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The Relaxed Running podcast is a behind the scenes conversation with the best athletes, coaches and professionals in the world of distance running. From training, hydration and nutrition to racing and recovering, we learn from the best in the world.
Relaxed conversations which are packed with actionable takeaways to help you take your running performance up a notch. Save yourself years of guess work and learn from the people who are doing it at the highest level.
Tyson (00:48.916)
Ahem.
Raf Baugh (01:22.367)
Can you hear me, mate? Is that better?
Tyson (01:23.458)
Gotcha, there you go. Oh, that's, man, you sound better than I do, Nia.
Raf Baugh (01:29.655)
Haha, I wish. Now is that gonna come up with a picture? I think it's, I think it's got, I've got a camera here.
Tyson (01:36.51)
on the computer, are ya? You're a, oh, beautiful man. I was gonna say, it's not the end of the world if we can't get the visuals, but it's, yeah, perfect. Oh, dude, it's so funny as well. I reckon I've got the perfect lighting coming through this window. Sometimes even still in my little back office, I'll sit down and I'm like, I can't believe I've been doing this for however long and I still can't figure out the lighting. It's like the, it's the biggest pain in the ass sometimes.
Raf Baugh (01:38.435)
Yeah, hold on, there we go, there we go.
Raf Baugh (01:45.499)
Lighting that lighting is no good is it?
Raf Baugh (02:04.615)
Yeah, so what's been happening mate? So you're ticking along with this, cranking it?
Tyson (02:09.582)
Yeah, yeah, so I um, gee man, it's been like nearly four years I've been doing it for now like four years in November and it's just one of those things It's just that classic it felt like such a I guess to a degree it still is but it just felt like such a grind at the start to really build the traction and Just like probably even just the last 12 months. It's just it's really started flowing in terms of like a lot more listeners a lot more regular listeners and it's not even like at the start. I thought it all had to just be
super elite athletes and I was like, oh, okay, well, I'll get pumped if I had like Stu McSwain on and I was like, this will get massive numbers. But man, like some of the biggest episodes of, like my most downloaded ever episode is a guided 30 minute easy run. So I'm still figuring it all out. But yeah, I feel like these kinds of podcasts, like with coaches, physios, like people in and around the sport have always surprised me with.
have definitely started to surprise me with the traction that they get.
Raf Baugh (03:11.219)
Yeah, fantastic. That's good.
Tyson (03:12.65)
Yeah. Hey, you going?
Raf Baugh (03:15.219)
Yeah, good, good. Yeah, it's been a good year. We've had a few changes since I last spoke to you with, like, we just with the start of COVID, business just kept on growing. So we had to sort of restructure a bit and sort of separate the physio and the coaching out. They still work well together, but I had to get someone in to sort of, I suppose, manage the physio part of operations to give the staff more time. And we got a real gun who was at West Coast for eight years, who's now
sort of a director, we're both, you know, obviously working together now and like, he's at another level, right? So as a physio, he's come in, he was at the Eagles for eight years. Yeah, we got Daniel Ricciardo was in, seeing him the other week and, you know, Buddy Franklin when he was in town. So he's like the, he's the most humble bloke, but he's like a physio to the stars. So it's great for all the team to have someone who's that good there every day to look up to, work with and he's just a top guy.
Tyson (03:57.888)
What?
Tyson (04:12.014)
Man, that's awesome. Raph, I haven't officially told you it, mate. Do you just wanna, should we just get into it? Cause I reckon this, even this little catch up, this chat at the start is fun as well. Then it won't make it so official or whatever. But honestly, just running to it, whatever comes up. I mean, I'm sure you and I aren't gonna have trouble to chat for 45 minutes or so.
Raf Baugh (04:17.002)
Yeah.
Raf Baugh (04:29.107)
Yeah, nice sweat mate, be fun.
Tyson (04:31.254)
I'm actually, I'm coming to Perth on Wednesday. I haven't been there for about 10 years.
Raf Baugh (04:35.835)
Oh mate, we'll have to catch up. Did you ever go to Siena's? Did you ever go to Siena's, the Italian restaurant in Lido? Well that's sort of like where all the meetings tend to get held, that or up the road at another Italian restaurant called Spritz. So we'll catch up for a long lunch, mate.
Tyson (04:37.258)
I would love to, I was gonna mention it.
Tyson (04:52.23)
It's actually funny. So the reason I actually reached out to you the other day to come on the pod is because I was thinking about Perth and the fact that I hadn't been there for 10 years. And you're just entrenched in my memory as like my mom used to always look at you and go, hey, Raph's run, look at this, what's this bloke run? And so in my mind, I still see you from like a 13 year old kid's eyes is absolutely smoking me around the track.
So when I was thinking about coming to Perth, you naturally popped into my mind and I was gonna tell you today, but I was gonna text you and let you know that, yeah, if you're around, mate, we'll have to, I would love to come to Siena's and catch up. It'd be good to see you. I tell you, it's been a bloody long time since I've seen you face to face.
Raf Baugh (05:29.599)
Yeah, lock it in.
Raf Baugh (05:34.855)
Yeah, gosh, I do remember when you were a young bloke and it was more Yo-Kai and reserve than the track for me because I think Yeah, that's where I remember Seeing you running around with Mark Saunders and Mark C and all the rest of them in the old days. So It's interesting now Dean obviously like we said you didn't I think we didn't We realized you didn't cross paths as much as I thought you might have but yeah, he's had a good year kept on keeping on so Yeah, some of the remnants of that old Mark Saunders day still
Still going.
Tyson (06:06.425)
Is Mark still around?
Raf Baugh (06:09.163)
My guess is she's back training actually. So I'm not 100% up to date with what her goals are, but she's been through a few health or injury challenges come back and she's actually got some aspirations. You see her, she's heading for something, she's building for something as a championship or something near her horizon because she seems to be consistently training and motivated. So maybe you need to get her on, have a chat and find out what's coming up.
Tyson (06:35.667)
Yeah, we've got some funny conversation to have after years of break as well. But how have things been? It must have been, it's probably pushing two years since you were last on here. I remember I was still living at an apartment in Melbourne, but the weeks seem to just slip away. So it seems like there's absolutely plenty going on. You're saying just before I hit record that you've got someone taking over the physio side of things. You're obviously looking after the coaching side of things with your crew over there.
