Episode 626: Brett Petersen

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0:48Scott Jones: Brett is about to tell us what we can expect on Wednesday morning tomorrow. Oh, yep. I like here in the future.

0:55Adam Pullman: Yeah, that's it. Exactly.

0:57Scott Jones: Because you are 15 hours ahead, Brett. Is that what the math, maths? So it's 5.30 a.m. on Wednesday morning. And it's 2.30 p.m. Tuesday afternoon here. So I have a couple of Australian athletes I work with, two in particular, and scheduling calls with you guys is the trickiest because the time gap is so bizarre.

1:21Brett Petersen: Yeah, and it changes with daylight savings, et cetera. So, yeah, you've got to be playing very well, don't you? So you're up and at him today. He is. Yeah, no, I've already done a 20K run this morning. Yeah. Look at you. No, I haven't.

1:38Scott Jones: I set the alarm just a few minutes before this call. We appreciate you making it work, man. Bracken, you must have just came from lunch. You came in with a cheek full of food. What have you been chewing on, Bracken?

1:49Adam Pullman: Well, there was just food sitting out on the counter as I walked past on my way back to the room. and I grabbed it. Opportunistic. That's right.

1:57Scott Jones: So it's 5.30 in the morning in Australia. What part of Australia do you live? Yeah, I live in Canberra.

2:04Brett Petersen: So it's spelt C-A-N-B-E-R-R-A. So that's why people say Canberra, that don't know the place, but we dropped the E, so it's just Canberra. And it's in its own state, which is the ACT, but the border just goes around the city basically, And it's in New South Wales, which is the state that Sydney's in. So we're actually in the mountains. So we're, I think it's about 400 metres. So I've got to do the conversions, don't I? 1 ,200 feet above sea level. So it gets to about, yeah, sort of zero degrees. I've got to do all the conversions. I've got to do the Celsius to Fahrenheit. I've got to do the kilometres to miles.

2:46Brett Petersen: And I've got to do the kilograms to pounds. So I think I've got – I even typed in the Fahrenheit one because I can usually work the others out off the top of my head. I don't. I closed it. I think it was 30 degrees Fahrenheit. So it's cold there. Yeah, so it's relatively cool. Yeah, yeah. So it's relatively – so it gets relatively cold. So we're about three hours in terms of driving. We're 200 miles south of Sydney, but inland Sydney being on the coast, obviously. So it's pretty easy to get to Sydney. And, again, it's the same distance to go to the snow. So we do have a couple of snow fields in Australia.

3:27Brett Petersen: And it's a couple of hours' drive to get to the coast if you want to go to the beach. So it's a pretty handy location.

3:34Scott Jones: I didn't know anybody lived on the interior of Australia. I thought that was like an SOS dead zone that nobody lived in. Was I mistaken?

3:43Brett Petersen: Yeah, it's like over 80%, I think, you know, like close to 90 % of the population live on the coastline. So you're right there. But yeah, there are a few people that live inland.

3:54Scott Jones: If you're foreign, what do you know, Bracken? I know Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth. That's like as like a foreigner, like a self-consumed American. Like we don't, I don't know much beyond that from like big picture. Do you, Bracken, are you very familiar with Australian topography?

4:10Adam Pullman: Not super. My sister played down there for years. So I say Melbourne now. Okay. Well, you got that one right. just like a local no i think we have very little knowledge of of true australia yeah yeah so

4:24Brett Petersen: canberra is about 400 000 people uh so it's a decent size um yeah i mean sydney's five million or melbourne's five million so a lot smaller than them but yeah it's a um yeah it's a good city

4:37Scott Jones: what is the uh mountain trail running scene like in the interior uh of australia is there much of

