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A trail running podcast for all runners' ether you're at the front, the middle or the back of the pack. Hosted by Benn Coubrough, an accomplished ultra-endurance athlete and Mitch Clark an everyday trail warrior, gear nerd, and an unapologetic trail running fanboy. This show dives into the raw, ridiculous, and rewarding world of running wild.
HappyTrails Pod (00:03.285)
Alrighty, welcome back to another episode of the Happy Trails podcast. I'm Mitch Clark, one of your hosts. With me today is Ben Kubra on episode 16. Benny, how are you, mate?
Benn Coubrough (00:15.652)
Very well thank you Mitch. Nice to have some sunshine.
HappyTrails Pod (00:17.493)
That's good. Ah, it's stunning out there, isn't it? We'll, a bit of a run out in this weather later on this morning, hopefully. Very, very good. Benny, joining us today, someone you know quite well, local podiatrist Blake Withers. Been in, obviously been in podiatry for quite some time. We'll rip into that, where that all started. Hosts his own quite successful podcast, The Sports Medicine Project.
Benn Coubrough (00:21.788)
Mm-hmm.
Benn Coubrough (00:26.236)
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
HappyTrails Pod (00:46.645)
which are really excited to find out a little bit more about. A board member of the Podiatry Association, obviously very, very ingrained in the industry. So really excited to pick Blake's brain, especially around some PhD work he's doing now in the running and injury space. So really excited to dive into that as well. And Blake, mate, thanks for joining us on the podcast. Welcome.
Blake Withers (01:12.544)
Mate, thanks so much for having me on. I'm looking forward to it. When you said about getting out for a run, we have a Friday run group that I do with a couple of mates who just do a little bit of running. And I got to tell you what, during winter things drop off, but in summer with the weather's coming out, the sun's coming up, we had all of us there this morning and it was beautiful. So good running in the morning. It's good, it's really good.
Benn Coubrough (01:29.9)
Mmm. good. good.
HappyTrails Pod (01:32.367)
Awesome, Where did you get out this morning? It would have been nice down towards the beaches or?
Blake Withers (01:37.349)
yeah, Newie Beach, we start at six o'clock and we just go 5K out to the break wall and back and it's good, nice, slow, kind of 530 pace and we just yarn and then grab coffee after. It's great, it's really, really good.
HappyTrails Pod (01:39.571)
Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (01:47.837)
Yeah, beautiful. Awesome, awesome.
Benn Coubrough (01:48.507)
Yeah, no, very good. Now I think, I mean a lot of people, I get the name for being busy, but Blake is another very busy boy.
Blake Withers (01:59.214)
you
Yeah, I do. I'm lucky enough to wear a lot of different hats. mean, like predominantly, and I say this whenever I talk to even with clinicians, like predominantly I'm in the clinic face to face with patients and I love working with runners. I'm a runner myself and I get excited. I love to see people and help people in pain get back to any form of physical activity. And I work predominantly as a musculoskeletal podiatrist. So people with below knee pain, know, shins plinths, plantar fascia, forefoot pain, you know, will come in to see us and we'll go through
Benn Coubrough (02:04.988)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (02:29.936)
everything can, know, rehab programs, running programs, strength programs, all that type of thing. But I get that little bit of extra excitement when I see a runner and I see them book online or they found me through some other avenue, just because I feel like I just have this connection because I mean, I run and I know.
what it's like to be injured. know how much it sucks and just, you feel like you lose part of your identity. And sometimes at the end of the day, even if I don't feel like getting out for a run and I've just seen six injured runners, I'm like, I need to get out for a run because at the moment my body's good. I've got to appreciate it while I can. And that kind of led me now to wanting to do a PhD and try and figure out, you know, potentially why people get injured and if we can do anything prevention wise and can we have some smart training goals for, know, that the new, sorry, training habits for the new runner and also the,
Benn Coubrough (03:01.596)
Mm.
Blake Withers (03:16.162)
experience which is a really big topic but it's really good and I love it and I feel like I'm doing this anyway so it's good to do that with the Newcastle University.
HappyTrails Pod (03:18.837)
Mmm.
HappyTrails Pod (03:23.445)
Let's bury it.
Benn Coubrough (03:25.34)
And I mean just to name the like a man you're obviously a sports podiatrist of a multidisciplinary sports medicine clinic you've got a PhD candidate podiatry national conference speaker your host your own podcast as we just mentioned and and being a board member at the National Podiatry Association But you also you also a lecturer at the biomechanics at Newcastle Uni and you're also writing for the national magazine stride so that's a lot of Any work and it's an achieved podiatry
Blake Withers (03:51.222)
Yeah, yeah, my partner. Yeah, I'm my partner is a physio. Yeah, yeah, and achieve and we have a business in port and there's actually some social media stuff and do a bit of YouTube and do some shoe reviews and get to work with some of the shoe companies. So like I work nine to five, but when I get home, I get my training in and then I'm working late into the night. And it's always been easier for me because people hear that and other clinicians will hear that and other people are like, God, you must be busy. I really enjoy it. So for me, it doesn't feel like work. And you know, like the
Benn Coubrough (03:55.294)
as well.
HappyTrails Pod (03:56.629)
You
HappyTrails Pod (04:20.213)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (04:21.166)
classic saying of, you know, if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. And I've to be honest, it's not always like that, but getting to be around runners and learn things and just be involved in it is, it's just really awesome. So I feel like I'm the typical, stereotypical maybe runner who loves running, but I just love to learn about it too.
Benn Coubrough (04:24.325)
Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (04:34.197)
Cough
Benn Coubrough (04:39.004)
You just eat like you're passionate and that's why and that's how it works. Like if you're passionate about something, it's not overloaded, it's just part of what you do and the throughing of everything about running and dealing and just the connection that you have with people to help people.
Blake Withers (04:42.221)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (04:59.886)
Yeah, it makes it easy. I don't know if you guys have had this experience, like myself and my partner, when we go back to my family's place, my family are somewhat, they're physically active, but they would never dedicate time to gym or running. And anytime we go home, I mean, for us, you know, we have to run every day because we enjoy it and you know, we'll go home and my mom and dad are like, oh, you know, you're on holiday. You don't have to go out for a run. Just relax. You don't have to do it. I'm like, I actually enjoy doing this. Like it's a part of the holiday and making the holiday better.
is going out for a run and like when you really care about it. But it's funny talking to maybe non-runners or people that don't love as much. Either I cut out.
Benn Coubrough (05:34.72)
sorry Blake, you've cut out. Did you get that mentor? you've just cut out a bit. Your internet's sorta gone a bit funny. We didn't get that last bit.
HappyTrails Pod (05:38.269)
Yeah, yeah, no, it's...
HappyTrails Pod (05:49.429)
Yeah if it's short little bursts we can work around it. But that was a bit long. It'll pick it up. It'll probably actually pick up the audio but I don't know what you said. That's all.
Benn Coubrough (05:53.466)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (05:54.828)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (05:56.431)
Yeah. Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (06:03.002)
No, it was fine before and then all of sudden when we started recording, you can notice he's sort of like his, what do call it? Yeah, his video sort of went a bit fuzzy.
HappyTrails Pod (06:08.617)
Yeah, okay.
Blake Withers (06:09.804)
There we go.
HappyTrails Pod (06:14.846)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (06:15.896)
That should be better now. I just changed over my internet. Is that alright? Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (06:18.108)
There you go. Sweet. Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (06:18.697)
Bye, beautiful.
Blake Withers (06:22.286)
Now good, yeah, was just saying whenever I go home to my family, because they're somewhat physically active, but when I go home, they're like, oh, do you have to go out for a run? Come on, you're on holiday, just enjoy your time away. You know, come on, you don't have to go out and exercise. I'm like, I enjoy this, like I care about it, I wanna do it. So when you speak to people that love it as much, it always seems a little bit odd, but I'm sure you guys have had that experience too.
HappyTrails Pod (06:22.741)
That's right.
HappyTrails Pod (06:31.999)
Hmm.
Benn Coubrough (06:34.319)
Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (06:37.759)
Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (06:43.226)
Yeah, no. Yeah, no. That's alright, but... But, alright, well, sorry.
HappyTrails Pod (06:45.683)
All the time. Blake, you, sorry, just while it popped into my head, are you like me? I was an EP back in the day and I understand the biomechanics of it. I understand that what I should be doing every day. Are you a little bit like me and a do as I say, not as I do sort of person? Or are you a little bit better behaved and go through your own protocols and look after yourself a little bit better than I do?
Blake Withers (06:46.988)
Yeah, yeah.
Blake Withers (07:10.83)
Mmm.
Blake Withers (07:14.766)
Yeah, that's a good question. I think...
I would say I'm probably in the middle, but a little bit more like following truly what I believe and what I say. Of course, any human being, you know, is I think the they say the definition of wisdom is to listen to the advice that you would give. And I think I'm somewhat close to that. But I really try to be because the things that I'm saying, you know, both with the patients that I I work with and the people that I work with, but also online and on social media, if I'm speaking to, you know, thousands of people through the podcast or at a conference.
HappyTrails Pod (07:33.567)
Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (07:34.3)
Thank you.
Blake Withers (07:48.708)
to whatever, I really wanna believe and do what I'm saying. Like if I'm saying to someone, this is really important for your injury management or your load management or your fueling, I feel like I just have a moral obligation within myself to actually be doing that myself rather than like, yeah, I just go and do this, but then I'm doing the opposite. So I do try, but of course I do fall short. I do fall short.
HappyTrails Pod (08:06.709)
Yeah, yep.
Benn Coubrough (08:13.34)
No, it's always that bit of that line, but I was sort of the same with coaching. You prescribe programs and builds and volume and different things. You've to do it yourself. And when to back off. Exactly, you've got to listen to that. But also if you're prescribing stuff, obviously everyone can handle different load and intensities and volume. That's the key, I suppose, is just working out what that
HappyTrails Pod (08:27.763)
And when to back off, Benny? When to take a rest day, maybe?
Blake Withers (08:31.564)
When to take a rest day, yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (08:33.873)
Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (08:43.294)
can handle and adapt to. Everyone's different, it's just that line. suppose overall, if you still have that in your mind, well, what would I do in that situation? And that's where you can pull yourself back and also set someone in the right direction as well. That's the fun and games of when you're in the field.
I suppose if it's coaching or you're a clinician, it's sort of leading from example in a way, but then also having that hindsight to sort of pull back a little bit and go, think of the big picture.
Blake Withers (09:23.682)
Yeah, for sure. I I still remember my first ever injury, which you guys would be familiar with ITB, this band that runs down the outside, pretty sharp pain anytime your knee bends. And I always thought to myself before the injury, knowing what I know, I thought, I'm never gonna have a major injury because as soon as it pops up, I'm just gonna get on top of it. It'll be so easy. The first little feeling that I have, I'll manage it, it'll be fine. I did a hard 10K track session around...
HappyTrails Pod (09:45.727)
Mm.
Blake Withers (09:53.806)
in Newcastle and funnily enough, my alpha fly is one of the pods burst. So I was really rolling onto the outside, really loaded up the outside of my knee. I typically got sore and I was an idiot. I just kept running through it to the point where I couldn't run anymore. And my partner who is a physio, she's like, you gotta stop running. I'm like, I don't warm up, it'll be all right. And I was forced to take a week off. And I honestly was like, I cannot believe that I did this. And I just made every mistake in the book. I got back and then we went away for a weekend.
Benn Coubrough (10:07.12)
Mm.
HappyTrails Pod (10:07.317)
You
Blake Withers (10:23.78)
camping, I finally got back to running 5k. So my first 5k on a Friday before we went away camping felt great, knee was good. So the next morning, I went and ran a hard park run, doubled that afternoon and then ran a trail the next morning, which is a really high knee load. And I was back to square one again. I'm like, I'm the stereotypical runner. couldn't believe it. So I guess in that example, I definitely didn't find the rules there. So my partner's like, I said, you write my return to run program. I'm not saying anything. And she wrote it and then I got back to normal.
HappyTrails Pod (10:48.725)
I love it.
HappyTrails Pod (10:52.725)
But yeah.
Blake Withers (10:53.77)
So yeah, great example of that.
HappyTrails Pod (10:56.789)
I love it. suppose that's where passion takes over common sense, isn't it? It's that, yeah.
Benn Coubrough (10:56.966)
So.
Yup.
Blake Withers (11:00.108)
Yeah, yeah, just remember thinking back, I'm like, why? My knee was sore. And then when I'm talking with people in the clinic, because people always come in and they go, listen, I know you're be mad. I've had this pain for two months and I kept running through it. I'm like, trust me, I've done the exact same thing. Don't worry about what you've done. Let's just focus on what's into the future. So it happens, it happens.
Benn Coubrough (11:19.418)
Yeah, yeah. And sometimes you have to go through that same thing as well. It's a learning. Well... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's it, exactly. But well, yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (11:24.671)
Hmm. Yeah, it's my calf every prep. Touch wood, I haven't had it this one. Touch wood.
Blake Withers (11:24.748)
You do, you do. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I just said I did it for research. I did it for research. Yeah, yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (11:33.493)
Before we get too far down the line, obviously a really passionate runner, which comes through. But I'd love to take it back a little bit further and sort of what, growing up, what your sport was, what got you into that running and, you know, always been a newie local. Where did you sort of get into that? And then I guess what sort of, what led you down that physiology style?