Raf Baugh (06:45.687)
Mmm.
Raf Baugh (07:01.811)
Yeah, so I think like anyone in healthcare, I think we've been sort of, I suppose cursed and blessed in a way, where I think with all the challenges of COVID, it then segwayed into people being a bit more health conscious. And I think there's been a running boom, there's been a raise or an increase in consciousness around health and wellbeing. So all of our little operations, our little services have just filled up a bit more and it got to the point where
My main passion is obviously coaching people. I don't mind if I'm coaching my managers in a business or, or working with them more collaboratively nowadays, but helping people achieve their potential. And I think just with the range of different experiences, in terms of education and travel around the world and stuff, I'm happy for that to be in different contexts. It doesn't have to be just coaching them with running, but that, that's, that's got to be helping people achieve their potential.
Yeah, one of the big changes was getting a physio who'd been at the Eagles for eight years in to help grow our physio business. So we had to spin that out of the coaching business, because they'd always been sort of in together. And that's really kicked on since he's come in. And then the coaching business, we've sort of just allowed that to continue to feel a bit more gradually. And the retail people are out there still running, and some of them, you know, come and see us for help with their shoes and their nutrition. So, yeah, it's become
actually a little bit easier for me with better management and that next phase of growth has actually freed me up to get back to just coaching more which has been good. So we've had some good success this year with particularly with some of our distance athletes and excited for summer to see if we can get some good speed up there as well.
Tyson (08:47.542)
So who are some of the athletes you mentioned, Dean, before going pretty well? Who else have you got on the radar that's going really well? Is it still predominantly a marathon-focused group?
Raf Baugh (08:51.169)
Yeah.
Raf Baugh (08:56.979)
Well, Ben's our middle distance coach. So he's got Tom Moorcroft, who he won a few state titles over 800 and qualified for his first national final last year in the 1500s. So he's at 346. So Ben, yeah, so he's moving well. He's a nice athlete, great mover. So he's with Ben and Ben Moore manages the middle distance program. But my passion is the distance. So in triathlon, we've got a couple of really good triathletes.
coming up and then in the marathon, obviously Dean got second in Sydney to Brett Robinson a few weeks ago. He backed it up on the weekend with a big money in Perth and got second there behind a Kenyon who was here for the race. So he's made more money in the last month than he's made in the last 20 years of running. And then Sinead Noonan, who's a really top quality athlete starting to show her potential, she qualified for the World Road Running in Riga.
Gold Coast, she was third in the national half marathon on the Sunshine Coast. She's won the HBF run, the Sea to Surf, the free manual runs here. So she's one to watch on the track. I think her best distance at the moment with her development is probably going to be on the track. Her 5k is now about 1550, so we'll hopefully see that get under 1530 this summer, which should be competitive, which should be good.
Tyson (10:20.694)
Gee, Dean's done well with that turnaround, because what was, Sydney was early September, it was probably four weeks ago. Did you say he backed up with the Perth Marathon?
Raf Baugh (10:30.219)
Yeah, so I think it segues into a broader discussion on tolerance to load. But I think he sort of only decided on the Wednesday that they only announced this big prize money on Wednesday. And obviously there wasn't a lot of time for anyone to find out who didn't already live in Perth to get here. So obviously it wasn't necessarily my preference, but he's a big strong boy and obviously...
for a guy with Dean's earning potential. In terms of tax-free income, it's probably almost a 30 grand bonus he's picked up in the last month when you were paying, if you were paying tax. So if someone offers you another five grand or 10 grand after having a good payday in Sydney, I can understand that him and his family need to rationalize the pros and cons of that. And he decided to run and did well just to measure his effort. He pulled a couple of the other guys in the squad through to nice PB. So he ran.
229 for second, another guy James ran 230 and Ryan Bailey who went to the Olympics in triathlon ran 231 so it ended up being that he provided a bit of an anchor for the for the rest of the group and Pulled some of the guys through to some good times as well So it was good for our group to have him there And I think it was fairly comfortable for him just to get that done
Tyson (11:47.614)
Yeah, it is interesting. This is one conversation that I've had with a number of people recently. And so much of it seems to come back to, yet not only load tolerance, but also even just the shoe technology. It's been amazing that even 10 years ago, you were running around in a pair of light flats and you'd pull up the week after a marathon or even like a 10K road race for four or five days after your calves were really tight. And I always thought it had a little bit of a hobble going on, but it seems that the further along we go, like Brett Robinson ran his 207 Australian record.
Raf Baugh (11:58.69)
Mm.
Raf Baugh (12:08.956)
Mm-hmm.
Tyson (12:18.098)
Not a great deal of time after his London marathon, I think it was, I think he ran 210, struggled with stitches, came out, ran 27. And that was the first time that I stopped and went, hang on a second, I thought it was a two or three time a year thing, the marathon, but the way people are running it now, it's not that uncommon to hear about stories like what you just mentioned with Dean.
Raf Baugh (12:22.357)
Mmm.
Raf Baugh (12:39.967)
Yeah, I think Lisa Waittman, we were, Dean and I were in Osaka in March and she backed up there and ran the next week in Tokyo. And yeah, she was quick and quicker. Oh no, she was quicker and then quick still, I should say. The second week was a bit slow, but they're both very strong. But I think, you know, the way with someone like Dean, essentially, Touchwood, you know, we've been working together now for eight years. And you know, he's never missed more than a day or two of training in that time through all the,
iterations and challenges of life. So his durability is second to none. And I think for a Western, for a Western athlete, he's very non reactive. So when he's doing the training or when he's preparing his body, he's a very conscious guy. So he's not one to go to training and just react to what's going on. He's very planned. And if he's doing a workout, he's doing what's asked of him as easily as possible so he can recover and absorb it. So when you've got a guy who's that good at planning,
I think a lot of runners are very poor in that regard. So he's got an outlying strength in terms of he deeply understands the context. Um, he acts in accordance with that understanding. He's not a reactive person. So no one can really move him from, from thinking in a logical and confident manner. Um, and he'll constantly perform at a level that's high because of that, you know, he's got a very good psychology for that sort of environment and that competition and that marathon. Yeah.
Tyson (14:05.526)
Yeah. So when you say he's really good or really well known for his planning, like what's he planning? Session structure recovery, like what comes under that umbrella?