4:43Brett Petersen: one yeah there is it's huge um particularly in canberra because we've got we're in a mountainous area so um you know i can get on the trails within uh 300 yards of my house um and i'm on the trails basically so like single tracks through pine forests and stuff so um and then we've got a lot of a lot of like mountains around us so that are like national parks that are actually sort of in the city um so because canberra's known as the bush capital so we've got a lot of parkland so it was deliberately designed that way it was designed by an american roltabilly griffin and so it's part of the master plan that he wanted it to be the bush capital so means we've got a lot of open spaces between our sort of large um suburban areas um so it's fantastic yeah it's really great for for trail running and it's the area that so you might have heard of rob d costella uh boston marathon winner um camera is his hometown so he does he did a lot of his training all on the trails around here as well um so yeah and cam myers as well cam myers is a camber boy oh he is so you would have heard of cam myers as well so yeah well that's all you should have led with that brett so is the whole area just going crazy for him right now well the You know, running events and running isn't sort of that big amongst the people that I work with and associate with.

6:12Brett Petersen: So the big sports that, you know, the ones that people go nuts over here in terms of sports is Aussie Rules, so AFL. It's the sort of national football that unites Australia. And cricket's the other national sport. So that's sort of the winter and summer covered. And then we've got Rugby League, which is really big here as well, and soccer. So they're sort of the big four, if you like. Any Aussies listening to this might be shouting at me that there's others that I've missed. Yeah, so they're the big ones. Yeah, certainly in the running community, people are going wild over Cam Is and Gout Gout as well, if you've heard of Gout Gout.

6:49Brett Petersen: So, yeah, they're the two sort of youngsters with the biggest potential to be world leaders, if you like.

6:56Adam Pullman: I would say that in the United States, the population in general doesn't really keep track of any sort of running outside of the world championships and the Olympics. And then whoever the hero is for that cycle kind of – but whenever we have a high school, like a youth phenom, that generally breaks into public consciousness. The best we probably ever had was Alan Webb back in the day, and he made the color of Sports Illustrated, and it went big. But Cam Myers is better than anything we've ever produced. So I didn't know if that had broken into public consciousness for you guys.

7:33Brett Petersen: It sort of has. But if I went around and did a straw poll, I'm sure most people wouldn't know who he is. I think most people know Gout Gout. Everyone seems to be going like that. He's certainly broken through in terms of the main population. And everyone knows Rob D. Costello from the old days because he was a world record holder. and our best ever marathoner. So, yeah, he's certainly a big claim to fame, if you like.

8:00Scott Jones: Why am I forgetting this broke through in the United States, the New Zealand kid?

8:08Adam Pullman: He's like 17.

8:10Scott Jones: I don't know. Okay. What distance?

8:13Adam Pullman: Cam. I thought you were talking about Cam Myers.

8:15Scott Jones: No, there's another young kid, younger than Cam. What distance? The 15, isn't it? Okay. Don't tell me I'm going crazy. Come on now. I'm pretty sure it's you. Cam is 17. Cam is only 17. Oh, no. Cam's 20 now. Yeah, he's 20 now. No, I'm not wrong. I am. Somebody's shouting at their microphone right now. The young New Zealand kid.

8:38Adam Pullman: Oh, gee.

8:39Scott Jones: Yeah, I missed that one. Help me out, Bracken. I know you're on your Google.

8:42Adam Pullman: I'm looking.

8:44Scott Jones: Tell me I'm right. It's going to bother you as soon as you say it. Anyways. Are you talking to Sam Ruth? Sam Ruth. Thank you. My God. But Sam Ruth, I had somebody in the gym, like a middle-aged woman who doesn't run, be like, did you see that 16-year-old kid ran 350 whatever in a mile? It was on American General Sports News. 348. 348, whatever it was. And he's how old? 17? Okay. So Sam Ruth. 16. 16. Okay. So talk about the real – we have this Cam Myers over there, right? But then New Zealand, I kind of lump you guys together, which I know is incorrect.

9:19Brett Petersen: It's all right.