Blake Withers (11:50.83)
Hmm.
HappyTrails Pod (12:01.055)
career and getting into podiatry, if you can touch on that.
Blake Withers (12:05.196)
Yeah, I was born in Newcastle and growing up, I was out in Lakewood Quarry and I wasn't a very physically active kid. I was always like quite overweight, didn't do much activity really at all. You know, I did the, you know, doing things, you know, played a bit of soccer and did a little bit of like beach stuff and whatever else. And then I went to a town called Elliston where Carrie and James Packer were from, which is about an hour out of Scone. So we had a farm up
there, moved up there, was living in the country and rode horses, rode bikes, rifles, all that kind of thing on a farm. Then I went to boarding school. And when I was in year seven, I was still pretty overweight, not very physically active. And then I had this awesome interaction with a teacher out there who was quite a good footy player. He played in the NRL and he was my football coach. And he showed me this like whole other avenue of physically active and how being active can just play into all these other domains in your life.
you your mental health, you know, how will you sleep? How will you communicate with others, your relationships? And when I look back on it now, it was honestly like a softer version of what David Goggins is like. Not talking about David Goggins today. But, and I really needed that. And I really like almost when I look back on it, changed my whole mentality of being physically active. And I just loved going to the gym, started playing footy. And then I played footy all the way up until I was 18. Moved down to New York hospital, university, studied podiatry, met my partner, Kelly, who's a
physio, then meet me to the Sun Tried Coast and Kelly, my partner, she'd run basically her whole life. She'd done half marathon. She'd done like seven half marathon. She'd always go out running in the morning. She absolutely loved it. And I was like, Oh, I think I could, I could enjoy running. It's great to be active. And I liked the feeling of finishing a run. So started doing it from there. This is in kind of 20, 2018. And then really just fell in love with it and just started enjoying that more than the gym. And then I kind of kept a little bit of gym resistance training and just
to do more running and then when we moved to Newcastle, I really started to run more and going from kind of 30 to 40 to 60 up to 100 kilometers a week and just absolutely loved it. Loved the feeling, loved the idea of getting out in a group. I just loved the raw nature of it. And it's just, it's so ingrained as this human being. Like we obviously all walk, but you know, we're designed pretty well to run with our attendance and our lower limb and how it can store and release energy. And it just opened up all these other, you know, relationships and conversations. And I thought this is awesome.
HappyTrails Pod (14:17.333)
Mmm.
Blake Withers (14:34.8)
And then as a podiatrist, I because podiatry is a little bit unique in the sense of this kind of three domains of high-risk diabetic foot ulcers general nail and skincare and then musculoskeletal and There weren't too many running podiatrists. I don't know if you guys would know when I was growing up It was basically Michael Nischke and Tom De Cano who are great colleagues now And they're like the only running podiatrists and they were talking around all these cool things around Yes footwear and foot orthosis, which are cool, but also rehab and run programming
and assessing the person, understanding what they enjoy and really making about them. And I was like, that is so cool. I think podiatry can do that. So I started doing more of that and then loved it. And then all this other stuff kind of come from it with the podcast and social media and research and then teaching at the university. it all kind of stemmed from, I mean, thinking about this a lot, can I get asked this question a lot? One thing that as a human being that I just love is helping people be more physically active. That's what I just really, and when someone can't do something
HappyTrails Pod (15:04.981)
Hmm.
HappyTrails Pod (15:33.897)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (15:34.64)
because I know how much physical activity means to me and it's honestly changed my life. So when someone can't do that, whether it be running or walking around the block or going to the gym, it just makes me feel some kind of way and I really want to help them. I really understand what it means to them when they can't do that. And it just so happens that running is obviously a great way to be physically active. And a part of my early research, which we got a paper published in the Journal of Sports Science was looking at the benefits of parkrun. Because you think of parkrun, it's pretty simple. But what some people don't realize is the actual
benefit that parkrun has to us as a society is like dramatic mental health. Yeah, it like physical health. And it's funny, it seems to skew the older that you get, the more beneficial parkrun is to you, which is amazing. So it's just another way for people to have social engagement, know, be physically active. So, you know, whether we talk about, you know, running, you know, today, yes, we always think of the elite runners, but for me, I like working with the recreational runner, the person that just wants to run for whatever reason it may be.
Benn Coubrough (16:08.124)
Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (16:09.167)
Massive, yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (16:20.405)
Mmm.
Benn Coubrough (16:22.257)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (16:34.62)
but the person who just enjoys too long to run. So it all stemmed from there and that's kind how I got turned to where I am now.
HappyTrails Pod (16:41.501)
Amazing.
Benn Coubrough (16:41.884)
Yeah, that's incredible. I mean, yeah, it's just the connection. And yeah, the connection that it creates with others and Parkrun's a perfect example and you see it's everybody's Saturday morning thing to do. They make their whole week around which Parkrun we're going to go to this week or seeing the same people and the catch-ups afterwards, et cetera. And now you can just, the boom, the run clubs.
Blake Withers (16:44.204)
Yeah, running is cool in short. Yeah. Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (16:46.963)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Blake Withers (16:59.862)
Yeah, yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (16:59.978)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (17:04.364)
Yeah, and I'm, yeah, yeah. I I spend more time on the roads because it's a little bit.
harder to get to the trails, but they've done studies on different types of parkruns. So we know that parkruns that involve more green, so more grass being out of the trail have more of a greater impact on your mental health than the ones around the road. So it's like parkrun yes in itself is great, but then if you added nature to that, it's even better. you know, trail runners, things like that, like there's science into getting out in the bush, like in being involved in nature, people just seem to report more satisfaction within their running, within their quality.
HappyTrails Pod (17:28.553)
Yeah.
So good.
HappyTrails Pod (17:36.361)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (17:41.626)
of life and their mental health. So there's some really cool things surrounding that, which if you're someone who's active, but especially if you're runner and we're talking about running for this podcast, you know that you just, feel better after it. You feel better after you've done your run during your run. It's really, really good.
HappyTrails Pod (17:56.021)
It's very nice to see some science behind that as well, even if it is based more around that park run thing. Because I know all of us anecdotally would agree with that and say that absolutely I feel better after a trail run. it's why it's a cult. anyone you're, we're forever trying to drag road runners out in the trails and instead of, see I told you so, you know? Like it's, we're very passionate about it.
Blake Withers (18:01.038)
Hmm.
Benn Coubrough (18:12.038)
Mm. Mm.
Blake Withers (18:12.77)
Yep. Yeah. Which goes well until you see this like 50 meter incline and then you got this like nice little flat road.
Benn Coubrough (18:17.852)
Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (18:19.029)
Yeah, I mean there's nothing more satisfying than a good road runner coming in and saying, what do you mean it takes you three hours to do a half marathon? I'll be back in an hour and a half and watching them fall apart on a hill.
Benn Coubrough (18:20.442)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Blake Withers (18:27.378)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (18:28.932)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's it. I I think you actually, I think you found that in,
Queenstown like when you back back when you did Queenstown marathon a few years ago where you just such a beautiful place Queenstown is amazing and then but that whole marathon course is a lot of off-road and a lot of elevation as well It's not just here your standard marathon. It's got got the elevation. It's got the off-road It's yeah
Blake Withers (18:44.338)
beautiful.
HappyTrails Pod (18:55.509)
Hmm.
Blake Withers (19:04.141)
Yeah.
Yeah, that place is beautiful. Like my partner and I, we, which I never thought I would be this person, but I love it now. Like we, so we plan our holidays now around our marathon. So we went over and did Queenstown Marathon, and then we went around New Zealand for two weeks. Last year we went to Europe, but we went, did Berlin Marathon at the start of our holiday and then went on holiday. And we're like, it's like our destination marathon. And I remember growing up here, like we go away and then we go and I'm like, why would you want to go and do that? But now I'm like, this is awesome. You train for it, you do it at the start, then you're enjoying your holiday. And it's so much fun.
Benn Coubrough (19:24.092)
Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (19:26.26)
That's awesome.
HappyTrails Pod (19:32.053)
You
Blake Withers (19:35.098)
and you get to see some awesome marathons.
Benn Coubrough (19:37.19)
Yeah, well you've been to a major marathon so we were just chatting offline about Sydney Marathon now being your world major. What was, suppose, I mean, being Berlin being one of the biggest, what was the vibe like attending the only marathon and then sort of maybe relating it to what you're seeing in Sydney at the moment?
Blake Withers (19:59.886)
It was it was awesome. I mean the whole town obviously is it's just really hyped up There's stalls that the expo and I love expo It's just because lots of free stuff and you get to go and try all these things the expo is in this big massive Old airport so you'll walk in in like you're checking in your bag But then there's added ass with a shoe testing and treadmills And then there's other footwear brands and there's all the nutrition stalls and everyone's hyped up Everyone's wearing their super shoes. You can hear them walking like the foam
HappyTrails Pod (20:13.557)
Mm.
Blake Withers (20:29.86)
bouncing and things like that. And then at the start line, you you got, I can't remember the numbers, maybe 40, 50,000 or so, all kind of getting into the shoot. And then, which is unbelievable to think, but the whole way is just people on the crowd, on the sides, yelling for you and just there's so much excitement in the air. for me, so I love listening to music when I run. I just, really love listening to, know, funnily enough like Abber and...
HappyTrails Pod (20:29.887)
Hahaha
Benn Coubrough (20:36.188)
Yeah, 50,000, yeah.
Benn Coubrough (20:53.68)
Mm.
Blake Withers (20:58.03)
those kind of older music, I just find it really enjoyable. And I didn't have my headphones in for the first 10 kilometres at all. I was like, this is just awesome. I just want to take in this experience. And my partner, didn't put hers in her whole time. She was like, I just want to take it all in. And for me, I'm 29 now, top five life experience. And I still remember it clear as day, running a PB. So when you know this, when you're running a race, when you know you get to 38K and you're like, I'm going to run a PB today, I feel good.
Benn Coubrough (20:59.888)
Mm-hmm.
Benn Coubrough (21:10.192)
Mm-mm.
Benn Coubrough (21:27.1)
Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.
HappyTrails Pod (21:27.455)
Yeah, yeah.
Blake Withers (21:28.014)
on really well. So I remember coming through the the the Brandon, yeah, the Brandon Bird gate. So coming through the gate on the radio, they're playing Sweet Caroline. And I'm coming through the gate and the whole crowd and you know the bit where it goes, Sweet Caroline.
but for the whole crowd doing that. And I'm like, they're cheering for me. This is all for me. And I remember just like, I just had this urge. I put my hand up to like in the beat. like, can't, it feels cringy to say now, but I remember in the moment.
Benn Coubrough (21:47.366)
Da da da.
Benn Coubrough (21:51.356)
You
Blake Withers (21:58.776)
thinking this is one of the best life experiences I've ever had. And then obviously ran to the finish shoot and know, rent a a PB and have an awesome time. So yeah, it was unbelievable. And I want to be running Sydney for that experience. And I just know the town would be like that. And I think Australia is really getting behind it, which it looks like I mean, social media looks really cool. And it'd be awesome to be in Sydney at the moment.
Benn Coubrough (22:02.415)
Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (22:14.458)
Mmm. Mmm. Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (22:18.783)
Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (22:19.768)
It does, yeah. They aren't mean, they're only...
HappyTrails Pod (22:21.845)
for sure.
Benn Coubrough (22:22.588)
The only shame to it, suppose, no it's not a shame, the time, I mean, Berlin starts at like 9am where it is starting early in Sydney, so getting the whole town out and crowd, that's the only downside, but you have to, we don't have the European weather, you have to, and we want to see fast times, that's the byproduct, you've got to start early in Australia unfortunately, but I do hope that
HappyTrails Pod (22:28.181)
You
Blake Withers (22:30.444)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Blake Withers (22:37.07)
Yeah, it's tough.
Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (22:41.567)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (22:45.336)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (22:50.454)
Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (22:52.542)
I know there was a lot of people saying, there wasn't many people out, but I mean, yeah, was a 630 start. But a lot of people that were commenting were that 230 marathonists, well, yeah, you're finishing by 830. That's why. But for those that were running three hours to four hours to six hours, they had the crowd out there. So there was a good atmosphere. So yeah, I think so too.
Blake Withers (23:08.77)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (23:15.574)
Yeah, I hope it's good. I think it'll be okay. Yeah. Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (23:18.601)
think last year was a really good example of exactly why we need to start early though. Like that was a very, very hot day out and I ran with my wife and it, yeah, it was so hot. But that change of course, you know, by the time I ran with Ange and I think we did about five hours. So by the time we came back through Centennial Park, it was just unbelievable. It was so hot. So, yeah.
Benn Coubrough (23:23.228)
yeah. Yup.
Blake Withers (23:24.942)
I ran I ran last year. It was horrible. It was horrible. Yeah, it was hot
Benn Coubrough (23:27.994)
Yeah, I was, yeah.
Benn Coubrough (23:35.292)
Mm.
Benn Coubrough (23:38.659)
Mmm, yeah.
Blake Withers (23:40.086)
Yeah, yeah.
Benn Coubrough (23:42.084)
I know. Well, end.
Blake Withers (23:43.542)
It was.