Raf Baugh (14:15.371)
I think if you think back to when you were running, I think when you go to the track for a workout, most people would take the approach like where they would look at a workout and sort of be, if they're doing 8xK with 60 seconds, they would be focused on how fast they could run every K, whereas it's also my side being more of a systems-based science sort of guy. I would tell Dean, well, you know, I'm going to do this.
If your anaerobic threshold is this bandwidth, then you just need to do eight reps in that bandwidth. And if he would view success of that workout as doing the eight reps at the specified pace easily, whereas most people would look at the external output and say, how fast did I run the reps? But if you do the reps flat out, they might not be at the right intensity and you might not be able to go any quicker in a race because you've essentially raced in training. So Dean will understand the difference between preparing and racing.
and he will train to prepare and then race to test. And when he tests, if he needs to test, he can empty the clip because he never empties the clip in training. He always builds his capacity. And it's very much in line with sort of more African type training that I've seen with the Kenyans where you won't see Kipchoge do any races except for his marathons. He won't go any faster than he needs to go in training. Everything is very much controlled.
so that when it's time to really unleash it's when they're going to get paid and when it's going to have a start and a finish and some money and some reputation based on the back of it.
Tyson (15:52.414)
Yeah, so when you're planning a session for an athlete like Dean, are you planning around heart rate or are you looking at time or is there some combination? What's that middle ground that you're trying to hit?
Raf Baugh (16:03.351)
So for his recovery runs, because he's got three kids now and he's got a management job, he'll often be running to and from work. So he'll generally do that to heart rate and keep his heart rate under 145 beats a minute. So sometimes that's five minutes a day for him, sometimes that's 440. And then because Perth's so flat, we can generally give him a bandwidth to work with for any threshold or VO2 max work where he'll just be trying to work to a pace.
Occasionally when we go over hills, he'll work to perceived effort. But if you're working over hills, heart rate becomes a little bit non-responsive and a bit variable and pace is obviously the same. So often with hills, the good thing is it teaches the runner just to be adaptable and to be more internally clued in so that they're looking at how they're feeling. And when we do hills, it's obviously perceived effort. So we use a bit of everything, mate.
Tyson (16:58.342)
Yeah. So when you're sitting down to structure a training program, just to use Dean as the example, I mean, like speaking about him now, I realized I need to reach out and get him on again, because he's an interesting character for a number of reasons. Yet one of the things that you said really stands out to me about him is his consistency. The fact he's missed less than a handful of days in the eight years that you've been coaching him is testament to his progress. I mean, it's hard not to improve radically when you've been that consistent and even more on top of that. And, you know.
adds more fuel to the fire of this conversation is just how naturally your body's gonna strengthen up if you're taking the time to recover, if you're not over-exerting yourself in the sessions, you're saving the effort for the right times. But are you sitting down on a weekly basis, a monthly basis? Like what kind of timeframe are you planning his work out from?
Raf Baugh (17:45.303)
I think it gets to the point with Dean now where sort of, and I had this conversation with Patrick Tseng with Kipchoge where when you've got someone who's well, the master becomes the student. Do you know what I mean? When you have a great deal of experience and knowledge and you're working with athletes, you start to notice, well, why is one athlete improving consistently, longitudinally?
and other athletes don't and you start to realize there might be something inherent to that person that's a little bit more suited to that sort of monastic way of life and they're improved like if you understand that the human body is built by God to improve and adapt and it will improve like in 15 years of coaching every single person who starts running will improve No matter how you think the body adapts as an adaptive organism to whatever you do repetitively and whatever you do expands. So
any human being who you coach gets better. So when an athlete attributes normal improvement to the coach, it's not actually the coach, it's just the body's adaptive, subconscious and unconscious response to any stimulus. What the coach is trying to do is prevent errors or prevent repetitive errors that might prevent a person from longitudinally reaching their potential. So for someone like Dean, his ability to understand the context and then to accumulate
and understanding of how his body responds, how much recovery his body needs, and also just to fundamentally expect that he'll improve if he does the right things. A lot of people will think, I might be forsaken. I might not get what I want. And if you don't believe you're going to get success, then obviously that's going to manifest. So I think having a positive outlook, having an ability to appropriately act and understand the context, to then have the right effort.
the right concentration and then the right reflection on when you do make a mistake in training or, or not get a response you want from training that you then make adjustments over time. So it requires, I think, a good relationship, but it requires a certain personality that has a positive outlook. And I think in our culture now, a lot of people are reactive and constantly want to chop and change. And they end up becoming a bit like a cat chasing their tail, whereas with someone who's got Dean's sort of temperament,
Raf Baugh (20:07.071)
He's happy to be patient and play the long game. And I think over time that's served him particularly well.
Tyson (20:13.734)
Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned Patrick saying I had Sarah gear heart here I don't know if you've read her book or you know who she is that we share the same son or we share the son Is the book she wrote and it was all about the time that she spent training or sort of being around Patrick saying and his crew as Kipchoge and you know, faith keep you again and everyone were training for their respective events and There does seem to be
Raf Baugh (20:25.601)
Yeah.
Raf Baugh (20:34.999)
Hmm.
Tyson (20:41.29)
And this is a massive generalization that you probably know more about it than me. But the East Africans, especially the top performers, bearing in mind Elliot Kipchoge's in my mind as I speak about this, there does seem to be a real appreciation for that long patient approach. It's not so reactive as you say. It's a far more, there seems to be a lot more appreciation for what can be achieved in 12 months, or at least keeping your body in its top form.
for 12 months time. Like I remember Sebastian Coe years ago saying that When you reach a certain point of performance, he said he panicked because he was like Oh, it's not really any way to go from here Like it's this is me at my best and his dad who was coaching him at the time I think it was said no, but you can go you can go horizontally Like let's maintain this for as long as we possibly can because 330 today is an Olympic medal and 330 in three years is an Olympic medal we've just got to make sure that your ability
to keep hitting that time is maintained. And sure, there's a lot of ways to do that, but Patrick's saying seems to be the kind of temperament that you dream for so many of your athletes to be able to embody, because I think when you eliminate some of the rush, it helps you see the training process so much more clearly. I know that's true for me. Whenever I'm in a hurry, and honestly, I think me trying to get ready in six months for Melbourne Marathon.
