Sam, Mitch & Katie chat with Daniel Wood. Dan has been cleaning up the local 5k races winning both Shellharbour 5k and Husky 5k in the last few months. Dan trains with Coach Rob McDonald with Nowra Athletics Club, but lives in Culburra Beach. Dan has run 16:59 at Husky Parkrun, and 35:45 at Sydney10 earlier this year. Dan started running a few years ago to sharpen up for touch, casually running 1:22 at Shellharbour Half. Shortly after he ran 52km fundraising for charity and days later tore his ACL playing Touch Footy. That gave him time to think about what direction he will go with his running and has taken a conservative training approach which is proving to be very successful.

Mitch walks us through the GONG5000 event at the Unanderra Criterium Track Saturday November 30th with races starting at 6pm. Katie runs some solid reps this week, though the crew struggle to convert the paces from Miles to KM's. Dan knocks both interval sessions out of the park and even does his first double threshold session on Saturday. Sam continues Zwifting riding 211km on the bike this week with 24km of running and all of his rehab activities. Mitch does his first Deeks Quarters session and continues consistently building up his Blue Bars on Strava.

The crew speak with Holly Howell this week. Holly is a couple of weeks off her win at Husky Marathon where she ran 3:02. Holly ran more casually years ago completing the London Marathon and the Great Wall of China Marathon. After having a few years off Holly joined Savvy runners here in the gong and after a couple of years nailed all of her PB’s this year. She also came 3rd overall in the Gold Coast Marathon Half and Full Marathon combined event running 1:25 and an impromptu 3:17 marathon.

Sam reluctantly provides a ‘shinjury’ update, but is positive that the cautious approach is the right call. Katie puts together solid sessions and some quick ‘K’ reps with a week total of 112km. Mitch strings along more great running as he pushes the pace in his session and stacks another brick in the form of a 100k week. Holly bounces back from Husky with an 85km week with hill reps and some fast threshold reps to get back in the swing of normal training.

Inspired by the vulnerability of our guests on the Podcast, Sam, Mitch & previous guest Dane Ottesen decide to open up about some of their personal mental health issues as they relate to running.

We talk about some distressing mental health topics to please consider that before listening in.