9:19Scott Jones: most people do outside of australia okay so it's 348 as a 16 year old that may very well be the biggest thing to have come out of anywhere of any nation all down that's true i think that's

9:33Adam Pullman: the u20 world record and he still has three years correct wow okay that's the flat out

9:39Brett Petersen: new zealand national record yeah yeah yeah anyway yeah we have a record here called the oceania record, which is Australia, New Zealand, and then the islands around Australia. So that probably would count as that as well. Because that is, oh, actually, no, Cam Lies would be better. But certainly for the under 20s, absolutely.

9:58Scott Jones: Well, apparently your quadrant of the world is dominating on the young middle distance front. Even Cooper Lukenhaus, I haven't heard, like, common folk talk about here in the States yet, and he should be. So those are the two I've heard, yeah. Okay. Should we talk about you, Brett? What do you think? Sure, absolutely.

10:17Brett Petersen: No worries.

10:19Scott Jones: Peterson, right? That's it? Yeah. My wife's maiden name is Peterson. So, I mean, not that we're short of Petersons in the world.

10:30Brett Petersen: Yeah, my spelling's S-E-N, so Uli. So that's the Danish spelling.

10:37Adam Pullman: Okay, probably spelled that wrong for this. Oh, I did.

10:41Brett Petersen: That's all right. That's the less common one, 90 % SONs, which I think might be the Swedish version or German version. Well, we'll get it right for the episode title.

10:54Scott Jones: No worries. So you're a native Australian. Did you grow up where you're at now? Have you been there your whole life?

10:59Brett Petersen: No, no. I grew up in a town called Tamworth, and Tamworth's the country music capital of Australia. So we've got both types of music there, country and western. and it's a town of about 50 ,000 people and it's inland as well. So it's in New South Wales and it's in the hills. So it was surrounded by hills. So I could go running up in the hills when I was a kid, yeah, from a very young age and it was only a few hundred yards to get to the hills. So I'd take my dog up in the hills in the eucalypt, in the gum tree forest and, yeah, spend a lot of time up in the hills around my place. Okay. And then what brought you where you're at now?

11:42Brett Petersen: University. So, yeah, once I finished school, there's no university in Tamworth. So, yeah, I was just looking for courses to do. So, yeah, came to Canberra. And then I left Canberra as well. Yeah, I've been out of Canberra and back since then as well.

11:59Scott Jones: So, Brett, you've been a listener of our podcast, and we've sort of interacted. You've tagged us in a few things, and then I've seen some of your stuff pop up in the feed. you are a fitness spreader of enthusiasm, I will call it, in a sense where you're supporting other people's fitness journeys, kind of immersing yourself, I would say, in that culture, maybe facilitating that sort of thing, and then chasing very many different things throughout your, let's call it, athletic journey, which recently, I mean, you've been a runner, you recommitted to running, I think, back in 2020. Now you're chasing the discus and javelin, I think, as an adult, a human being, which is super interesting.

12:44Scott Jones: So I want to hear about all of this.

12:46Brett Petersen: Yeah, sure. So, yeah, back to my childhood, I was always a natural runner, so I could always run easily and do okay. Although, you know, I was never the best runner at my school, so there was always one kid, Phil. Phil would always beat me. I could never beat Phil. But apart from that, I was actually pretty decent and then I could go to representative level. Although I never made it to state, I made it to regional. So, yeah, I was mediocre but I didn't really train either. So I played cricket and soccer and basketball and tennis and lots of different sports growing up. So that involved a lot of running.

13:27Brett Petersen: So that's usually where I get most of my training, except for weekends I'd take my dog running like I was talking about before. so I was always sort of that thinner build and then when I went to university I started I was playing soccer but I also discovered other things as well at university like drinking and late nights and junk food and a whole bunch of other devices so yeah so I sort of fell off the wagon a little bit there and then I got into doing a lot of weights in my early 20s and was going for the sort of that gym bro look. And then I met my wife, my now wife, in my early 20s, and she was very into sports as well.