Benn Coubrough (23:45.644)
I mean, I do get jealous a lot when I see you testing out shoes and reviewing the new shoes and stuff like that. I mean, I suppose that being in the field, like shoes these days, and I see it in store when all the new versions come out and the upgrades and all the new different, whether adding nitrogen to the foams or different air or Nike's air.
What are you finding in the market now as far as the shoes as far as they're getting lighter more poppy, but are you finding durability? What are you finding in the shoes?
Blake Withers (24:28.494)
Yeah, I can't remember the exact progression, but if you look over the last 10 years, the average stack height and the stack just being, just think of the chunk of foam we would call the stack, basically how high you're off the ground and the average in the market, it's like 25, 30, 35, 40, 45. It's just going up and up and up. And when you do that, of course you're gonna have more shoe. You have to offset that weight, which you have to then be right, quite innovating with your foot.
Benn Coubrough (24:47.164)
Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (24:54.992)
Mm-hmm.
Blake Withers (24:58.448)
and how light it is, but then also you've got stability issues because you're high off the ground so the shoe has to be wider. So you just end up with a whole lot of shoe. And as you guys would know, the standard now in the industry is whatever shoe that you have, you just make it bigger and you just add the word Max to the end. And then you just have to because every other brand is doing that. But it's a really interesting conversation because the shoes are definitely getting higher and bigger.
Benn Coubrough (25:02.587)
Mm.
Benn Coubrough (25:05.916)
you
Benn Coubrough (25:14.316)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (25:14.517)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (25:25.186)
They are very enjoyable to run it and I didn't go through the transition stage like I'm sure you guys have and talking to other podiatrists colleagues went through the racing flat kind of era and now the...
Benn Coubrough (25:36.048)
Yeah, well, that's right. I definitely had all those.
HappyTrails Pod (25:39.146)
Mm.
Blake Withers (25:39.468)
Yeah, yeah, and like the daily trainer that we have now would probably be far greater, know, stack height, stiffness than what you guys are, you know, we're racing in, which is pretty crazy to think of. The challenge is as technology updates, you know, the research doesn't always update at the same time. And usually how the research starts is we just look to see the differences. So you run in a new shoe versus an old shoe. Just what do we see different? Do you move differently? Do you subjectively say that it feels different? And then what ends up happening is
Benn Coubrough (25:47.802)
Mm.
Blake Withers (26:09.392)
then years after that, you have to do the studies to say, that actually mean anything? Because you might move a little bit differently in this shoe, but it doesn't necessarily mean you're at a greater risk for injury or greater risk for whatever happening. So that's kind of where we are with the research. But we do have some interesting studies basically showing that each five mil that you go higher, you do move more in the frontal plane. So you roll in and roll out more, you have a little bit more movement up at the hip as well. And kind of how we work is below the knee is going to have more load in
a thinner, more flexible shoe and above the knee is going to have more load in these higher stack shoes. think with my advice for people at the moment is, cause it's hard when people enjoy running in a shoe. I'm so reluctant to say that you need to run in specific shoes or less of a shoe cause shoes are really fun. And if someone comes to me and says, you know, and we've got research on this, like why people run. If someone comes in and says, listen, I've got, I've got type two diabetes. I've got four kids and all I can do is get out for three runs a week.
Benn Coubrough (26:43.867)
Mm.
Blake Withers (27:09.232)
I really want to run in this big bounty shoe, but someone's telling me that I shouldn't run in it like
What do I do? Like you just do what you gotta do. You gotta be physically active. You've gotta move. Like you just, you do what you enjoy and we're not gatekeeping shoes. And we know there's a bit of research around shoe rotation and you know, if you can rotate between different shoes and load different parts. But I think if the shoe is enjoyable to run in and we look at trying to fit shoes specific to some person, we don't have any good research to say that if someone comes in just randomly off the street and I get lots of messages all the time like what's the best shoe to run in. If someone comes in off the
Benn Coubrough (27:18.203)
Mm.
Blake Withers (27:43.792)
I don't know how to fit them to be able to say this will reduce your risk of injury I can ask a couple of questions around what have you had in the past? What have you liked in the past? But you and you would notice quite a lot Ben We're still at the point now which sounds so silly to say We're still at the point of saying put the shoe on does it feel comfortable is it much of a change from what you worn before? Do you have any previous injury where this shoe is going to put more stress on that structure?
put it on, how does it feel, get the right length and the right width, which is unbelievable. We have some research to show up to 79 % of people are wearing the wrong width or length, which is 79 % of people, which is unbelievable to think. So measure your shoes, which sounds so logical, and that's probably where we're at. So I'm asking those questions initially. That's for the asymptomatic person and then just run in what's enjoyable. And I think for the shoes now, ideally you want a shoe with a relatively wide base, so it's a little bit more stable and things
Benn Coubrough (28:19.74)
Mmm, yeah, yeah.
Benn Coubrough (28:29.596)
Mm.
Blake Withers (28:39.504)
Things like, I really like the Cumulus, the New Balance 1080, 880, 860 are good examples. But it is really difficult, it is really difficult. And true technology is constantly changing. But I think if it's enjoyable, you fit into it. And when we say safe, it's hard to say what that actually means. But as long as it's not too narrow through the mid-selling, not too high off the ground, it's not too soft, you're probably gonna be okay.
Benn Coubrough (29:04.934)
Yeah, I think, mean, you're spot on with, I mean, with us at like, with foot motion and that's the whole thing of our is making sure that we're fitting the right shoe to the person for what they're specifically doing and what they need the shoe for. And so many, yes, and that's what I'm, most of the time it's pretty much just making sure that the length's right, the width's right, so they're not gonna get any irritation from the shoe, they're not gonna get any cause issues from tightness or restriction in their movement.
of their foot. As long as you get the fit right then the next step is okay well there's so many different brands and the shoes have changed now. They may not have bought shoes for three or four years and they're like well our things are completely different to what you used to buy so let's see what's comfortable in that but then you're also looking with the foot scans looking at how their foot moves but you're spot on. It's got to be comfortable still and as long as it's not changing the
Blake Withers (29:35.342)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (29:52.142)
Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (30:04.888)
too much. It's yeah that's what that's it can be. Some people will come in and you'll see them and they'll be wearing they've been wearing something that's like how the hell are you getting away with this looking at your foot but they make it work and they enjoy running in it so it's sort of finding that line going well yeah this this is might be working but if you start doing all your runs or too much running in this shoe then that's where the rotation will come in.
Blake Withers (30:19.832)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (30:33.388)
Yeah, that enjoyment factor is so important because it's shoes. She's a cool and interesting in the text. Awesome. But they're not that big of a player for most when it comes to running in and people are so surprised by this. Like, and as a clinician, the greatest thing that I have learned as a clinician to help runners is understanding someone's run programming without a doubt. Like if I could learn anything again and go back, I would have saved myself and the people I was working with early on in my career so much time if I was better at a session.
Benn Coubrough (30:55.248)
Mm. Mm.
Blake Withers (31:03.312)
training load because yes shoes are cool but if you're going out and running in it you know maybe some different shoes you're like great which shoes should I wear it's more important to understand how much running you're actually doing because that's going to be a bigger mover of the of the needle and that fitting and most of the shoes now they're all relatively similar in the technology like they're all big and bouncy and you just put it on you might try say the Mizuno Wave Sky 9 versus the Nimbus and if you find the Nimbus more comfortable great you know pick that they're all relatively similar my only caveat
Benn Coubrough (31:13.978)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (31:33.232)
to that is if we know that the features of shoes are the big determining factor of where the load goes. let's say if you're really high on the heel, we know that's gonna make your knee bend more and your hip bend a little bit more. So it might have more patellofemoral joint contact, people with anterior knee pain, runner's knee, we would wanna have the opposite. So we might say shoe with a lower pitch, maybe four mil, maybe even ultra as an example to the zero mil. So the lower you go down, the more stress you put through the foot and the ankle. And it's basically just moving stress around the body.
someone come into the clinic or they're looking at shoes and let's say they've had a really chronic history of Achilles tendinopathy, really common running related injury. So for someone like that, they should always look for a shoe that's higher in the back and we can put some little heel raises in, but a shoe that's higher in the back and relatively safe, that's gonna unload their Achilles a whole lot more. So there's some nuances around like previous injury and as simple as like you've had an injury in this area, we use these features to take some stress away. So as your running goes up, you know, we're trying to redistribute the load, you know, away from there and there's a lot of good
research to show like we can sometimes reduce the load by 10 % at the knee with just one change in feature, which if you think every step that you take, I can reduce the load by 10 % per loading cycle, over the course of a 10K run, that is a significant amount, it's huge. So those features play a role as well. And with this new category of the super trainers, like the Super Blast and the OVSTA2, it's unbelievable how they shoe, like that's considered a daily trainer now.
HappyTrails Pod (32:40.479)
Hmm.
Blake Withers (33:03.032)
a marathon in that 10 years ago. just I ran in the new Asic Mega Blast the other day and that shoe is ridiculous. Like it's so light but it's so safe and stable. Like I would run a marathon in it but I would say the majority of people for me don't get the Nike Vapor Flyer, get the Mega Blast. Like it doesn't, it's not as plated or as stiff but it's so much safer in regards to just it's not as narrow so you're not going to be unstable you know towards the of the marathon or when you're fatiguing.
Benn Coubrough (33:03.342)
Mmm. Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (33:09.306)
Yeah. Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (33:11.634)
Ahem.
Benn Coubrough (33:14.309)
Hmm
Benn Coubrough (33:24.699)
care.
Benn Coubrough (33:30.588)
Yeah, I think that's what I find a lot in the store too, people coming in like wanting the best race shoes and then it's looking okay well...
HappyTrails Pod (33:38.025)
Ahem.
Benn Coubrough (33:39.012)
what pace you're running at. Like if you're gonna, if you're wanting an Alpha Fly or a Vapor Fly and you're running a four hour marathon, then that there's other shoes that might be just that little bit safer for you with that just being on your feet for so long that something that's a little bit more stable and what you just mentioned is perfect. That's, mean, the New Balance Super Comp Elite is a lot more stable than that, the Endorphin.
Blake Withers (33:58.894)
Mmm... Yeah. Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (34:02.62)
But like even I've got a couple ladies running in the Brooks glycerin max For their speed sessions and stuff like just because because it's got the rocker. It's got a big platform It's stable. It's it's helping the move move forward and and they they enjoy it so it's
Blake Withers (34:07.072)
Mmm, yeah.
Blake Withers (34:11.33)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (34:18.926)
Yeah, yeah. then that feature. So we talk about durometer, which is basically just how much squishiness you have in the shoe. And generally speaking, know, bigger people would do better with a high durometer so it's a little bit stiffer. But if you have a shoe that's a high durometer and there's more stack, so let's say it's 40 mil, the more material you have, it's going to make the overall shoe bend, sorry, stiffer. And we call that the LBS or the longitudinal bending stiffness. And you think when you're running your body and your tendon, which are really cool, this is what your tendons are designed for, they store
release energy and they give you the stiffness. they're, your tendons are unbelievable in the sense of they connect your muscle, which is really pliable to a bone, which is really stiff. And if you were to ask an engineer, Hey, can you connect this rubbery structure to a rock? They would be like, how the hell do I do that? And that's why human tissue is really cool. So as the tendon lengthens, it gets stiffer. So if we can have a shoe generating theoretically some of that stiffness when you're running fast, it's going to feel good to put more weight through it. And that's one of the key characteristics when people streak around these
these shoes at the moment. It's not really the carbon plate, it's a feature of the geometry, the weight, and then also the longitudinal bending stiffness. Because they've done some studies where they cut the carbon plate in the shoe and people still have the economy benefit. So it's the features kind of together and the stiffness of a shoe plays a big role in that for sure, which the Glycerin Max fits into that category. Yeah, good shoe.
HappyTrails Pod (35:41.877)
It's awesome. Have you seen, just out of curiosity, have you seen like a spike or do you get injuries from people that are probably getting sucked into the fad of things? Like I guess it's almost completely opposite to the five finger vibram back in the day after whatever the book was that we all read and all fell victim to at some point. like, you find that now? Like people that Benny, you were just mentioning the vapor fly and things like that.
Benn Coubrough (35:49.404)
you
Blake Withers (35:58.446)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (35:59.45)
Hmm. Hmm.
Benn Coubrough (36:03.947)
Pot run?
HappyTrails Pod (36:08.671)
coming in that just shouldn't be wearing it and trying to run on those and getting injured.
Blake Withers (36:11.009)
Yeah.
Yeah, it's hard. Like we did a podcast on this because this question comes up all the time. Like, basically, is it dangerous to run in super shoes all the time or all these performance shoes and we'll call them super shoes for the sake of this. And again, if we we look to the research, there was one study that that come out that that was a really it was it was just a case series. And unfortunately, it did show there was an increase in stress fractures. However, the actual study itself was really poorly done in the sense of the people that only had five
the people that got injured, they'd increase their intensity, they had a history of bone stress, which is the biggest risk factor of having another one, and all these other variables, and then they use super shoes. So it's hard to know, like if I'm going and running on the track an extra two times per week and I get an injury, is it the shoes or the fact that I've just started sprinting on the track two times a week from not doing it? So that was where we got with that. And then funnily enough, and this is always funny, the guy that helped design the Nike Vaporfly back in 2016 or 2017,
Benn Coubrough (37:02.3)
Mm. Mm.