forced me to train at a level which my body just wasn't ready for after having years of real structured training. I threw a workload at it that was like, toss, what are you doing, mate? Like, you know, you would never give this workload to any of your athletes, what are you? What are you doing? But that emotional factor does still get involved. So to have someone like a Patrick saying just to be able to share wisdom like that is interesting. But is that something you're working consciously on trying to
cultivate with your athletes because so much of the attention is obviously around training and I get that and avoiding errors and structuring and just helping them Avoid the pitfalls of a lot of time your own training but also other things that their emotions might not let them see but how do you approach that conversation or developing that in your athletes because Man, I know that on the spectrum of athletes You've got some wild reactive athletes and you have the Deans and the Stu McSwain's of the world who are very hard to fluster
Raf Baugh (22:58.675)
I think if you want to create an environment where your athletes are relaxed, then you have to be relaxed. So I think one of the biggest things for me is to become a little bit less busy. So obviously getting a business partner and allowing him to sort of help grow the business and create prosperity for his family and work together with him on that. And then to have more time for my own development.
do some more study and do some more personal development work with my business and professional coach. Essentially, like, if you want your athletes to be Zen, you have to be Zen. And if you, if you want your athletes to be confident, you have to be confident. And I think the body, the body's more intelligent than the mind. So I think you have to understand that all of these African cultures have, have a stronger connection to their,
their broader human nature, not just their compulsive mind and their reactive body, you know, they, they grow up in a, in a different set of circumstances. And one of the, one of the best things through the COVID period is you get to work with an Eritrean athlete called Hab Tom Samuel through one of the Dutch agencies that, that manages him. And he's now just started college at New Mexico, but he's run like 27-13, 27-20 for 10K, third in the world juniors, phenomenal guy.
And it was very similar to what I saw in Kenya with him. He's a guy who expects success, is relaxed, is confident, doesn't necessarily worry that things not going well. Whereas I think a lot of Western athletes, you're trying to create a less reactive mind so they can relax because the brain's very thirsty for glycogen. If you're worried or stressed, it's taking away from you.
producing energy in your legs and in your lungs and in your heart that are the areas that are involved in running. So I think the ability to switch off and relax is definitely a skill in Africa, but it comes from a broader understanding of the human condition and a perspective on maybe that sort of spiritual part of their nature. So that's a big thing for me is if I want my athletes to be relaxed, I have to be relaxed. And so...
Tyson (25:14.42)
Dead.
Raf Baugh (25:15.543)
They'll mirror off you because a lot of especially if you're working with young people, they're naturally reactive and socially Not particularly grounded yet. They haven't formed a strong sense of perspective. They're still affected by a lot of external things so at the point at which you become very grounded and centered You provide a bit of an anchor for them to come back to
Tyson (25:35.998)
Yeah, it's a really good point. It's actually one thing I learned a lot through training with Sudanese athlete. I'm sure you remember Dua Yoa. So Dua came and moved to Ballarat when I was living in Ballarat. And he'd been in Australia for, it must've been eight or 10 years, but it was only 20 at the time. So it was, you know, just over, or less than half of his life that he'd been here. So like the traditional ways of the way that he operated was still well and truly entrenched. And I remember whenever I was around Dua, whether it was at
Raf Baugh (25:43.901)
Yeah.
Tyson (26:04.826)
or whether we were out shopping or whether we were just hanging out for a coffee. There was a pace that he operated at, which was just unknown to both me and any of my friends that I hung around. I used to get frustrated, but I would never say it out loud, but I was more frustrated, I guess, with myself looking back because I constantly had the next thing on the list. Whereas if I said to Dua, hey, let's go get a coffee, in Dua's mind, all right, we're doing coffee. Like, let's meet at 12 and if we get home at four, fantastic. But my mom was like, no, like coffee ends at one.
Cause I've got to go home and do whatever I've got to do before training at four. And, uh, it definitely, like you mentioned that the Western mindset, obviously the way we operate here is at a very busy pace. I've actually just, uh, I just purchased this book the other day. I listened to it on audible a while ago. It's called 4,000 weeks. And, uh, so I don't know if you've heard of this one, but it's called 4,000 weeks. So the story behind four. Yes. So the average human life span is.
Raf Baugh (26:34.935)
Mm.
Raf Baugh (26:51.467)
Yeah, wow.
Raf Baugh (26:55.822)
80 years.
Tyson (27:00.606)
the title essentially. So you've got 4,000 weeks, give or take, time management for mortals. And what this guy speaks about in such an unreal way is that the one thing that the productivity gurus and the time management heroes of our age fail to remember is that in 80 years, or in my case, 46 years or whatever it is, chances are you're gonna be dead. There's a lot on your to do. And even if it's not that, let's say 5,000, 5 1 is I think the oldest person to ever live.
Um, there's a lot of things that you're going to leave undone. And I often notice, uh, and the one thing that I've been really trying to focus on in myself over the last, especially month, cause I just picked up this thing. I just picked up this realization was I'll often get to the end of the day and realize, no, there's 15 things I didn't get done. And this guy's like, no, there's 15 things you're conscious of that you didn't get done, but there's infinite things you didn't complete today and something about that awareness.
just takes a massive weight off my shoulders to go, oh, okay, like, sure, no matter how good your time management, no matter how much you rush, no matter how much you hustle, there's way more that you're not getting done than you're ever gonna get done. And I think this is relevant, obviously, to all of us in our lives in some capacity or at certain times in our life, but particularly with regards to running and just the speed or the hurry that so many athletes that I work with are operating at to try and...
get to whatever it is that they've set for themselves, whether it's a marathon or whether it's a 10K, there's no such thing as too fast. And as a result, I often notice, whether it's myself or athletes that I'm working with, that whether it's a physical plateau in performance, because your body's just not ready to absorb that kind of work, or it's an actual injury that it expressed because you're not ready to absorb that kind of work, there's so much to be said on this topic. It's actually been a little bit of a theme with
with this podcast recently, I feel is just an appreciation for the, um, just that slowed down nature of events that you're speaking about. And I noticed to go back to what you said before, I used to notice if I was ever stressed or worried, um, anxious, had an argument with Jesse before I went out for a run, the run was never enjoyable because physically I knew I had spent that energy on, uh, you know, whatever emotional stimulus it was, I'd certain athletes at Kail Simon's was a guy I used to train with. He's a.