14:08Brett Petersen: And she was actually a bit of a champion tennis player and badminton player in her youth. So we used to play a lot of tennis and she was incredibly skillful in that she could hit the ball all around the court, do the jumping double hand backhand shots. And I was pretty average, but I could run. And so I could run all over the court. she could just stand there hitting the ball all over the place so we're pretty pretty evenly matched from that perspective um and then i was doing some short course triathlons and um and started to switch into doing some distance stuff again and some running etc um and then i always enjoyed the strength stuff so even when i from when i was doing my weights in the early in my early 20s i still continued to enjoy doing some strength work um and then jumping ahead a a couple of, jumping ahead a couple of decades, answering the question around the chaplain and discus, because I'm always looking for new challenges.

15:01Brett Petersen: So I've done sort of long distance road cycling, done the 24-hour mountain biking events. Yeah, I've done a lot of different things. So over the years, I sort of started playing soccer again in my early 40s, but I only did that for about five years, indoor and outdoor soccer. so I retired from that when I was 45. I'm 54 now. And then last year I got into High Rocks. So I did a High Rocks doubles with my daughter, which we really enjoyed. And then she injured her. She tore a meniscus early this year and I really like enjoying doing the doubles with her. So I'll take her, I'll wait until she's better and maybe at the end of the year, I think it's Brisbane might be in December.

15:46Brett Petersen: So I might do that if she gets, if she can run again in time. but I was looking for other things that I might be able to do and I saw a javelin and I thought, oh, they're not, there are some huge, you know, some huge bulky guys, people doing javelin, but there are also some sort of thinner guys as well like Thomas Roller, for example, doing javelin too. I thought, oh, I'm still maintaining my strength so I might actually give that a go. So I contacted the local athletics club and they said, yep, we've got a coach that does that and so I went along to that and I noticed I was older than most of the parents doing the training.

16:23Brett Petersen: So the kids, most of the people doing it were under 15. In fact, everyone was under 15 and I was older than most of the parents that were watching their kids do it. And that still continues to be the case, although there are a couple of older people that pop along from time to time, which is good. And so I gave the javelin a go. It's an incredibly technical move, though, and it's very explosive and it's really hard on the shoulder. So I've really had to modify and adapt what I do to be able to do that in a sort of a sustainable way because the kids can just go in and throw the javelin after almost no warm-up.

17:02Brett Petersen: My warm-up is about a 20-minute routine and then I'm good to do, you know, 15 throws. So and then I move on. And then the coach does all four throws at the training. So he said, well, why don't you try discus and hammer throw and shot put. I said, yep, no worries, I'll give them a go. And I found I was terrible at hammer and terrible at shot. So the regulation weight for those is six kilos for my age group, but I can only do four kilos, so I'll do those. But I found I was okay with discus. And I can spin naturally with discus. So I'm actually better at discus than I am at javelin. I don't know why, but I've got the technique for discus.

17:49Brett Petersen: I'm much better at that than I am at javelin. So, yeah, so I'm sort of focusing on the discus and the javelin. I did injure my shoulder. I did try the six-kilo hammer, and I don't know what I did to my shoulder, but I could hardly move it the next day. So then I had to have a few weeks off and rebuild it. And I haven't done the six-kilo hammer since then, So I'm not sure if I'll ever go back to that. But, yeah, there's sort of a bit of a throwing community in Canberra that I discovered, as you do with these things. So, yeah, I'm enjoying that at the moment because I'm making good progress. And while I continue to make good progress, I think I'll, you know, it keeps me motivated.

18:29Brett Petersen: So, yeah, enjoying that. But I'm certainly the only 54-year-old that's ever started javelin for the first time that I know of, that's for sure. So why? I just enjoy, I enjoy new challenges.

18:43Adam Pullman: Right. Challenges are great, but why, how did you possibly choose throwing events for track and field when you search for new, what was that process to discover there is javelin to try?