HappyTrails Pod (37:02.473)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (37:12.624)
they've just released a study, this is only coming out in the last month, to say that people training for a half marathon, if you train in just alpha flies, you had a 52 % less risk of getting injured. However, caveat to that, they actually haven't released the methodology. And there's a bit of bias there, obviously the guy, the lead author is the guy that designed the vapor fly. So at the moment, we don't really know yet. What we do know is these shoes do redistribute the load, so there's a change in the load.
HappyTrails Pod (37:28.404)
Hmph.
HappyTrails Pod (37:34.965)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (37:42.544)
So maybe if you combine that with someone who's had a previous knee injury or hip injury, that may increase your risk again. The challenge with me with these vapor flies, and I want to be really careful when I say this, because when we look at someone move and run, we know that's not a great way to identify risk because humans are variable. Us three here are all going to move differently. And if we have an injury, usually it's unrelated to how we move. It's usually the tissue doesn't have the capacity. But when you see someone in these super shoes and they're all very narrow through the midsole, so you don't have a lot of surface contact with
with the ground, they will be, unless they're running fast, they're really unstable. They really roll in quite a lot and basically roll off the shoe because you're really high up and you don't have a lot of contact. So what that does is it just really increases a lot of load through structures who don't typically have that load through them. So let's say an example, my foot rolls in five degrees in the glycerin max, then I put on the vapor fly and it rolls in 12 degrees. That's not necessarily bad, but it's bad if I haven't done that before in the sense of I
HappyTrails Pod (38:29.077)
Hmm.
Blake Withers (38:42.384)
have the capacity, my tendon has to lengthen, my joints have to grow through a greater range and usually what's going to be a contributing factor is they're just not used to it. So that's how we see it play a big role and that's why I think there is some risk involved in them if you're running them all the time because you're running six minute K's or five thirties and you're going through a greater range of motion to what you're used to. You're just stressing your tissue more and your body's already under stress because you're running. So you're just probably adding more risk to that and they don't last very long and they're bloody expensive. I don't want to pay $380 for a shoe.
HappyTrails Pod (38:42.698)
Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (39:01.717)
Mmm.
HappyTrails Pod (39:12.241)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (39:12.324)
and then wear it out. So I think the majority of people now, and this is really fun to say to people, you can still get the fun from a shoe, because we had these super trainers. Like I'd rather you run, if you really want to run in a performance shoe, I'd rather you get in say like a Superblast or the Glycerin Max or something that's, or even the Nova Blast or, you know, maybe, probably not the EVO SL, but something that's got that protection. The Zirconi Pro, sorry, the Speed as an example, that's got a little bit more protection and still fun to run in, but you can get the best of both worlds.
Benn Coubrough (39:43.526)
Yeah, definitely.
HappyTrails Pod (39:44.756)
awesome.
Blake Withers (39:45.718)
Yeah, good topic. Good topic to talk about.
Benn Coubrough (39:47.452)
Yeah, it's... Yeah. Nah. I was trying, yeah I know I'm, and I'm trying not to, I'm trying not to, I'm trying not to jump in and add more to, or like ask more or whatever, but, but I mean...
HappyTrails Pod (39:47.615)
Geeze, you two are geeks. I thought I liked stuff. It's so easy to sit back and listen to you two.
Blake Withers (39:50.958)
I was trying to make it short because I could go on going for a long time. So like, yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (39:57.759)
No, I love it. Yeah.
Blake Withers (40:01.678)
Yeah, because it is so much like seeing and this is always I mean, I probably should say this at the start, all the advice and conversations that we have, it's all general, because I like even I had a case yesterday, I told someone that they only need to run in their super shoe, because they had a stress fracture to their metatarsal. And we know that the shoes are so stiff that they reduce the bending on the metatarsal. And that can reduce you know, the load through there. So as a stress fracture recovery shoe, it was actually really helpful. But if someone had pain on the inside of their ankle,
HappyTrails Pod (40:03.829)
Hmm.
Benn Coubrough (40:24.465)
Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (40:29.98)
Hmm.
Blake Withers (40:31.692)
it'll be the opposite, like no, no, we need to get you out of this shoe. So it is about the individual. I mean, you can get lucky with general advice and it work for you, but it all depends. It all depends.
Benn Coubrough (40:41.936)
Yeah, no, that's it. I mean, you, well, you are working on, sorry, hang on, just gone blank. You're doing, is it, you're doing part of your PhD or the research that you are doing on how to make runners or what runners can do better?
Blake Withers (40:59.95)
Yeah, it's basically just what I want. And I do this with my online stuff is I want to be able to be able to the information that we learn in good quality research studies. I want to be able to extract and bring that out. This is through my social media and through the podcast and give that to the general runner or give that to people that are working with runners so they feel better equipped. And then I, and then now in the last year is I want to be a part of that myself. Like I want to be a part of doing and giving
the research and then I have enough of an audience now to be able to do both where I can have an awesome guy who's the best researcher on tendons come on and speak around how to build strong bouncy tendons. Then also I can do my own research on that to kind of bring it together because depending on the study you read, one in two runners are get injured in 12 months after 79 % in six months, it's gonna happen. It's very, very likely to happen. I wanted to damn someone to a running injury but they're really, really common. I'm sure you guys have...
of known runners had injuries yourself. It's just part of the course with how the loading goes and with the training and how things feel and the adaption curve. It takes a while to adapt to a lot of running. So if we can get on the front foot with this, I wanna be able to give some information. And there's so much, you would ask, say like, what can runners do? There's just so many things that are so easily looked after that can help. mean, nothing we can say is gonna prevent them all, but there's plenty of things that we can do when making smart decisions.
HappyTrails Pod (42:20.147)
Mmm.
Blake Withers (42:29.925)
and understanding training load and nutrition and things like that, that can just be beneficial.
Benn Coubrough (42:36.048)
and
And I think that's, especially with the running and the training that I've been doing in the last block, like I've had a lot of messages on Instagram and people saying, how are you doing this volume? How are you handling it? Are you tired? how are you pulling up? it's, how can you do this? it's, and I think you touched on all that. It's a combination. mean, if it's looking at shoes, the rotation of shoes and running.
Blake Withers (42:57.324)
Yep. Yep.
Benn Coubrough (43:06.526)
on the different terrain. Like I do a lot of trail obviously so it's a completely different load to running on the road. But I also combine that as well from doing trail running. I do some sections on the trail, some sections on the road.
Blake Withers (43:12.534)
Yeah. Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (43:20.668)
Then you can look at what paces you're running at. Are you changing different paces for different runs? Are you running at a higher percentage of easy to hard intensity? Those sort of things. then nutrition. Are you fueling after you're running? Are you fueling before? Are you making sure that you're getting the right balance in?
consistency and it's consistency in all the metrics so as far as being consistent with your nutrition being consistent with you your training then you look at if strength training like doing going to the gym is that going to be is that beneficial as well but I suppose and yeah go sorry go
HappyTrails Pod (43:53.321)
Mm.
Blake Withers (44:09.26)
Yeah. Yeah.
Blake Withers (44:16.63)
You hear the generic advice and it is good advice. The common one is like, you need to get your training load right. But it's like, what about the training load? You need to do more easier runs. How do we really boil it down to what we're saying and what we're meaning? Because even with strength training, it's like, great, you need to do strength training. Awesome. How often? Then when do you program it around your day? Do you do it before your long run, after your long run? What do you do when you're
Benn Coubrough (44:25.19)
Mm-mm. Mm.
Benn Coubrough (44:32.412)
Mmm.
HappyTrails Pod (44:39.797)
Mmm.
Blake Withers (44:43.844)
tired, like gym membership, there's so many barriers, like there's all these, they're trying to question that we want to try and have the answers to and it's hard. mean, the majority of research suggests that training and injuries just come down to training error. But even that's so hard of like, yeah, you made an error. Like, great, well, how do I not make it? How do I not make it the first time? It's so hard to be able to say to someone and to make it to the individual as well.
Benn Coubrough (44:46.939)
Mm.
Benn Coubrough (44:56.229)
Mm.
Benn Coubrough (44:59.502)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's Well, that's it. Like, you're getting down. But I followed the exact same plan that Mick did for... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, yeah, it's...
HappyTrails Pod (45:00.469)
Hmm.
Blake Withers (45:12.238)
I've known Kim Toge is playing, why am not running two hours? Help me out here, help me out. 180K, yeah. Like it's pretty cool what you're doing. I was actually thinking about you the other day. Like it's so, and this is another reason I love the human body. It's just so cool that the body can do that. you, I mean, if I did what you were doing, my body would break.
HappyTrails Pod (45:14.557)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (45:32.902)
And the, I know that I probably could do what you were doing if I had what maybe five, six, 10 years of training. And it's so cool to think you can get there. The body can adapt. It's just so cool to think that it can handle that. And it's just a matter of time and cellular changes and your, you know, your bones get thicker and your tendons get stiffer and your joint becomes a little bit thicker and then you can do those things. So it's, it's really, really cool. It's always been so fascinating to me.
Benn Coubrough (45:40.544)
Exactly.
Mm.
Benn Coubrough (45:56.166)
Yeah, it is.
And it's yeah, it's not just that I've been running for two years to build it's been a lot and it's just that my background in playing like football for 20 years and and I suppose that's if you're tendons and ligaments and all that sort of stuff My like I've always get caught like I've always every time for 30 foot 30 years when I was being getting massages and Etc like you were so tense like it just your body just does not relax and I suppose
Blake Withers (46:26.178)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (46:29.338)
that's probably been a benefit to my body and my tendons and how my body responds to different things it's just that yeah I don't switch off my body doesn't I don't know like I get a massage and like just relax and I'm like I am
Blake Withers (46:43.5)
Hmm, you know, it's funny you mentioned that because a part of my research is looking at basically at all tissue and learning more about tissue physiology. But you raise an interesting point that you said that because I've just been doing some reading this week and they've been talking around genetics. You know, can some people genetically have bigger bones, some people, know, genetically, you know, have blue eyes, brown eyes, but they've found quite consistently there's these two genes that can be expressed within your tendons and it means
that your tendons are just a whole lot stiffer and why that's really important, if you think of how stiff your tendon is and basically stiffness is just when you pull it, basically how long does it get and as you pull it, it gets tighter. So for people with really stiff tendons like yourself, it's what we're starting to think may be actually protective against tendon injury because your tendon can basically handle more stress. So for someone like yourself, you may be at a less risk of developing a tendon injury than say myself because your tendon is just overall stiffer and whether that
HappyTrails Pod (47:33.845)
Mmm.
Blake Withers (47:43.364)
be something genetic, whether it be from sport you played when you were younger. But then if your tendons a little bit stiffer, as long as the muscle can handle that extra stress, because you'll imagine that a tendon is different. I use the example, if you have a rock and you kind of attach a rubber band to it and you go to pull the rubber band, you're obviously going to fall backwards. If you have a rope, you pull the rope, you probably move a little bit. But if you have a steel pole, you'll really pull it and then the rock will move and your tendon won't move. So your tendons a little bit like the pole. So what we might see is you might be more likely to suffer a muscle related
Benn Coubrough (48:06.916)
Hmm. Hmm.
Blake Withers (48:13.274)
non-contact pool, but really unlikely to suffer a tendon injury. And then if we look to say, people that have real, you know, quite a lot of stiffness, our ligaments protect our joints. If we go and look at women and ACL and soccer, they may be more likely to suffer a joint related injury because on average, generally they're a little bit stiffer. So their ligament isn't able to protect the joint as much. Whereas for say, men, if their tendons are quite stiff, they may be more likely to suffer a muscle injury because you've got that, not so much an imbalance, but that relationship so far.
I just want to touch on that point. I love to tell people this you mentioned about playing sports and I'm sure there's some Some some parents out there because you're both parents, right? You're both parents. Yeah Yeah, yeah, so they they've done this really interesting studies in the in the military where they look at mostly when you start your basic training in the military a lot you're very likely to suffer a bone stress injury and all the stress fracture research is done in those cases What they looked at is if you play multi-directional sport when you're younger going for
Benn Coubrough (48:54.108)
I've got step kids here.
Blake Withers (49:13.104)
or through your development as a child, you are much less likely to suffer basically an injury or a bone stress injury when you're older, when your bones are fully developed. And the reason for that is bone adapts best to variability, high strain rate and magnitude. So basically jumping and hopping and jumping, hopping all over the place. So you think of long distance running or endurance running, you're just kind of running in a straight line or you're running around in a circle, whereas like soccer and nippers and things like that, you know, is really good for bone. But basically in these studies, they find that for every
HappyTrails Pod (49:33.705)
Mm.
Blake Withers (49:43.114)
year you play a multi-directional sport, it's dose dependent, you are less likely to have a stress fraction when you get into the military. So you play one year, I can't remember the exact figures, but it might be like 20%, two years, 30 % less, three years, 40 % less. So it just goes down and down and down. for all my, kids that I work with and all the younger runners I work with, and for any parent listening to this, you just want your lovely children just playing multi-directional sports amongst their running. And it's going to be, they miss a training like,
HappyTrails Pod (49:51.86)
Yeah, right.