Tyson (29:25.042)
803 runner. Yeah, you remember Cale. He did. He did.
Raf Baugh (29:25.759)
Remember him. He came to Leonora a few times. He actually won a race we had one year called the Ghost Town 5K. I think he ran about 14.40 odd. He was a good athlete actually. He was a good athlete. Very bouncy, up on his toes the whole time.
Tyson (29:37.727)
He was a, he was, oh, you know him well. He did exactly right. Yeah, I used to dread getting phone calls from him when we were 16 and I first moved back to Victoria because every time I got a phone call from Kyle, it mean he'd beaten another one of my PBs by 46 seconds. So he would, he was, man, he was a little bit, a little bit sporadic. I'm not sure if, he wouldn't mind me saying this. I think he would probably agree.
Raf Baugh (29:55.378)
He was good. He could have been good. What happened to him?
Tyson (30:04.854)
He stepped into the sport and he was such a natural talent that big results came very quickly. And I think some of the work ethic that comes with having to work a little bit for really good results wasn't quite there. I don't know whether that was temperament or whether he was just a little bit blessed genetically in the physical department. And as a result, I don't think we saw what we could have seen with Kale based on the fact that...
Probably wasn't consistent enough with his training. I'm sure I reckon I haven't seen him for a while But I think he would tell you that if you're speaking to you now But why was I talking about Kyle Simons I was talking oh he was one guy sorry that was great If he wanted to run well, he would get himself angry before a race Like I'll watch Kyle before a time trial before a race Just get into the most angry state and come out and have the race of his life Where if I had that kind of emotion?
Raf Baugh (30:48.723)
Okay
Tyson (30:57.534)
It was just a guaranteed shocker. I always liked carrying a bit more of a stable kind of approach. If I was emotionally pretty steady training had been going well. Um, I was in a good mood on the day of the race. Often that was where my best races took place. So it's interesting. Yeah.
Raf Baugh (31:12.971)
I think it depends on if you look at the energy system that's involved in an event, even though we sort of tend to think, oh, this person does this, that or the other, in terms of how a 1500-meter runner might need to be prepared and how they might need to be in a ready state to produce energy very quickly versus a threshold-based athlete doing a 10K or a half marathon or
fat max aerobic threshold based athlete running a marathon. It's really about understanding what substrate you're trying to get them to utilize. And if the engine, if the heart and lungs are gonna be the limiting factor, then you can get jacked up. You know, if it's only you're only gonna be running for nine minutes, you do want some adrenaline in the system. But if you're running for two hours in a marathon and you're getting your adrenal cortex firing and you start burning glycogen, you're gonna run out of it. And so...
It's about sort of understanding, I think, the physiology and the context and getting an athlete to be in a ready state for this specific task you're basically going to ask them to do. Because, you know, it's like the ant on the Ferrari, I get a lot of athletes to explain to me what they think is happening in their body. And obviously, I'll sit and say that I've got a very good understanding from a theoretical basis of what's happening in the body. But if I observe the body, I'm constantly amazed by
what I don't know and the body is infinitely more intelligent than any person. You have to understand that the engineering of the body is incredible and no one will ever comprehend it fully. So you can understand parts of it, but then you get athletes who understand none of it, who are making decisions from a perspective of complete unknowing. And that's where I think for sort of athletes, coachability becomes super defining in terms of.
Is someone able to trust that someone might be a master and they might be a student or do they think that they're a master when really they're an ant on the Ferrari thinking they understand how that thing revs when someone's engineered that many times before has understood exactly how each of the components interacts. You'll often get the ant telling the engineer how the Ferrari works. If you understand the nature of one of the biggest things I look for is when an athlete understands.
Raf Baugh (33:30.987)
who's got knowledge and who has an opinion and the difference of weight between the two when it comes to long-term outcomes. And yeah, it's very important that in our modern day and age where people get information quickly, knowledge and wisdom takes years and decades to acquire. And if you wanna get good outcomes, you're better off trusting knowledge and wisdom than opinions and quick grabs.
Tyson (33:56.81)
That's a great point. That's a great point. Man, outside of Patrick saying, are there any other coaches that you really enjoy listening to?
Raf Baugh (34:03.539)
I liked, obviously in Australia, I mean obviously I really enjoyed, I caught up with Dick Telford recently in Canberra. My bias is to seek wisdom and to seek the counsel of people who have more experience and knowledge than I have, more so than peer groups and hanging out with people who have the same ambition and I'd rather learn off people who have got a bit further down the path and can give me insights and experience.
Tyson (34:10.996)
Ugh.
Raf Baugh (34:33.435)
and motivation to try to keep up the longevity. So Pat Clohessy and a few times I spent with him, I think his energy and his knowledge and outcomes with Deke and some of the great years of Australian running when the AES first started, it was fantastic just to see how humble he was. And then I really enjoyed with Renato Canova spending some time learning off him. And then I think...
some of the context of how he coaches in Africa is relevant and some of it not so much. So for instance, it was good, really good again to have had that time in Kenya with him when I was coaching Hab Tom, because I had some reference from some of the track work that he was giving to some of these guys like Ronald Quenboy, who's a 328 guy, Eric Kiptonui, who's a 68 half marathon. When I was with him, they were all preparing for a 5K, so I got to see.
some of the sort of benchmarks for what, you know, what say a, uh, a runner at the global level might run at 1700 meters above sea level for a certain VO two max workout or track preparation session. So it gave me some good referencing, but otherwise for the marathon runners, you sort of, it was hard, it's hard to push athletes in Western culture as hard as he was because by your sort of Liam Adams or some of those really hardy durable athletes, they just wouldn't tolerate the amount of work he was giving.
to those guys. That was very, it was very good to see how hard they train. But the way I look at training load is, there's almost like a genetic training load, which is that the last 10 generations of your family, which is probably the most foundational, which is, you know, in Kenya now, you've got generations of farmers who have eaten organic food and run to school, and they're running 2,500 Ks a week from the time they're 5. And by the time they
Tyson (36:00.747)
Yeah.