18:56Brett Petersen: Yeah, I must have just, it's a good question. You know, I can't remember. I knew I'd be asked this. I just can't, I can't remember what the, I can't remember what the trigger was. I think I must have seen it. So I write, so there's a couple of things, I guess. One thing is, in terms of background, is I've got cold air-induced asthma. So around 2007, 2008, I was doing a lot of road cycling at that time and I got, one year I got bronchitis and the next year I got glandular fever. And then in 2010, 2011, I had a bit of a health scare where I had a bunch of issues and I couldn't exercise and it was about six to nine months where I could do no exercise at all, which was the longest break I've had in my life.

19:47Brett Petersen: And I just had a... It was interesting listening to Sue speak on your recent episode about the exercise... What was it? Exercise-induced... Well, she said she had some... Yeah, overtraining syndrome. Sorry, yeah, that was it. Definitely I can relate to that. And it wasn't overtraining syndrome for me. I did get a series of tests and they said, look, you've got a little bit of lung damage there. And so cold air-induced asthma, they said, look, you've got chronic fatigue. So I got different doctors said different things was part of the problem, if you like, because I didn't get a straight diagnosis.

20:27Brett Petersen: One doctor said I had chronic fatigue. Another said I had immune deficiency.

20:31Scott Jones: Chronic fatigue is one of my least favourite diagnoses that exist because it just says, well, no, I mean, there's a, yep, you're tired. I can't tell you why, but you're very fatigued. Thank you for letting me know how tired I am with that diagnosis that maybe can't be fixed. It's always like such a blanket statement. I mean, there's usually a reason for it. That's usually when they can't find it, right? That's how I feel about that diagnosis. How do you feel about that diagnosis?

20:58Brett Petersen: Yeah, I agree with you, Kirk. That's very much the case because it was like, well, what can I do about it? they said I rest and I said well you know what's how can I get better rest eat well rest sleep well all the obvious all the obvious things um uh you know don't drink alcohol that sort of stuff um the long term so it was a very slow rebuild and it has changed my life forever so there's the sort of pre-2011 so up to about the age of 40 um I'm a very different person since then so the so the long-term effects or how I've changed is that I can't do much exercise outside in winter, particularly I can't run.

21:41Brett Petersen: So I did try. So when I was playing soccer, like I said, I was playing outdoor soccer in my 40s, which is in winter. But I never got through a season, so I'd always get cold or a flu and then it'd lay me low for at least a month because my recovery now is... So if I don't... I can see warning signs when I get colds and sniffles. And the old me would push through, would try and push through. And in a lot of cases, I'd actually be fine. Or I'd reduce my workload in terms of exercise. And then I'd still, and I'd be okay. Whereas now I just have to stop. So, and I've been through, I went through a bout of that in November.

22:19Brett Petersen: So I was a pacer for Canberra Half Marathon in November. And I actually knew I wasn't feeling well coming into it. But I felt a commitment because I was a pacer. so I felt commitment to you know the running community that because I always get great feedback and I always really enjoy doing being a pacer but I I knew I wasn't well going into it then I was out for a month um I was sick you know I just couldn't exercise what do you um so to

22:45Scott Jones: interrupt you real quick what do you think set that all off back in the day very curious because just following up the conversation we had last week with Sue you talked about her overtraining syndrome and she had to take a very big reset in fact she hasn't quite been the same since it's It's been a couple of years and now she's considering reintroducing. So I think there's probably, you know, I have a client or two I work with who I feel like they are chronically fatigued. And just wondering, any idea what set that off back then? Was there a defining moment in time? Do you think it was death by a thousand cuts of life and training and getting sick?

23:19Scott Jones: Like if you had to really make sense of it, I'm sure you scratch your head. But what do you think led up to, I don't know, the original diagnosis and all that?

23:28Brett Petersen: Yeah, it was the bronchitis and glandular fever, I think, going back to 2008, 2008, 2008, around that period. It was getting back-to-back illnesses and definitely not letting, definitely just training through it and just doing real, I think that did some real lung damage there. And that's what triggered the cold air-reduced asthma. And then that event, then the third item, you know, third event in 2010, 2011, I was actually, I was in a really stressful work situation as well. So sort of a combination of factors. So, yeah, so going back to sort of Bracken's original question, that sort of set the background for my winters.