Benn Coubrough (50:10.182)
Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (50:10.9)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (50:13.014)
AFL, soccer, basketball, whatever it may be, just get them moving in variable positions with high strain rates, like, you know, they're changing direction and things like that. And it's going to be so good for their development because once their development stops for their tendons and bones, it doesn't change much. So you're tender at 18, you know, it's somewhat different to now, but you know, from eight to say 14, it's really, really different. And once it stops, doesn't change. So you want to do as much as you can. And that's why kids need to be to be so, so active. Things really, really cool.
HappyTrails Pod (50:40.841)
That's cool. Like on the other end of the scale for that, and probably, you know, we hear a lot about the bone density and diminished bone density after the age of 30 or 35 or 40, whatever it is, is that multi-directional, does that philosophy still work for regeneration of bone density or anything like that for that sort of elder age group, I guess?
Blake Withers (50:45.152)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Blake Withers (50:53.23)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (51:03.726)
Yeah, yeah, hell yeah it does. And then I love this topic. I'm pumped up. You can see it hopefully in my eyes and in my voice, because this is basically what I want to do the research on is, is we know that those things for bones make bone adapt. So strain rate is basically just how quickly you load. So if you do a really slow calf raise versus a fast one, that would be a higher strain rate. The magnitude is the amount of load. So if you have weight on your back, it would be a higher magnitude than no weight. And then variability is just you just basically doing different
HappyTrails Pod (51:13.343)
Yeah, cool.
Blake Withers (51:33.74)
So you might jump side to side, jump all over the place, that type of thing. And a lot of the research started in post-menopause osteopenic women. And basically like they were suffering hip fractures and they would just go to open the door and their wrist would break and their bone mineral density, is, imagine your bone like a bit of cheese with all the holes in it. That's what your bone looks like. And reduced bone density is there's more holes in the cheese. So we want to have less because there's less holes that it's going to be more able to tolerate twisting and bending and breaking and things like that.
So they started doing all these awesome trials and basically getting women, women lifting heavy, deadlifting and squatting and doing all the things that, you know, we used to say are just for men in the gym and lo and behold, their bone and identity is significantly greater than those that don't do it. So, you know, we, should just say generally everyone should be strength training. But then for us as runners, the challenge is running is not good. sorry. It's not great for bones in the sense of it doesn't build bone and identity very well just because
HappyTrails Pod (52:18.025)
Mmm.
Blake Withers (52:33.57)
there is a lot of loading, there's parts with how much you're fueling and your energy and how much your bones can recover. So we know that stress fractures, anyone's had one, they're about 20 % of all running related injuries. They absolutely suck. They're the worst. I deal a lot with them. And unfortunately, if you have a stress fracture or a bone stress, you can't do anything. You've got to rest it. It's not like a tendon where we can manage your load and you can still keep running at a reduced level when we build you up. If the bone is stressed, either, depending on if it's a bad one, you have to go on crutches in a boot.
HappyTrails Pod (52:47.637)
Hmm.
Blake Withers (53:03.44)
Even if it's a low risk one, you've got to go into a boot and there's nothing we can do because we can't make the bone heal any quicker. So we want to try and stop these from happening. And it makes sense if we make your bones thicker and we make your bone density higher, it's going to be more tolerable to the bending, which happens every time that you run. So as a standard now for all the runners that I work with, I'm giving them some of this kind of bone, I call it, we call it osteogenic program where we're trying to build bone density. And it's a really simple one. It's crazy.
Benn Coubrough (53:09.723)
Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (53:20.596)
Yeah, well.
Blake Withers (53:33.41)
people this, it's not much at all. You basically do some heavy calf raises, some heavy squats and dead lifts and some hopping. Take you about 15 minutes. You do that twice a week. That's all you need to do. That's basically it. Maybe even 10 minutes. As long as you're going hard, you might go in and do into the gym. You might do three sets of five heavy squats, three sets of five dead lifts, three times 10 single leg hopping side to side and you're done. That's it. That's all you need to do. And that's going to be good for your femur, your hip, your sacrum, your back, your tibia and your foot bones.
HappyTrails Pod (53:43.861)
Mm.
Blake Withers (54:03.38)
with this and this is the nuanced conversation and I really wanted to talk to you guys about this this point is your bones will only remodel if you're eating enough and you're feeling enough and the way to think of it is a bit like when you're driving a car with a fuel tank your bones can only handle kind of so much stress before they essentially become what we call numb so they can't detect any of the mechanical stimulus and they can only remodel if they have energy to draw from so if you're not eating enough and let's say you're you're at your basic metabolic rate
HappyTrails Pod (54:29.727)
Hmm.
Blake Withers (54:33.2)
plus for your exercise is 2000 calories and you're eating 1800. Your bones need to have the energy from somewhere and what ends up happening when you eat, your body prioritizes. Now I love bones, but your body doesn't love it as much as what it loves your brain. And thankfully the body will go, I've only got so much. Firstly, goes to the brain, then it goes to the organs and it goes to things that keep your life so that it should and it won't go to your bones. So if you're doing all this awesome training, like running and strength training, but you're not eating enough, unfortunately your bones
HappyTrails Pod (54:47.797)
Mmm.
Blake Withers (55:03.18)
are not going to remodel and we know it's dose dependent. So the less that you eat, the less that your bones are going to change. And we have some awesome, some really awesome questionnaires. I do this with my patients and if you're on a computer right now, you can look up the Red-Ass Cat 2. And this is basically a questionnaire that's free that they use in the Olympics. And it tells you if you're in low energy availability and that's basically, not eating enough. I'll say this just broadly for everyone. One of the most common ones that we see for females is they don't have a regular menstrual cycle.
not have a regular menstrual cycle as a female and there's obviously other medical reasons why. What that is telling us is that your body at the moment doesn't even have enough energy to prioritise normal hormonal function. So there's no way that it's going to be able to look after you with all the training load that you're doing. And it's unbelievably common. It's always a bit awkward to ask that and talk about them. I'm comfortable with it now, but it's so important. I can explain why it's important for males as an example. And this is, it's not as evidence-based as what we have for the females, but the equivalent
HappyTrails Pod (55:45.941)
Mmm.
Blake Withers (56:02.96)
for males is on average, basically should wake up seven days a week. You should wake up roughly around four to five morning erections. And if you're not, that could be a sign that you're not actually eating enough, because your body can't prioritize your own male hormones. So there's no way it's gonna prioritize to your bones. There's some other things as well. You know, if you get tired, brain fog, all that kind of thing. And this questionnaire is also not, and I won't go into it, but I think that's probably the most important factor for running to understand, you know, amongst training load is as your training goes up,
you need to eat more. And if you're not, your body just doesn't have the energy and it needs the energy to function. For us to do this podcast, I need to focus, I need to think if I'm running in my training loads, I'm not going to be able to do that properly. And there's, you're more likely to get irritable, know, a little bit shorter with your kids, maybe a little bit shorter with your wife or your husband or your partner. And it can be, honestly, you're just not eating enough as your training loads going up. So you need to be to be making sure that's doing, making sure that you're doing that. And it's, we have good research on
on a lot of people and there's different types. There's intentional for race weight, but there's unintentional. like, know, you're a great example, Ben, not to say that you're under-fuelling, but as your training loads gone up, for someone else that's maybe training for their first ultra or training for the first half marathon, they might be burning an extra 600 calories a day. And you might find it's different for everyone. I remember a lady that I, she'd come to see me for a foot, but she actually had a hip stress fracture that we picked up because, I said to her,
Oh great, how are we going for your marathon training? Yeah, I did 40K on Sunday morning. Oh great. And my follow-up question is great, how did you go fueling after that? I like, I don't get really hungry. I just don't have an appetite after I ate. So I didn't really eat until dinner. And straight on like that, that's a huge red flag because whatever I do, I can give you the best rehab program in the world, but your bones aren't gonna remodel. And it's other tissues as well. So in that case, they go and see a dietician, they work through that. And we've even got some research on, is even a couple of days of-
Benn Coubrough (57:47.185)
Mm.
HappyTrails Pod (57:47.285)
Mmm.
Benn Coubrough (57:51.952)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (58:02.64)
energy expenditure can start to affect your hormones and we don't want to be doing that. As runners, we love to run, but we've got to fuel appropriately and it's hard because it's a weight conscious sport. You want to be light, but if you're losing weight while you're running, you've got to be querying how much you're fueling. It's a real, real problem and it's really, really common. And it can be unintentional. just don't even know that you're not doing it.
Benn Coubrough (58:10.012)
Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (58:10.783)
Mmm.
HappyTrails Pod (58:25.439)
Funny that comment around the, don't feel hungry after a big run. Cause it's certainly nothing I've ever said. I love a good feed after a run. Benny, I know you do as well, but it is really common, isn't it? Out of a group of groups of runners, you hear it quite often. Yeah. I'll have a coffee, but I don't really feel like eating.
Benn Coubrough (58:25.616)
Yeah, no, it's... Hmm. Yeah, no, same.
Blake Withers (58:33.41)
Yeah, I'm the same. It is. Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (58:36.602)
Mm. Mm.
Blake Withers (58:41.614)
Yeah, or they eat. Like, let's say, you if you're going out for 20k, you use a lot of energy. I mean, for myself, I don't have any kids. And when I'm training for a marathon, I just have a little nap on the couch. But you you go out and you run 20k, like, yeah, I have a coffee. I'm like, oh, I'll just have a piece of toast. That's like maybe 150 calories. And then if you're walking around and being with your family, I'll say to Tom Di Canna when he's doing his marathon training, I'm like, how the hell are you a functioning human after a long,
HappyTrails Pod (58:48.201)
Mmm.
Benn Coubrough (59:02.513)
Mm.
Blake Withers (59:11.568)
Can you go out and smash like 40K at 350? But how are you getting around? Cause you're still using energy on top. It's not like you're going for a run and then you're going home and laying in this chamber. Let's say your base is 2000 and you burn 3000 on your run. Can you honestly say you're eating 5,000 calories? it's, it's, it's, it's difficult. So yeah, it's surprising how many people feel that way or they don't fuel on the run cause they have some stomach trouble so that they don't really bother or they don't carb load the night before or they just, they just don't meet those requirements. And it's quite.
Benn Coubrough (59:18.683)
Hmm.
HappyTrails Pod (59:27.796)
Mmm.
Benn Coubrough (59:27.868)
Mm.
Benn Coubrough (59:41.212)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (59:41.498)
easy to do, unfortunately. I don't have that problem, but it can be hard.
Benn Coubrough (59:43.772)
Yeah, no, no, yeah. I've had a few comments at Lambton Park Hotel actually, because the last probably five weeks I've been there, not every Friday or Saturday, but normally there in the afternoon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, Friday, yeah, pretty much Friday, and like, after I finished.
Blake Withers (59:56.396)
You have been there a lot. I saw you post with your beer and chips.
HappyTrails Pod (59:58.387)
Yeah!
Benn Coubrough (01:00:03.1)
training on Friday, that's Nicole and I go there for a drink and I get a bowl of chips. And Saturday after work, we go for a drink after, when I get home from work, I get a bowl of chips. Sunday afternoon, I get a bowl of chips and they're like, you like your chips, don't you? And I said, well, I'm...
Blake Withers (01:00:08.749)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (01:00:14.126)
Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (01:00:16.905)
They're so good for hair.
Benn Coubrough (01:00:21.144)
running a lot at the moment and I need to refuel so I have a bowl of chips for that late afternoon and then go home and have dinner. It's just part of trying to make sure that I'm extra food in and like I'm adding more, I'm having more rice for my, in my lunches and dinners as well just to make sure that I'm getting more carbs in and but yeah you do, you have to, got to keep on top of it.
Blake Withers (01:00:27.446)
Yeah. You gotta do it. Yeah.
Blake Withers (01:00:38.038)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, we, we, it's on my social media. I'll have to share it to you guys. This is awesome study where they look at. So basically when, when you break down bone and when you build bone, there's certain markers that are in your blood. And as soon as you start to reduce your calories and it basically, depending on the study you read, you know, say 40 kilojoules per, sorry, 40 calories per kilo of body weight. No, sorry. So it's not something like that, but basically as you eat less per kilo body weight, you see these blood biomarkers just slowly de-
to the point where they flat line where you're basically not building any bone, but you're breaking down bone, which once you're in that imbalance, that's basically how stress fractures happen. And you see these people where they have these injuries and then if the clinician they see is not addressing the energy imbalance, they're just gonna get injured again. Because they go through all the rehab and then their bones aren't ready to, or their bones can't even build the strength and they're not ready to handle that stress again. And they just end up with this recurrent cycle. I mean, I someone on Tuesday that had
HappyTrails Pod (01:01:39.573)
Mmm.
Blake Withers (01:01:42.768)
haven't run for six months because they've just had recurrent stress fractures. And I'm like, this is horrible for you. And what I'm going to do, like you seem to see a dietitian first because whatever we do is going to be dramatically impacted by that. So those things happen a lot.
Benn Coubrough (01:01:51.132)
Mm.
Benn Coubrough (01:01:55.495)
Yeah, it's hard. It is a bit of a fine line and everybody's different. mean, adding females into it is even more... It's just with their menstrual cycle and iron levels and it's just, we have it easier in a way.
Blake Withers (01:02:10.872)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And working.