Raf Baugh (36:29.511)
leave school, they've run 12 and a half thousand kilometres and all the capillaries and all the conditioning that gives them by the time they're leaving primary school compared to a Western kid who might run 25 Ks a week at most. You start to see that that's the next thing which is the lifetime training load which is the amount of running a person has done within their karmic experience and their life experience and
you can't not consider that. So if you come across a kid, for instance, I could almost see at a private school now, a kid who's a farmer, just by looking at how they move, you can see when a kid's from the farming, whereas a kid's from a blue-blooded family with parents who sit in an office, you can sense just by looking at how they move and how they interact with things, if someone's a country boy who's got a bit or someone who's a city boy who's probably not got much, you can just sense from the energy. So...
Tyson (37:20.139)
Yeah, yeah.
Raf Baugh (37:23.339)
Then the next thing is the chronic training load we look at in the data that we collect. And then the final thing is the acute training load of what you're seeing in a given day. So when I look at how well or how much an athlete is likely to tolerate training, you look back as far as you possibly can to get a look at what their family nature is, what their nature is, and then start to build off that deeper understanding.
the African guys have just got such a massive infrastructure because from the time they're one, they don't have access to sealed roads. So they're not in prams, they're walking and running. And that's why they're so good at running because they've done the work and it's work they haven't even been conscious of, it's just part of their culture. And yeah, it's amazing when you watch things like the marathon last weekend and you see that manifest.
It looks so impressive, but it's generations of work and a guy who's fully committed to the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other. Still, after all these years, I just love watching that and trying to understand how that happens and just enjoy being a fan of that sort of thing.
Tyson (38:33.258)
For sure. So just to clarify, are you saying like, you reckon there's a big correlation or at least a correlation between how much running has been done with the generations before you and that impact on your ability to be able to perform as a runner?
Raf Baugh (38:47.763)
Yeah, 100% because your eyes, you had no control over your eyes. They're a reflection of your lineage a long way back, your facial structure, your bone structure, everything that you are, there's elements of your memory that are modifiable and there's elements of your nature that are non-modifiable. And the non-modifiable aspects of genetics, yeah, every culture reflects.
ancestry in that way.
Tyson (39:18.578)
Yeah, man, it was so interesting you say that because just today I was reading a little bit about Western, Western A. Price. I'm not sure if you've heard that name before. I hadn't until a week ago. So he was a dentist, I think back in like the 30s and 40s, and he traveled around just trying to discover really good solid dental health, whether there was any tribe or people group that were free of cavities and free from the things that we often see in our gums and teeth in Western societies.
And it was often like, I think Aboriginal Australians in some parts were an example of this, but also some of the African indigenous tribes all around the world who are on a relatively natural whole food diet. But one thing that he spoke about was exactly what you just mentioned, but with regards to like dental health and tooth structure. He said, the reason that we see such poor teeth today is because generations before us started to develop poor.
poor dental health, whereas over there, the reverse was true. Like if your great, great granddad had like a whole food, natural, relatively healthy diet or what you had access to. And as a result, like that particular gene or for lack of a better word, I'm not sure if gene's the right way to explain it, but that particular structure was just passed on down. I thought, isn't that, I'd never really considered that my ancestor had much of an impact on, you know, without the obvious, height and things like that. I never really considered things like
Raf Baugh (40:29.697)
Thank you.
Hmm.
Tyson (40:41.194)
you know, tooth structure or running ability, but even just sort of being pre-prepped with that, I go, yeah, of course, it makes sense that the people that come before us have an impact on the way that we're able to perform.
Raf Baugh (40:52.863)
I think it'd be really, really cool for you. You should go and do some work in Kenya because the other thing is because everybody is much more aware of community. They've got a lot more accessibility and a lot less ego. You could go up there and start interviewing almost any great champion because they're so humble. But just to see that the absolute depth, if you go to E10 and see that there's probably, there's literally hundreds of guys.
running around there who've never got a manager, never got an agent, never had a contract to race outside of Kenya, who could break 210 at the flip of a hat. It's a bit mind blowing where the depth is sort of, was the first time I went there was beyond my comprehension because it's almost like, yeah, I mean, I think in any, I mean, it's beyond Kenya now into various parts of East Africa, but.
Tyson (41:28.482)
Hehehehe
Raf Baugh (41:47.931)
If you go to a high altitude farming land, you're essentially predicting that there's been a relatively slow development, there's been a relative need therefore for that person to run or that culture of people to run to get to where they're getting to because of a range of factors. But because they've learned how to farm, they are growing food from farm to plate for their own family. So there's a certain care and responsibility that comes with cultivating food for yourself versus...
mass-produced processed food that we consume. And so the depth, it was just absolutely mind-blowing, mate. You wouldn't believe it. And so if there was a few Kenyan agencies, which I do hope happens in the future, where some former Kenyan runners like potentially Ellwood Kipchoge becomes an agent with global sports and helps the next generation of Kenyans come out, there's just so much depth that's not...
able to get access to the opportunities. It'd be great to see more opportunities come out and you can see how good they're going now, but when you go to Kenya, there's so much more that's not getting even a chance to get that competitive opportunity.
Tyson (42:57.672)
Have you spent much time over there?
Raf Baugh (43:00.283)
I spent with Mark C, Ben Green and Filo, Filo Saunders, we went there.
Tyson (43:04.25)
Oh man, he's a bloke. He's a bloke you gotta put me in touch with. I'd love to get Fila on here.
Raf Baugh (43:08.983)
Oh, mate, the fittest 40 something in the country. He's still at 2% body fat, Philo. He's unbelievable. I don't know how he does it. So yeah, so we went there and then I went back with a group just before COVID, 2019, I think it was, but a few little things to make sure ducks line up in terms of just things at home, but I'd love to go back in the next year or so because through COVID, we've got a lot of international online clients that aren't short of...
Tyson (43:10.946)
Hehehehehehe
Ha ha
Raf Baugh (43:37.751)
flexibility and money who would love to go there and just have a bit of a trip with some sort of executive or corporate type clients just to take them around and get an experience there because they're the ones that are I think really wanting to get out there and check it out and see what it's like. I'd love to do it every few years to be honest. Maybe even when my kids are a bit older spend some time like Renato does living there and coaching.
Tyson (44:00.386)
That would.