24:10Brett Petersen: So it means in winter I have to modify what I do. So I'm always looking for something different to do in winter. And last winter, that was when I was doing, that's when I did the, so I do treadmill running indoors. but you know it meant that I could do the high rocks and train mostly inside I still I can still go outside you know at midday if it's a warmish day in even in winter I can still go outside for a little while and I'll be fine so yesterday I was up at the up at the playground up from where I live at lunchtime yesterday and I was up there doing using their monkey bars to do chin-ups and dips and that sort of stuff and that was you know it was wind it's winter and it's the middle of the and I was fine.

24:51Brett Petersen: But I couldn't go for a run outside or if I did, I'd have to spend the rest of the day in bed resting. So I just have to be super careful. So as long as I'm, you know, I've got layers on and I keep really warm and I'll wear a beanie outside most of the time, then I'm fine. But, you know, once you warm up when you're running, you can't do that either. So you usually want to strip layers off and that's when I usually get in trouble in terms of getting sick really easily. so so last year and then so i'll do obviously i do my javelin training and stuff outside but you know you do a throw and then you take a break for a few minutes so i'm not really stressing the lungs very much um and it means that i can keep really warm i don't strip the layers off um and if i sweat a little bit that's fine so um so yeah it means with the high rocks it was like oh this is an indoor activity um and i can do most of the training inside so i can you know do the ergs and the sleds and everything else at a gym inside.

25:47Brett Petersen: And I can run on the treadmill, which is indoors. But, yeah, I still can't quite remember what it was that led me to the javelin and discus, but I thought, oh, it's a challenge. I'll give it a go. And if my shoulder can't handle it, then so I have to do a lot of shoulder health-based stuff now to make sure a lot of rotator cuff because I've had shoulder issues. You know, I've had bursitis and rotator cuff tears and that sort of thing in the past. I suppose like with you guys, I've injured in one way or another most joints and muscles. So, yeah, but while I'm improving and I don't feel like I'm doing long-term damage to my shoulder, but it is sort of unilateral in a movement.

26:34Brett Petersen: It's, you know, focused on one side. So even in the throw, when you're doing your crossovers, when you're doing the block leg and you're planting the leg and you're twisting the hips to do the throw, because the throw is not meant to be, it's meant to be through your body. It's that sort of violent movement, if you like, where you're slinging the javelin as opposed to just using your shoulder to throw it. And it does cause quite a bit of stress on the body.

27:02Adam Pullman: But, yeah, enjoying it at the moment. So at these track meets, how many Masters throwers are there?

27:08Brett Petersen: Well, good question. Look, I've done one event so far, and that was in March, and that was just – and I made like five mistakes. So the guy said, look, one was treading over the line, another was treading off at the side when I was exiting and not going out the back. Another was using the javelin to do the twisting warm-up. I used the javelin. I said, no, no, that could bend it. You're not allowed to do that. and it was just like, yeah, one thing after another. But, you know, I said, look, I'm learning these. They make the mistake once. And that was an open event. So I was against four other younger people.

27:44Brett Petersen: So there was only five of us in this event. It was a particularly cold night. So I haven't done the Masters. The Masters starts up, look, there is a Masters each month, but I'm doing a bit of travelling, so I'm just missing each of those events. The actual season starts in October. So I'll have six months of competition where I'll probably compete every fortnight from October onwards. And so what I'm doing is I'm sort of still focusing a lot on strength. So doing a lot of strength work at the moment. So I've got sort of a 25-point checklist that I've done up for myself, which is focused around strength and mobility and general strength, throw strength, mobility, conditioning.

28:30Brett Petersen: isometrics, a whole bunch of stuff that I've got written out that I've sort of just gleaned from doing my own research and that seems to be working well at the moment. But, yeah, doing that one competition was good in terms of learning. In competition it's just so different. But, yeah, in that one I came fourth out of five. I beat an 11-year-old boy.