Yeah, I am working with people that understand running like I have people that go to um, like I've said, I mean, you need I'm like, you need to get a blood test because we need to look for things like cholesterol and they kind of female, female hormone workout, but things like cholesterol and iron and vitamin D and calcium and all these things they go to the doctor. It's like, no, you're okay. You don't you don't have any problems like you're a healthy runner. Like it's not you're not understanding what what we're looking for. And I know that people have time where they get dismissed by the doctor like, no, no, no, you don't have diabetes.
HappyTrails Pod (01:02:41.011)
Mmm
Blake Withers (01:02:46.544)
you don't need a blood test, what are you talking about? Like these people, you just get this kind of, it's almost like this aura where people are like, yeah, you're a runner, you are really healthy, you don't have any trouble. And I'm like, and as soon as you see a running doctor or someone that runs or they're doing endurance, but like, yeah, we need to make sure that your iron levels are higher. And you talk to runners, some of them have an, I don't know if guys have had an iron.
Benn Coubrough (01:02:48.645)
Mm.
Benn Coubrough (01:03:02.544)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (01:03:05.358)
confusion and they're like they feel incredible and I'm like my god this has been going on for two years like People just get used to like yeah, I'm always tired. That's just how I'm like no no I think there's actually something going on here that we need to want to have a look at that's gonna Make your running better. It's gonna make your running better
Benn Coubrough (01:03:09.499)
Mm.
Benn Coubrough (01:03:14.724)
Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (01:03:16.565)
Mmm.
Benn Coubrough (01:03:20.154)
Mm. Yeah.
And I mean it is being being male and having lots of like female clients, etc It's a try and ask those sort of questions and but they're there some of them don't really tell some of them don't at first or Don't really tell me until I sort of probe or ask but because it's having a conversation with the mouth a little bit different but it's trying to break down that wall and Open it up because I need to know this if I'm if you're training for a marathon or an ultra marathon 100k 100 mile or
Blake Withers (01:03:34.86)
Yeah, it's hard.
Blake Withers (01:03:44.995)
Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (01:03:47.541)
Mmm.
Benn Coubrough (01:03:51.8)
I need to I need to understand that what I'm giving you your body's gonna be able to handle and it's not gonna cause any other issues and like there's a few and there's things I always learn like I'm like had a client that has low on iron and they were getting like Cramps well, they were just getting sudden cramps and they said they're feeling like a bit itchy at times and stuff like and then they when they I said we'll Go see a doctor etc. And yeah, her iron levels were low to an infusion and the doctor was explaining. Well, yeah
Blake Withers (01:04:19.276)
Yep.
Benn Coubrough (01:04:21.63)
Cramping is one of the bypasses of having low iron and skin feeling a bit itchy as well, all these little things. helps me obviously understand and hit those markers and understand what to look for as well. It's also opening up the questions and making sure that you're telling everybody that needs to know what's going on so you can attack things before they actually get worse.
HappyTrails Pod (01:04:53.557)
Out of curiosity, just sort of getting conscious of time, suppose, there's such a focus now on a hundred milers, or 200 milers, you know, was 10, 15 years ago, was the marathon, it the absolute pinnacle. Now, I mean, look, it is a little bit the people we hang out with, but it's, you talk about a hundred K and a lot of the time it's followed by...
Benn Coubrough (01:04:56.635)
Mm.
HappyTrails Pod (01:05:19.125)
I'm just doing the because I want to do the 100 miler next time. We've got all these big goals and I think that the timeframe around how people want to get from zero to hero is a lot more condensed now than it probably should be. If someone's looking at getting sucked into this social media marketing, the hype around doing these 100 milers and you're probably more of that 30K a week, 40K a week runner, is there...
Blake Withers (01:05:21.442)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (01:05:32.343)
Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (01:05:46.129)
One, two, three, like a little hierarchy or something of what you would focus on or any advice you would have for someone to manage those lower limb injuries and that sort of thing with a bit of a focus on that, I suppose. And yeah, any advice there.
Blake Withers (01:06:01.664)
Yeah, to manage them once they've happened or to try or both later. Yeah. This is for you. Like, what would you do? My friend's gonna saw my sawed knee.
HappyTrails Pod (01:06:04.565)
No, I just did the lead up to try and prevent, and this is almost a selfish question because I'm sort of, I'm building. Yeah, what would you do if your name was Mitch? Yeah, that's right. Let's do a quick online consult.
Benn Coubrough (01:06:16.24)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've got, I like, I could, I can do that for you, Mitch. I've got this maid who's doing 240Ks.
HappyTrails Pod (01:06:23.751)
Yeah. No, look at you so, yeah, it's right, balding. Yeah, like someone who is, it's a huge cohort now and you look at some of the people we're training with, Benny, and you know, going from that sort of, I guess half marathon marathon into wanting to do these bigger things now. Yeah, is there any sort of one or two key takeaways that you'd say, focus on this as your absolute go-to.
Blake Withers (01:06:25.366)
Yeah, he's about the same build as me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Blake Withers (01:06:34.958)
for sure.
Benn Coubrough (01:06:36.635)
Mm.
Blake Withers (01:06:50.414)
Hmm. Yeah, it's a good question. I'm torn because I really, I never have really bought into the idea of like, need to do this before this like...
You can't run the marathon, you can't run the half until you get a quick 5K and then a good 10K. of course, yes, doing those will probably make a better progression. But I think it's really cool that people are getting out there and doing these challenges. Like I have, you know, even within your group and people running the 50K, like women in their 40s and 50s and they're like, hey, I wanna do the 50K UTA. I'm like, this is awesome. That's such a cool achievement for you. I wanna support you in whatever way that I can. And sometimes I was like, no, you gotta run the 2K before you can do this.
I don't buy into it that much. However, in saying that, it seems so logical because the big challenge with your running is if you look at the levels of where your aerobic fitness to your tissue fitness, it is very different. So aerobically, you can probably get fitter a lot quicker. Whereas unfortunately, we don't have anything at the moment that I'm aware of.
HappyTrails Pod (01:07:48.821)
Hmm.
Blake Withers (01:07:55.054)
that makes your tissue adapt any quicker. So we look at the adaption curve, like how quickly things will adapt. Your muscle adapts the quickest. You have a muscle strain, you we can have your back probably between 16 to 30 days, you you strain your calf. Whereas you have a tendon injury, it's a little bit longer. Bone injury is a little bit longer, the kind of bone and tendon are about the same. And then cartilage is even longer again. So cartilage, you may be looking at anywhere from six to 12 months. So if we're looking at you training and you building up your load, you can aerobically feel fine.
but your tissue and your joints, they just can't adapt that quickly, unfortunately. And if you're training a lot and you've got a 12 week program where you're running 30 Ks, you're like, need to run 100 miler or 100 K in 12 weeks. It's of course a risk because your tissues just don't adapt that quick. So they're just going to be much more likely to break down. There was a really interesting study that come out recently that was looking at, I think they analyzed 3,400 runners looking at like, what are the big risk factors in training load? Because training load is going to be the key to all this. And they were saying or what they showed,
was if your longest run in the week prior, if you don't increase your next longest run by roughly any more than 10%, you are less likely to have an injury. So if you ran, let's say, I'm trying to make it easy for my math, if you ran 50Ks last week, you wouldn't want to run any more than 10 % of that the week after. And that was shown to be protective against injury rather than just going up by 10 or 15 or 20, whatever you may do. So your runs throughout the week can stay
you can increase them, the next long run shouldn't go up anymore. And then trying to be diligent and breaking down the variables of not just how many kilometres that you're doing, but how much elevation, and this is what I say to the people I work with, how much elevation you're doing, how much easier running you're doing, how much faster running you're doing, and how frequent that you're running. And then what we generally say, and this isn't based off any science because we don't have it yet, is looking at all those variables, you have 10
Per week to increase but you can only use the variables that you've got So if you increase your let's say your elevation by five percent and only leaves you five percent left over So you can only increase maybe your long run by five percent and that's your ten percent quota for the week You can't do ten percent of your long run ten percent of your easy run or ten percent of your intensity and that way You know that you're only raising one variable So you're only changing one thing you let the body adapt that week and then you can go to the next week and then you can kind of build on that
Blake Withers (01:10:24.768)
And that's probably one of the safer ways I've found because if you just say training load, you know, it's different because elevation is different stress to your tissue versus intensity versus running easy. So it's really hard to be able to to gauge that. But I would say no more than 10 percent for your last latest long run. And then looking at your history as well, if you've been running for over, you know, over 12 months or over a couple of years, you're going to be a lot more likely to be safer in increasing your training load. But if you're a newer runner, you are honestly
HappyTrails Pod (01:10:31.029)
Mmm.
Benn Coubrough (01:10:32.003)
Mmm, yep.
Blake Withers (01:10:54.608)
probably far better off not increasing week to week and increasing every two weeks. So if you run 50k this week, you're a newer runner less than 12 months, I'd say before you make any changes, you repeat that week again. So 50k exactly the same roughly, and then you'd look to add on. Above all this, you're just better off getting a coach as well. you listen to this, like you need someone to guide your running, we get coaches all over, know, there's business coaches, there's health coaches, doctors, all that kind of thing. Like if you need help with something, you go to an expert. So reach out to a coach.
Benn Coubrough (01:11:00.092)
Mm.
HappyTrails Pod (01:11:07.359)
Mm-hmm.
Blake Withers (01:11:24.528)
and the conversation I have the most with runners is you are always, and maybe I'm biased because I work with injured people, you are always far better off doing the option that's less.
in my opinion, because one of the factors that is most important for running performance is consistency. So if you can run and not have any interruptions, that's just gonna be way better for your fitness. So if you're thinking, should I increase here? Should I increase that? You're far better off to maybe do half of what you think or not increase at all. Just repeat the same week again and then increase because it just gives your tissues more time to adapt your tendons, your joints, your bones, your muscles. They just have more time to adapt and time is
always going to be better.
It's a roundabout way to say there's no real way to know that. But I always say to people, if you've got the option to go slower and you're umming and ah-ing, you're better off not doing it because you can always go forward. You can always do more if things are okay now. But if you flare things up or you have an injury, then you have to go back. If you have an injury, you can't go forward. you're kind of looking at, I would rather you have a little bit less training and then not miss three or four weeks rather than pushing forward. It might be fine.
but also it might not. I've got more time as well if you guys are, I can go for another 10, 15 minutes up to you guys unless you want to finish it. But yeah, it's hard to say, it's hard to say in that sense.
Benn Coubrough (01:12:43.42)
Well said.
HappyTrails Pod (01:12:43.507)
Awesome.
Benn Coubrough (01:12:49.66)
Yeah, that's right. Always more.
HappyTrails Pod (01:12:52.915)
Okay, Kevin.
Benn Coubrough (01:12:56.453)
it
HappyTrails Pod (01:12:57.533)
Yeah, it's a very difficult question, I get that, but yeah.
Benn Coubrough (01:12:58.268)
That was yeah, it's yeah, it's but no I think that was well because I think that's a part of the way the good point message mentioning elevation because a lot of people just sort of don't think that like I sort of my rule I sort of look at 1000 meters of climbing is equivalent to like 10k's on the road to a rough estimate so that if you're only doing 2000 a week elevation and then you're doing 100k's a week and then you start trying to do 120-130k a week but then you want to try and get to 3-4
HappyTrails Pod (01:13:02.965)
Yeah, absolutely.
Benn Coubrough (01:13:28.222)
4000 meters of climbing then that's like a hundred eighty K week pretty much in equivalent So you if you are trying to jump up too much in both and you said that as well and not just focusing on one increase and not Not increasing everything then and that comes down to intensity as well I need if you're only doing two sessions a week and then you three sessions a week, then you add volume then you add any elevation and you You just yeah, you're just trying to burn too much
Blake Withers (01:13:50.506)
intensity, all that kind of stuff.
Blake Withers (01:13:55.694)
Yeah. And Strava is cool now because you can see everything. Like you can see, mean, not so much the intensity of distribution, but you can see elevation and K's. And when I work, I do a little bit of programming for people. Just usually they come back from an injury and they want me to help them to their marathon. A little bit of performance stuff. But what I do with the people that I see, like let's say, you know, it's John, we've worked with John, he's had some Achilles tendinopathy. It's okay now. We kind of basically map out and go, who was John as a person? What's his injury history? How long has he been
Benn Coubrough (01:13:57.968)
Mmm. Mmm.
Blake Withers (01:14:25.648)
been running for, what did you do when you were growing up, how old is he, all these types of things. And that gives me what I would call the risk profile. So let's say, as an example, if he's had injuries before, he's male, he's overweight, and he's been running for less than a year, all those four characteristics are clear risk factors to have another injury. And we know that from the research. So I know for him, we have to go slower. And I'll explain that, say, listen, we know that BMI and higher body mass index is one of the second most commonly reported risk factors.
for a running related injury. So for you, we need to go slower and this is why we need to go slower. Now I can't say how slow, but we need to be on the safer side. Whereas, someone like you, Ben, you're pretty resilient based off your running. For someone like you, you've really experienced runner, you've run a lot of trails, you've done a lot of training. I know for you, a 5 % increase is probably pretty safe, so we can probably do a little bit more and that's just basing it off the person.