Raf Baugh (44:06.343)
African athletes just to get a chance to test, test how far, how fast you can get a human being to run. I think that's what coaching is all about. How fast can you coach somebody to run? And a lot of it, you realize, is outside of your control. And, and if you wanted all the factors within your control to line up, you would probably base yourself somewhere in East Africa and, and get the chance to work with some of those fantastic athletes.
Tyson (44:33.43)
Yeah, it's been pretty wild to seeing the progress in the marathon over the last couple of weeks, hasn't it? It's just, as you say, like I'm sure so many of these factors we've touched on play some kind of an impact on it, but what have you made of the, I mean, both the men's and the women's records being absolutely annihilated the last month.
Raf Baugh (44:40.06)
Yeah.
Raf Baugh (44:45.495)
Hmm.
Raf Baugh (44:50.875)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think with everything, it's hard not to be just a little bit wary of being too evangelical about it. But I think, look, there's still so many factors that you can guarantee they have, you know, just, you know, with discipline applied themselves to and the sort of fitness and the performance that's come out of post-COVID period in all the track events. I think
The technology in the shoes and all the shoe companies obviously have done a fantastic job with the different sort of the polyamides and the P-backs sort of technology in the shoes is obviously helping. But the athletes, I think, are obviously getting very, very fit. And then I think the other thing is just the impact of positive psychology. When you think you're going to run fast, you'll run fast. And I think there's a there's a benefit there in terms of feeding forward positive expectations and
a can-do attitude and then when you sense, I think, some of these athletes that they're really on and it's that day, that adrenaline of thinking that there's a moment in time that you can really do something special with a real projector of performance when it hits you that you can do something special, there's another bit of energy that kicks in that I think we saw with Kipton where that last 10k was just staggering.
1351 I think I saw for 30 to 35 K and then 1401 from 35 to 40. It's like, oh man, I still haven't coached a guy to run under that myself in a 5K. It's like, oh gosh, taking a knife to a gunfight, Tyson.
Tyson (46:18.187)
I wish that was a voice.
Tyson (46:31.545)
It's unbelievable. Yeah, I had a mate last night. I don't know what mile it was, but he was telling me that one of his miles was like a 4.17 towards the back end there. I wonder if it's a shock to a bloke like Kipchoge that Kipdom's come out and smashed a record like that. Do you think there'd be a fair awareness of the fact that there's a number of guys who are capable of running as fast, if not faster than Kipchoge? Because for the last few years, he-
yet sure with the exception of one or two, he seems to have just been absolutely head and shoulders above the rest of the field.
Raf Baugh (47:03.831)
I think everything exists in a spectrum and everything's sort of impermanent, but it's still when it's personal to you, I'm sure there's a bit of reactivity. I'm sure he'd be feeling a bit of a response, probably much less than some people would, but I'm sure. I mean, it's human nature, right? When you realize that you've been that person and then that time, you know.
is moving on and you've got to rationalize that. It's a reality now and people are going to start talking about him in the same sentence and not just you alone and I think for most people there's a period of adjustment when that happens in any context of life whether it's a person that replaces you at work or the person who an athlete moves and starts getting coached to but ultimately you've got to realize what's in your control and what's not and he's had such a great career that I think in the fullness of time you'd imagine with his humility he would reflect on.
all the great things he's done and wish well for, for Kipton but I'm sure, you know, we all have that mind that's got that, that little what about me mate, you know that.
Tyson (48:13.046)
I know better than most I think. Yeah, it's very true. It's interesting. You put him on a pedestal sometimes physically, sometimes mentally, but yeah, it'd be a surprise if he wasn't a little bit either planning his next race and seeing if he can have a big crack at a time like that, or maybe just having a couple of conversations about what he has achieved. Just to remind him.
Raf Baugh (48:32.703)
Well, I reckon if he genuinely reconciled it, we would have seen a public congratulations and acknowledgement, I would have thought.
Tyson (48:41.84)
Yeah, it hasn't been tweeted yet.
Raf Baugh (48:43.967)
I haven't seen anything yet. So I think even the great Yoda master of Kipchoge has a little boy with that want to be the centre of attention forever. I would have thought that's human nature, mate.
Tyson (48:57.354)
Yeah, for sure. Raph, I got one more question for you. I was just curious to pick your brain. I know you have a science or a scientific approach to the work that you put in. And I think it's a subject that I'm often interested in because I would say that I'm from the opposite side of the spectrum. When I moved back from Perth to Victoria, I went and trained with 79 year old Joe Carmody and there was no talk of heart rate. There was no talk of pace. There was a lot of talk of.
Raf Baugh (49:19.223)
How well.
Tyson (49:22.806)
perceived effort or not even in those words, just he goes, all right, this is about eight out of 10 effort. I was like, I think I know where that is. And something about that was beautiful because I felt like it forced you to really go, okay, like if you're being honest with yourself, how hard am I working right now? But if you put a stopwatch on and track the data that comes with a rate of perceived effort of eight out of 10, sometimes what you think you're doing and the truth of what you're actually doing is very different things. So how do you sort of, how do you balance that approach?
Because I think there's something to be said for awareness of yourself as an athlete, what you're feeling, what you're capable of, especially on race day, but also, um, you know, in the name of consistency and, you know, to go back to, to Dean, the ability of being able to be consistent for eight years without missing a beat is honesty about what the actual data is saying. So, so where do you sort of balance those two things?
Raf Baugh (50:13.932)
I think the scientific approach works best the longer the race is. So if you just imagine on a continuum that the physiology demand is less in a marathon than it is in say a 1500, an 800 or even a 5k or a 10k. So I would say that the load management is far less important the shorter the distance you're running.
When you look at the psychology of the marathon where you're trying to understand delayed gratification concepts, where you're trying to distribute finite resources over a period of time, that's where I think the scientific approach works. And I think I would probably be completely contrary to that if I was a middle distance coach. I, for instance, in all my time racing, never used a watch. I don't run with a watch now. I have no interest in a watch.