28:56Scott Jones: so but yes i assume you got disqualified by the sounds of it but clearly they

29:03Brett Petersen: well they'll stick you get you get six throws um so you know i uh and um five out of the six were were regulation throws yeah i got disqualified on one of them okay but um yeah and it's the

29:16Adam Pullman: best of the six throws then um but yeah yeah it was good fun kirk i don't know if you know this I threw javelin one time in college. Why?

29:26Brett Petersen: Yeah.

29:26Adam Pullman: Because they were laying around one day at practice, and I started picking them up and throwing them. How'd you go? And you were good? I was not good, but I was okay enough to try it in a meet one time.

29:37Brett Petersen: But when you did OCR, some of the OCR stuff that you've done, like Spartan where you have to do the spear throwing, so you didn't do – what sort of – did you do any specific training for that?

29:47Adam Pullman: Uh-oh. Is he frozen for you?

29:49Brett Petersen: No, I can see Brett.

29:50Adam Pullman: Just great. Oh, sorry.

29:51Brett Petersen: Can you say that one more time? Oh, yeah. I was just wondering when you did your Spartan and OCR racing, did you have to, when you did the spear throwing, did you have to do any specific training for that?

30:00Adam Pullman: Well, the first one I didn't because I thought I threw javelin, I can do this. So I threw it like a javelin and it came off and it just helicoptered and slapped into the target and I did 30 burpees. So after that, I realized the spear throw is a dart, not a javelin. So then I started doing some training for that. But no, I enjoy javelin. it felt good on my arm compared to some other throwing if i tried to throw too hard it would hurt javelin felt comfortable for me i just wasn't powerful enough to be actually good at it yeah okay

30:30Brett Petersen: and and i'm definitely not good at it but i'm improving and i reckon i can so basically um so i'm throwing 23 meters okay uh it's not it's not proportional to the ratio against the world record so for example you know the world record so i can run 1.5 times the world record for a marathon um but if i was to do the same ratio for javelin it's like you know 3.5 times so and if you then equated that 3.5 times back to my time for a marathon it'd be like doing a seven hour marathon so you know it's not proportional i've been told it's not proportional to the world record don't don't try and do the same comparison back so um that that helps my middle-aged ego it doesn't work for explosive records compared to aerobic right correct yeah yeah exactly so i started at 18 meters so i've sort of so i'm sort of improving nearly a meter a month and i know that i won't improve at that same rate going forward but um i need to get to about so i've got the in march i've got the so it's a sort of a been a it's about a two-year project this so in march i've got the australian masters athletics games in perth and in october next year i've got the australian masters games in newcastle so um so you know that's what i 15 months away so So they're the two big ones, if you like.

32:02Brett Petersen: And if I can throw 30 metres, because I've gone back and had a look at the podiums, if I can throw 30 metres, I'm in the zone, depending on who turns up on the day, I'm in the zone for a podium. But I think there's some ex-elite guys that still continue to do it. and if they show up, you can see it's like first place, you know, 58 metres and then second place is like 32 metres. It's like there's a, yeah, and I think the people that are throwing that far are the guys that, you know, represented Australia, that world champs or whatever.

32:44Adam Pullman: So, yeah. Well, maybe, Kirk, this is my second act. I'll take up Masters throwing.

32:51Brett Petersen: Absolutely. You'd be so good at it, Bracken. Well, you haven't seen me throw. Well, as long as you've got the technique down, and if you've got a good coach, I've got a great coach, then the technique does play a huge role for Masters athletes, that's for sure.

33:08Scott Jones: How far did you throw in college? I was always jealous. How far was your one meet? Do you remember?