I'm in front of you, but it's hard to do. It's hard to do.
Benn Coubrough (01:15:23.484)
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And they like...
things I look for as well and like with intensity it's like heart rate like and I always try and make sure look at okay well what what are you using to measure your heart rate have you got a strap or a wrist or are you using wrist space from your watch and if you've got some of the newer watches then you generally are better at tracking heart rate but it's and it's but it's not just looking at it's looking at when they're doing their easy running that's where I see the biggest thing is when I see people doing their mental
Blake Withers (01:15:35.534)
Mmm.
Blake Withers (01:15:41.667)
Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (01:15:59.326)
be there just a jog or recovery run but their heart rate is too high and it's like well and you have then you try and have that conversation well I was feeling I felt good I felt fine but it's it's still not it's yeah yeah yeah it's like oh my legs felt good I wasn't that heavy I was rolling really good well yeah that's that's good but you still need to turn it back a bit like I mean and I that's and like being on the treadmill is easy for that as well like you
Blake Withers (01:16:10.56)
Yeah, they're out of breath and like hands on days like yeah, I'm good. I'm good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (01:16:10.579)
Mmm.
Blake Withers (01:16:23.596)
Yeah, that training area is huge.
Benn Coubrough (01:16:29.256)
Once you set it to 12 and your legs and you're just rolling and that's it. like you you after running on the treadmill for 5k, 12 comes very comfortable and come easy then you're like, I'll just increase it. But if it's just meant to be an easy run and then keep it, keep it there. Don't you don't need to increase it just because you're feeling good. Yeah.
Blake Withers (01:16:47.062)
Yeah. Cross train swim, bike, you know, do something where just to give you a body. I got a guy yesterday and he got some Nutella from Lantier and he pain and his problem was he just kind of had to be banging out of hard 5k every week. Cause he wants to get his 5k down. Like that's, that's awesome. We can get your 5k now, but how about we do three by one K at your 5k pace and we have a three minute walk stand just for you to rest. And the most people's like, I didn't even know you could do that. You know, I, if I want to run a hard 5k,
HappyTrails Pod (01:16:48.298)
Mmm.
Benn Coubrough (01:17:02.178)
Mmm. Yeah.
Blake Withers (01:17:16.976)
I've got to run a hard 5K every week to get better. So, and this is the big challenge in the research. We don't know how, like how do I, if someone comes to you and they say, listen, guys, I want to make smart training decisions. Teach me that. Like, how do you do that? You know what I mean? It's hard to teach someone smart training decisions. So that's where it's really difficult. So all this other stuff is helpful, but yeah, teaching someone to think critically about it, because we all make mistakes, you know, is really difficult.
Benn Coubrough (01:17:18.436)
Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (01:17:31.738)
Hmm, yeah.
Benn Coubrough (01:17:42.332)
Yeah, that is. But no, but yeah, well, I don't know. think, I mean, I think we could probably keep going and go on to it. But then I think we're just going to start going into another topic and then we could be here all day.
HappyTrails Pod (01:17:44.425)
Hmm.
Sure.
Blake Withers (01:17:56.535)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (01:18:02.144)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (01:18:02.313)
Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (01:18:05.468)
But thank you so much. Is there anything that you wanted to add?
Blake Withers (01:18:12.878)
Mm, no, I think we're confident. mean
fuel well, great, good, make smart training decisions. But even in the in the gym, and we spoke a little bit around that, but for people in the gym, specifically, like what to do and when I mean, we got to, I'm assuming you can be safe in the gym, you know, maybe have a PT session or work with someone who's been in the gym, for running, you don't need to do anything fancy, all the like the unstable training and balancing like that is cool to do. But what it doesn't allow you to do is if you're unbalanced, you're not able to produce the torque and the
Benn Coubrough (01:18:17.519)
Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (01:18:23.228)
Mmm.
Blake Withers (01:18:45.648)
stress through the muscle. So if you're doing a calf raise without holding onto the wall, you're unbalanced and you're not able to really contract the muscle. And the contraction is the thing that we need for it to get bigger and stronger. So as a program for someone wanting to know in the gym, squats, deadlifts, calf raises, and some hopping and jumping.
some hopping and jumping and all you need to do is four to five sets of five to six repetitions. But when you get to the end of the set, you should be really focusing on two to three reps in reserve. And that just means when you get to the end of the set, if you're life dependent on it, you could probably do a couple more reps. So it's not the end maximum, but you're pretty close. And almost all the people I work with are significantly under loading the gym. Maybe you're from safety, they don't feel confident, which is completely fine. But a lot of people can do these calf raises and they're doing it. go, so I say, how many calf raises can you do?
20 body weight and they'll do them and they look fine. I'm like, this is not worthwhile at all. Cause you're not getting any stimulus from that. You need to be, to be talented. So grab some weight, 20, 30, 40 kilo get on the machine, load it up because the stimulus and the stress for your tissues is how they get stronger. It'll make your muscle bigger. It'll make your tendon stiffer. It'll make your bones thicker. And these things are all good. And I love to say this. They're good for when we talk about injury, but resistance training is clearly been shown to be helpful for performance and your running economy. Cause if you get stiffer,
HappyTrails Pod (01:20:02.101)
Hmm.
Blake Withers (01:20:03.216)
you can absorb and produce more energy when you're running. So it's going to make you a better runner as well. And resistance training, like it's basically the elixir for old age. Like as a, there's a recommendation now for everyone, human, all human beings should be a resistance training because it is so clear in the research on how good it is for your skeletal health, your immune health, your nervous system, your cognitive health. And you don't need to do much like 20 minutes, a couple of times a week has shown to be, to be effective. So it's, it's worthwhile to do it. And it's just so good for you.
Benn Coubrough (01:20:11.868)
Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (01:20:33.626)
Yeah, well said. Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (01:20:34.143)
That's awesome. Just quickly before we go, achieve podiatry. Just a quick plug there. What's taking someone to a podiatrist? When should they go? What's the difference, I guess, between a podiatrist and a physio? I went, I know, sorry, just a, okay, not, let's, let's, we can narrow it down a little bit, but I mean, I went down, to be honest, I hadn't seen a podiatrist.
Blake Withers (01:20:35.15)
Yeah.
yes, yes.
Blake Withers (01:20:48.272)
God you started me now my partner my partner just left to so I can go home Yeah
Benn Coubrough (01:20:50.16)
Yeah, that's...
Yeah
HappyTrails Pod (01:21:00.169)
for years until I went down. had a bit of what I thought might've been fasciitis. So spoke to Benny, he said, go down and see you guys. I went down and saw Gabby, almost gave her a cuddle on the way out. She did all the assessments and said, look, get out of your head. It's not fasciitis. It's a bit of fat pad problem. It's gone. You know, now, and that was only a couple of weeks ago. what, for someone who would have traditionally gone to a physio for lower limb as well as upper limb, what's the elevator?
Blake Withers (01:21:09.604)
Hahaha, yeah.
Blake Withers (01:21:14.83)
Yep. Yep.
HappyTrails Pod (01:21:26.655)
Pitch, I guess, for lack of better words, or what's the difference, or why are we going to you as opposed to a physio?
Blake Withers (01:21:27.696)
tough, yeah. Yeah, well, the way I like to think of it now and how I...
have even the panitry students I teach at the university to think about it is we wanna understand professions purely for medico-legal reasons, like the scope of practice, where the sense of, you know, legally I shouldn't be treating someone's shoulder because I'm not trained to that and I haven't gone through the exams and regulated by APRA. But how I like to think of it is who is the best positioned person to help you? So if it's myself and I'm thinking, great, I don't wanna silo off and say it's only panitry, it's only physio, it's only chiro.
who is just best position and practitioners are different because there's so much individuality and scalability, sorry, so much variability within clinician because some podiatrists will be unbelievable at wound management. So if a wound comes into the clinic for me, I will refer that out to someone who I know is way more knowledgeable and smarter than me. And I'm lucky enough that I work with other podiatrists in the community who will send patients to me that have stress fractures or they're a little bit more complex because that's what I enjoy and that's what I see.
HappyTrails Pod (01:22:12.949)
Mmm.
Blake Withers (01:22:36.632)
a lot of so it's generally who is best positioned to see me I see someone comes in with the telepharmic pain or hip pain commonly so I was it coming from my feet their feet are fine they go great well can you look after my knee and my hip and I certainly can and I know I feel as though I know enough to be able to get things started but I just say no I'm say listen Steve my colleague physio they see this way more than me they're just gonna be way better at it than me I'll get you started but let's go in and see them so it's who's best position so if you're
HappyTrails Pod (01:23:00.853)
Hmm.
Blake Withers (01:23:06.482)
or got a running lead injury. I don't think that you have to be a runner to help a runner in any sense, but I just, do believe that you have a different understanding if you do run, like you just really get what this person's going through. So I would say ideally, you know, booking with a runner because they might understand training load a little bit better. And most of the things that I do as a penetrator is which people, you know, don't believe I write more running programs and give out orthotics for my runners without a doubt. It's like maybe a six to one ratio because
HappyTrails Pod (01:23:33.971)
Mmm.
Benn Coubrough (01:23:34.416)
Yeah. Yeah.
Blake Withers (01:23:36.622)
the programming is the big key to it. I use orthotics and shoes and taping and rehab around that, but it still comes down to the training load. I would say you just need to, you need to see someone that you trust and you know and think that's gonna understand what you're going through. And that person is gonna be best for you because we all do versions of the same thing. I can write a program, my partner physio can write a program. If there's some specific stuff like blisters or nails or something where foot orthoses may be in
it's probably gonna be better for podiatry. But I think if you see the right people, you know that they're gonna connect you with the right person. I love to see runners and work with runners. And I used to say, I felt a little bit odd being like, oh, know, see whoever, but I wanna see a runner, because I just love seeing people run. if you're a runner and you need help or you're concerned, just send me a message and I can connect you with someone, but it's who's best producer and who you feel like you can trust as well.
HappyTrails Pod (01:24:15.839)
Yep. Yep.
Benn Coubrough (01:24:24.656)
Yeah, yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (01:24:25.257)
Yeah, yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (01:24:36.287)
Yeah, nice person.
Benn Coubrough (01:24:36.334)
I think that's the like... No, that was perfect. That was perfect. And I really liked how you...
Blake Withers (01:24:37.488)
It's a real political answer. didn't really give you an answer because, yeah, you know what I say, sorry, here you go.
HappyTrails Pod (01:24:39.377)
Yeah, I told you, your wife's gone mate.
Benn Coubrough (01:24:46.332)
I like how you mentioned about how it's not just giving them an orthotic to fix a problem and you're looking at their running and their program and stuff like that. I maybe go back 20 years or something, a lot of people were seeing podiatrists and they just, boom, here's an orthotic, this is going to fix your problems. And a lot of people will say, oh well I wore it for another month and I was getting sore feet and it didn't really do anything and then that changes the perspective of a podiatrist.
Blake Withers (01:25:00.805)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (01:25:14.616)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, don't get me started here. Don't get me started here. This is is part two.
HappyTrails Pod (01:25:14.911)
I think this is another can of worms here, Ben. This is for serious.
Benn Coubrough (01:25:16.747)
And I think yeah, I think so but I Know I won't I won't get you I won't get you started on it But it's a perfect example of how things have changed in your approach because I have I have seen podiatrists in the past more because I had a really good podiatrist in Sydney when I lived in Sydney and I think she was awesome and she she wasn't that yeah, just
HappyTrails Pod (01:25:26.269)
Yeah, yeah.
Blake Withers (01:25:26.948)
Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (01:25:39.152)
Here's an orthotic, see you later. She was really good on the biomechanics stuff and helped me. And then when I moved to Newcastle, was looking for a similar thing, a good podiatrist, and I saw a couple and they were just like, yeah, this here's your machine's going, yeah, you've got this, this, this, and this. We just need to give you this, so then that's gonna help you. like, but why? And he couldn't answer me why. And then obviously being connected, I mean, I've met Justin Smith, that's
Blake Withers (01:25:41.07)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (01:26:02.712)
Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (01:26:09.156)
we got connected in when you started to achieve and that's what I sort of look for same when I look for physios and everything like that it's and like how you said each physio even in the diatres they have different functions and they've got different
Blake Withers (01:26:10.67)
Yeah, yeah.
Benn Coubrough (01:26:26.672)
They treat differently, then different scopes. And like I've met, I've met like a couple of different physios that are awesome with muscle rehab and others that are better with tendon and stuff like that. It's like you love your running, so you love seeing running. It's like other physios, they love seeing tendon injuries and that sort of stuff. it's exactly what you said. Find what's gonna work for you and what's gonna help the individual.
Blake Withers (01:26:27.056)
Scopes, scopes, scopes, yeah. Yeah.
Blake Withers (01:26:47.684)
Yeah, it's nuanced.
Blake Withers (01:26:54.51)
Yeah, yeah, I agree, I agree. But yeah, if you guys even just put my Instagram handle in there, I've got all my links and stuff if anyone wants to, appointment or advice or anything like that. I mean, can't give medical advice online, but happy to have an appointment and a chat about that. That's good.
Benn Coubrough (01:26:56.685)
Mm.
Benn Coubrough (01:27:03.612)
Yeah, well...
