, Morgan MacDonald, who's the triathlete
• 1:30:09
  turned 61, Minuteman, Jimmy Whelan, Jimmy Whelan like so
• 1:30:15
  there's those three and just to read off the names again, but
• 1:30:18
  Sam Clifford's. Wait wait before you do because
• 1:30:20
  you might make make a howler like I did.
• 1:30:23
  This list is so it was context because only like the top two or
• 1:30:29
  three are also selected from the race.
• 1:30:32
  So this list was a list of the fastest 10K times by Australian
• 1:30:39
  athletes within the qualification window as to
• 1:30:42
  suggest who might be a shoe in for the selectors places.
• 1:30:48
  That makes that makes far more sense, all right.
• 1:30:51
  But the names you mentioned are in on the start list.
• 1:30:53
  All right, are actually racing as well.
• 1:30:55
  That's right. That's what I thought.
• 1:30:56
  OK. But yeah, some of these I don't
• 1:30:58
  think are, but it should be stacked, right?
• 1:31:02
  Is is the point. Exactly that and hopefully we
• 1:31:06
  can get a good stream like you were saying, be cool to watch it
• 1:31:09
  and follow along. Yeah, if we do come across it,
• 1:31:12
  which hopefully we will, we can post it on our socials.
• 1:31:17
  All right, Thanks very much and thanks everyone for listening.
• 1:31:20
  If you've made it this far, feel like don't actually like
• 1:31:22
  acknowledge people listening week in, week out.
• 1:31:25
  So we do appreciate it and we'll see you next week.
• 1:31:29
  See you mate.