If I was in a race, I just wanted to try to win. So I never raced though the marathon. So I raced in races from 800 meters to 10,000 meters. And all I really focused on when I was competing was trying to win. So the watch to me was sort of a red herring. But when you race is essentially with yourself like the marathon, then it's a different situation. So I think it's really about understanding the different trade-offs of
what type of monitoring and what type of load management you want to use. And you're not just managing the external load, you're managing the internal load, the stress of the athlete with life, work, the training as well. So there's a lot of factors. So I think it's really about being adaptable, not saying one way is perfect and one way is not. I think it's about being adaptable. And what you'll find is if a human being is told to, as long as there's a good education around perceived effort,
over time they'll become very good at controlling intensity through perceived effort. So for instance, I'm sure in Africa, a lot of the runners are very good at gauging their effort by perceived effort without a garment. So whatever measurement you're using to measure intensity, as long as you have a good understanding of what the goal is and what the intensity control needs to be, perceived effort, heart rate, pace, all these things can be used as appropriate and you
Tyson (52:05.955)
Hmm.
Raf Baugh (52:34.507)
fixed on one at the expense of others. So I think it depends completely on the context, on the athlete, on what they've got available and also what distance they're focusing on. Because yeah, a lot of the people, when you're getting them to run an event like a 1500, you have to sort of be outside of yourself. Whereas what I would say is from my experience with marathon runners, if someone is constantly outside of themselves and reactive in a marathon, they'll often be at the side of the road at 32K because the battle is not with anybody else. It's with your own.
Tyson (52:35.618)
Yeah.
Raf Baugh (53:04.603)
self and it if you can't if you get someone with like a really extrovert personality who says i'm going to do this i'm going to do that and you put them in a marathon eventually they have to talk to themselves because there's no one there to help them and when they talk to themselves they've never done it because they're always talking to someone and telling everyone what they're going to do and in the marathon you just have to talk to yourself and an introvert a person who says very
Raf Baugh (53:34.123)
positive nature, you know, like a prototype would be like, if you look at how lovely, I mean, Jess Stenson, she's winning the Commonwealth Games and thanking the crowd. I mean, that's a benevolent, unique personality profile where someone would be so humble as to be thanking the crowd who are in awe of what she's doing. That's a unique characteristic of a human being and Dean's a bit like that, very humble and he's comfortable suffering inside his own head.
Tyson (53:53.387)
Hmm.
Raf Baugh (54:01.451)
but he's never gonna say to you, he's gonna do this or he's gonna do that. And the people that tell you they're gonna do this, they're gonna do that, they're often pretty good on the track. But if you take them to the road and they have to talk to themselves, their voice becomes very negative when they start to get tired and no one's listening and they have to deal with their own demons. And those demons sometimes, they can't manage and they need to learn if they wanna get good at the marathon because it's an internal battle. So it depends about context and the personality of each person.
Tyson (54:15.138)
Yeah.
Raf Baugh (54:31.183)
And it's very rare you find someone who's great at everything. Certain people by nature have to really challenge themselves to change and grow when they change event groups. And a lot of it's to do with their perspective, not necessarily just their physiology. And that's where, say, for instance, with Dean, he's brilliant in the marathon, but if I put him in a 5K, I'm constantly trying to rev him up because he wants to work the numbers and I want him to play the man. Do you know what I mean? So no one's perfect, mate.
Tyson (54:58.282)
Yeah, I do. It's a really good. Oh, it makes a lot of sense. It's actually a great point I'd never really thought about it like that like you'll often see a an Athlete who's very vocal about what they believe they're capable of doing a Shaqari Richardson or you know Even a Muhammad Ali to choose someone from another sport and you got okay well, that is clearly a pretty good sign that you obviously back yourself and you've got a good foundation to be able to work off if you've got the genetic potential but
Raf Baugh (55:01.343)
Does that make sense?
Tyson (55:25.494)
the idea that doesn't necessarily correlate. I often get frustrated in the marathon world. I'm like, I would love a Conor McGregor type figure to come out just to, it'd be a pain in the ass, but it'd just be so funny to watch. Like which marathon runner has a reputation like that? But perhaps it's no coincidence, you know, just to use, you know, go back to your example, that there's marathon, there's very few marathon runners like that because maybe by nature, they are a little more introverted or at least aware of the fact that it is an inward battle rather than some outward projection.
But yeah, you're right. Like the idea of a track runner responding well to that outward talk is perhaps no surprise, but yeah, in a two and a bit hour event, yeah, good luck with that approach.
Raf Baugh (56:04.347)
Yeah, you're tiring yourself out. Yeah, so yeah, I think that's the beauty of it. When I'm watching each event group, you see the different personalities. Like I go down to the track last night and I see the sprinters strutting up and down the track and I'm convinced it's a neurosis because there's so much gap between reps that every sprinter seems to strut. It's almost like a subconscious posturing. Like I've heard that we're 98% the DNA of a monkey, but.
Tyson (56:05.986)
Hehehehe
Tyson (56:24.439)
Yeah.
Raf Baugh (56:28.991)
When you look at people's behavior and find out what works in different contexts, you start to see all these behaviors that people exhibit that become normalized, that just represent the context of, you know, if you're an animal in the jungle and you're a tiger about to fight, you posture that you're big and strong. And it's almost like sometimes at the track when I watch the sprinters, it's almost like this is like the jungle. These guys are strutting around and posturing and shoulders back and...
It's like, mate, we reckon we're so smart. We're looking more like the jungle every minute. I've got to go to the track. It's just like watching different animals posturing to show their relative benefits to others, you know? And yeah, I mean, have you ever seen a sprinter who doesn't strike?
Tyson (56:57.006)
Hahaha!
Tyson (57:07.03)
Yeah, no, I don't think they exist. They're 1500 meter runners, aren't they? Oh man, Raph, dude, really good to catch up with you as it always is, man. Thanks so much for coming on and having a chat. I knew I would love it. I'll make sure for anyone interested that I'll link the website and anything else that you want me to in the description to this episode below. So if you're interested in finding out more, make sure you check that out. But mate, thanks again.
Raf Baugh (57:14.448)
Yeah.
Raf Baugh (57:33.396)
Thank you very much and congratulations on all your hard work and consistency with the podcast. It's great to see it going from strength to strength.
Tyson (57:40.286)
Awesome, brother, great timing. My boys just got home. I'll leave you to it. I'll see you later. See everybody. Bye, see you brother, bye. Hey, champ. Sorry, man.
Raf Baugh (57:43.251)
Legend. Okay, take care. See you mate. Bye.
Raf Baugh (57:51.432)
All good?
Tyson (57:52.21)
Yeah, I was-