Benn Coubrough (01:27:10.852)
Yeah, we'll share all the and put links to even I've listened to a fair few of your podcasts. So it's really, really good with no and just thank you for all the info and all the information that you put out there. It's very educational and it helps a lot of people.
HappyTrails Pod (01:27:14.143)
Yeah, definitely.
Blake Withers (01:27:19.373)
yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely can put that in there.
HappyTrails Pod (01:27:25.365)
Yeah, absolutely.
Benn Coubrough (01:27:33.23)
Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (01:27:33.918)
No.
Blake Withers (01:27:41.968)
I've turned into a bloody influencer now with all the photos. Yeah, nice. Beauty. Awesome guys. Thank you so much for having me.
HappyTrails Pod (01:27:48.244)
Haha
Benn Coubrough (01:27:50.928)
Perfect. No, awesome mate. Yeah, really appreciate it.
HappyTrails Pod (01:27:52.073)
Love it. No, mate, thanks very much for your time. That was super, super interesting. It's so nice to hear someone with the passion and the knowledge. It's just, yeah, for someone who likes to talk a lot, I could easily just sit back and listen to you go on and on and venting yourself. With the shoe geek stuff, it's fantastic. So, very much appreciated, Blake.
Benn Coubrough (01:27:59.419)
Yeah.
Blake Withers (01:28:01.776)
I appreciate it.
Hahaha
Benn Coubrough (01:28:08.25)
That's it.
Blake Withers (01:28:09.52)
We should go for a while.
Benn Coubrough (01:28:11.6)
Yeah, it's, it's yeah, well, let's say let's part one.
Blake Withers (01:28:13.36)
Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (01:28:16.383)
Yeah, looking forward to part two where we, the evolution of orthotics. Cheers, mate. Thanks, buddy.
Blake Withers (01:28:16.686)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, part two. All right, see you later, Yeah, bye.
Benn Coubrough (01:28:21.798)
Yeah, no thanks a lot. Cheers mate, appreciate it. Bye. cool. That was good. He's, yeah he's love just-
HappyTrails Pod (01:28:28.031)
Jeez, there's some brains in there.
Benn Coubrough (01:28:31.876)
love his passion. was like, we met a few years ago and when he sort of first moved back from, moved back into Newcastle and he'd send me a message, a text message, et cetera, and we just chatting. said, yeah, we'll organize a catch up, et cetera, et cetera. And then walked, rocked up at this, we are used to do a session at Carrington on a Wednesday morning and rocked up and, and getting introduced. yeah, this is Blake, Blake with us. And I'm like, you know, wasn't I just talking to you like last night about catching up and, and then we're just connected.
HappyTrails Pod (01:28:33.929)
Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (01:28:58.943)
Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (01:29:01.8)
from there but yeah real passionate bloke yeah he's just yeah as you can as you would have heard it just lives and breathes it
HappyTrails Pod (01:29:12.351)
Yeah, he does and you can see that knowledge is just like, I guess, like fitness really. It's just that stacking of just, he's just, he won't stop learning, loves the research, doing his own PhD, the research is just phenomenal. And I think he's the sort of people we need to be going and seeing and interacting with because they're forever at the forefront of the new research and everything else where.
Benn Coubrough (01:29:36.06)
Mm.
HappyTrails Pod (01:29:37.133)
We sort of mentioned different people within the industry around the old school orthotics or whatever it happens to be. There's like every industry, there's people that are probably sort of, they've got their set in their ways and won't evolve as much as Blake obviously does. So yeah, such a super interesting guy, hey.
Benn Coubrough (01:29:52.572)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, um sorry, can we just one second? Sorry man. You gotta go. Okay, alright. Love you. Bye. See you later. Bye. Oh shit. Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (01:30:03.496)
Bye!
HappyTrails Pod (01:30:07.35)
Yeah, no, that's cool. So we'll pop his links down in the show notes. And I certainly highly recommend, as I'm sure you would going down to see them. As I said, I saw Gabby the other day and I'll go back and see her again soon. And yeah, just her as well, her knowledge straight off the bat was just exceptional.
Benn Coubrough (01:30:11.846)
Yeah. Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (01:30:17.884)
Mmm.
Benn Coubrough (01:30:27.674)
Yeah, yeah, so they've got it in, yeah, they've got a new clinic now in Port Macquarie, as well as Newcastle, but yeah, like...
HappyTrails Pod (01:30:33.385)
Yes, yep. Yep.
Benn Coubrough (01:30:36.764)
Yeah, and I think they've, as you said, me and Gabby, I've worked with Justin before and Blake and yeah, they've, and as I think Blake just said, like Blake really is honing in on those running stuff, but I think Justin, Justin has a big background in rugby league and jiu-jitsu and all that sort of stuff. So they've all got that, all different views and angles and everything. But yeah, cool.
HappyTrails Pod (01:30:41.385)
Yeah. Yeah. Awesome.
HappyTrails Pod (01:30:51.956)
Okay.
HappyTrails Pod (01:30:57.907)
Yeah, nice one. I reckon we might jump past the training today being that it's an hour and a half. That was a long one and very justified. I would love to touch on OCC though last night. It's all...
Benn Coubrough (01:31:03.354)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (01:31:11.132)
I was actually just thinking maybe we should do a little spin-off on Monday to recap OCC, CCC and UTMB but we can touch on a bit, we'll touch a bit on OCC if you like now. Wow.
HappyTrails Pod (01:31:18.675)
Yeah, it can do actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (01:31:25.211)
I just, yeah, like it's funny. I can really see that that's something I'm gonna try. Like I would watch more. I don't know whether it's the gym factor, the Petter Engel factor, whatever it is, know, having a couple of those famous people in that race, which drew me to watch that a little bit more, but.
Benn Coubrough (01:31:42.199)
Benn Coubrough (01:31:49.68)
Mm.
HappyTrails Pod (01:31:50.707)
Watching the two, the women race, the fight at the front there, the fight, the gym, the guy overtaking and coming back, like it just, it was so good. Yeah, passes the goat.
Benn Coubrough (01:31:53.109)
yeah.
Benn Coubrough (01:31:58.927)
I couldn't believe the little tap on the shoulder as he passed the... oh. How good was that? Like just taps Jim on the shoulder as he runs past. Like, wow.
HappyTrails Pod (01:32:08.991)
Like that's so exciting. you know, for 50K, 60K, it's done in a matter of hours. So, you know, for us in Australia, that was, you know, I was putting Hugo and Naive into bed watching that sort of thing. And normally I'm sat there with a movie or whatever, and I'm just sat there glued to this running event. It was phenomenal. Where I think that's the, I don't know, you can always see a world, but that starts to, the prize money and sponsorship money and everything else starts to.
Benn Coubrough (01:32:14.48)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (01:32:21.86)
was... Yeah. yeah, I've...
Benn Coubrough (01:32:29.18)
Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (01:32:38.309)
equal out, you know, with the Mylar. I know the Mylar is the big marquee event, but that's an easy way to get eyes on screen.
Benn Coubrough (01:32:42.588)
Exactly, but I mean Yeah, and like if they can just suit more with the like the golden trial series and that I mean That's why they had the ETC but unfortunately like you TDS and ETC doesn't didn't have any live coverage I really think they could have even the ETC if that had I mean I know it's another cost and it's a big cost what they're doing for the three events anyway, but I Think it's it's shorter. It's more exciting. It's like passing
HappyTrails Pod (01:32:50.185)
Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (01:32:55.945)
Yeah, yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (01:33:04.648)
Yeah!
Benn Coubrough (01:33:09.564)
It's like, yeah, was an amazing watch, an amazing finish. Like, I mean, obviously being delayed helped me a little bit. So I didn't miss too much, I only missed a little bit at the start. but uh, oh.
HappyTrails Pod (01:33:19.005)
Yeah. Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (01:33:25.061)
Yeah. Yeah. My God, watching the start of it, it looks like a good runner on a flat 5k. It just, the bouncing they get and really into different styles between, because it was Petter Engel and Jim on the way up to start with that they broke away, I thought they broke away, they were gone. That's for most of the race. I thought that was just, you know, they were going to fight it and then it sort of changed completely. But they...
Benn Coubrough (01:33:30.052)
Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (01:33:34.3)
Mm-mm.
Benn Coubrough (01:33:42.971)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing.
HappyTrails Pod (01:33:52.265)
Watching Jim run is so lovely. He just flows as if it's a dead flat and it's 40 degree angle sort of thing. It's crazy. yeah, that female fight for the front just all day with...
Benn Coubrough (01:33:54.072)
Yeah it is. it flows, yeah, effortlessly. Yeah. that's it. No.
Benn Coubrough (01:34:03.244)
that was, yeah, that was... I think it's gonna be the same for all three events. It's gonna be the women's, that's gonna be the one to watch. I think maybe do Monday and we can do a big recap because the hype's real. I will be truthful, I didn't see the end of the race. I fell asleep.
HappyTrails Pod (01:34:08.692)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, very, very cool. Very cool, but yeah, all right, that's a good idea. Let's go into all three. Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
HappyTrails Pod (01:34:27.443)
Well, me neither. had to watch a replay this morning, I made most of the way and I just fell asleep. I had a glass of red and...
Benn Coubrough (01:34:29.468)
I haven't had a chance to watch it yet. I just saw the, I just checked the results. I checked the results. I got to, think there must have been 5K to go and I just fell asleep. I'm like, oh, damn it. I woke up, but at all.
HappyTrails Pod (01:34:41.968)
Yeah, nice, nice. Just really quickly before we nick off, I know you've posted a couple of things around David Goggins joining into Moab. It's funny, we've obviously been very excited about it. Probably going to an A.O. on the Insta and stuff like that and everyone's come back going, oh my God, that's cool, know, whatever it is. I was talking to a mate and I said, oh, guess who signed up? And he's like, who? said, David Goggins. And he's like,
Benn Coubrough (01:34:52.122)
Mmm. Yeah, no way.
Benn Coubrough (01:34:58.779)
Yeah.
Mm.
Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (01:35:11.541)
Who? I was like, you know, like, you know who David Goggins is. Never heard of him. Okay, all right, no worries. And then I was speaking to Ian last night, or night before last, and I said, David Goggins is in Moab. And she's like, who's David Goggins? I'm like, what do you mean? Is it just that I've surrounded myself now with 90 % runners, but I thought that would have bled out into the normal community for sure. Am I just married to someone who lives under a rock?
Benn Coubrough (01:35:12.858)
Ha
Yeah. Yeah.
Yep.
Benn Coubrough (01:35:24.06)
no!
Yeah, well Nicole, uh, I don't know Nicole, I mean Nicole knows who David Goggins is but I don't know that's because of me, probably. But um, but yeah, don't, yeah it's weird like I've spoken to a few people and I've had a couple of different opinions. I'm like oh look, if you saw, if you saw a meme or you saw something you would, it'll click, you would know who it, you probably don't know who it is but if you saw something, if you saw a meme or saw something you would then you'll click and go oh that's that guy. Oh, can you hear me?
HappyTrails Pod (01:35:46.611)
Yeah, crazy. I just thought that was what everyone knew.
HappyTrails Pod (01:35:54.974)
I've lost you, Benny.
There you go. Yeah. Yeah, I got you there.
Benn Coubrough (01:36:01.018)
Yeah, and if you saw it you go, yeah, that's that guy.
HappyTrails Pod (01:36:04.371)
Yeah, that sounds like, Darl, it's this stay hard guy. No, no, never heard of him. Never heard of him.
Benn Coubrough (01:36:07.996)
Yeah, that's all good. But no, just a bit more hype for the race and I think he's going to obviously running from Bigfoot and now that he's sort of been posting a lot of that and a lot of stuff coming out for that so it'll just roll right into Moab. Hmm. Oh, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
HappyTrails Pod (01:36:15.593)
Yeah, I love it.
HappyTrails Pod (01:36:24.649)
Yep, you obviously need some money. Looking at his socials. But then that's bloody algorithm thing, isn't it? Every time I open now, it's just more Goggins or those two idiot Lambros who's got the rarest blood disease in the world and took a steroid for it. Now he's back on board. My God, they're killing me. It's so cringy.
Benn Coubrough (01:36:37.016)
Yeah, off you go.
Benn Coubrough (01:36:44.122)
Yeah.
Benn Coubrough (01:36:47.61)
It's so cr- yeah, it's so fake. I mean, raising money for cancer and I get it and good on them but the just the way they're pushing it and portraying their hurt and what they're doing is, like, mm. But yeah, no, we won't go into that. Yeah, but yeah. Yeah, well, no. Think-
HappyTrails Pod (01:36:49.939)
Yeah, it's so bad. Good on him.
HappyTrails Pod (01:37:02.421)
Yeah, anyway, don't get me started on them. We'll have a separate session on them as well. All right, let's wrap that up. That was super interesting. So yeah, looking forward to the feedback on that one.
Benn Coubrough (01:37:13.508)
Yeah, thanks again Blake and thanks for listening guys. Remar doesn't matter if you're at the back, the front or somewhere in the middle, it's a happy trail.
HappyTrails Pod (01:37:21.343)
Certainly is. Thanks Benny. You have a good day. Enjoy your long run mate.
Benn Coubrough (01:37:23.996)
Well there.
HappyTrails Pod (01:37:27.189)
Catch you team.
Benn Coubrough (01:37:28.006)
Cool.