33:12Adam Pullman: I was right around 40 meters. 40 meters? Wow. I don't remember what I hit. I know in practice I threw like 42, 44, but I don't think I hit that in competition. What an athlete. Yeah, what an athlete. our javelins very well could have been at a different size than what he's throwing

33:28Brett Petersen: uh you would have had the 800 grams and as a master's on 700 and i've thrown the 800 um and it's about it it's pretty well the same i mean you're only talking about 100 grams difference so it is pretty well the same when you get down to 500 you can really notice that it's a lot lighter but you don't actually throw it further with the 500 because it's just too light so you haven't got that sort of doesn't give you that momentum if you like interesting throwing it yeah yeah

33:57Adam Pullman: well i was always jealous of throwers in college i thought jumpers would have a terrible life it seemed way too like high stress but and sprinters but throwers they just got to lift eat work on being powerful and massive yeah and the throws weren't like that you didn't have to time your throws there's no reaction time it just seemed like a good life yeah yeah i you know i i've

34:20Brett Petersen: changed my diet as well and just saying what you're saying i'm so i'm still eating my um you know 3 000 calories a day but i haven't been burning that um so i've put on so what so i've put on so at that sort of christmas time i was and i'll convert this so i was 70 around 70 kilos so it's 154 pounds because it's 2.2 uh 2.2 pounds to a kilo so um and now i'm over 80 kilos so it's at 176 pounds is 80 kilos so i'm about 180 pounds now so um so i'll put on that weight look it's probably half and half muscle and fat so i have definitely waistline's definitely gone out But like you said, it really doesn't matter.

35:14Brett Petersen: Like I get on the treadmill now. I'm a lot slower, though, I'll admit. So I've slowed down in my running times. I've slowed down a lot. But that's not my focus. My focus is just building strength and making sure I get enough protein. So I am watching my macros, so I'm trying to get a good amount of protein in. Well, a good amount by my standards, which is sort of at least 100 grams a day. So, you know, I'll take a supplement there. The other big change there is creatine. So I've never had creatine before. So I started taking that at Christmas, and I'm not sure if that's making a difference, but reading all the studies, et cetera, it seems that creatine can help a lot.

35:55Brett Petersen: So, yeah, sort of having five grand to that every day as well.

35:58Scott Jones: You know what I'm gleaning from this? More so just following up the conversation we had last week with Sue and then you. Um, Bracken, I don't know if you get this on occasion, but I feel like I do where somebody will reach out, uh, potentially asking about coaching and say, well, I don't even know if you work with people as slow as me, or I don't know if I'd be, if I'm good enough to have a coach. So I feel silly even reaching out. I have, you gotten that before Bracken? I feel like I get that relatively often. Yeah. I'm probably too old for you to care about coaching me. I'm too slow. I'm not good enough.

36:36Scott Jones: I probably don't deserve a coach. But then we talked to Sue who talked about running 20 minute miles and working our way down to 13 minute miles. Then we talk about Brett who is, uh, 300 % worse than the best javelin thrower in the world or whatever the equation was. But, but, but an investment in caring into like giving a crap about something and wanting to still see your potential. You'll never be a world champion, Brett Sue. I guess she was, So there is that. But point being is like just seeing somebody who like, like what are you really fighting for, right? Like from the outside, people be like, what is Brett doing out here throwing this stupid javelin and going to these meets around the country?

37:21Scott Jones: But like carrying and chasing things and investing and being the best you can be for you, I think is very admirable. I mean, most people have already done that, seen that. They're just, they're rinsing and repeating the same damn script by the time they're in their 40s and 50s and 60s, right? They're on rinse and it's Groundhog's Day for most people, right? So I respect when people chase new things or take big things seriously or, I don't know, get outside of their normal mold, right? I think it's a rarity for people to do that. You and Sue, in your own ways, are very much the exception, not the rule, which is sort of what I actually wanted to talk to you the most about today is sort of like this whole like reinvention of self throughout the years.

38:06Scott Jones: I feel like you've done that a good bit. And I don't know if that's by design or by default, but the sentiment that you've done this and then you went to that and now you're onto this and now you created this Instagram page and you're bringing up others. And so it's like you've kind of hopped lily pads, we'll call it. But the main thing is you've always had something to focus on, I think. And so the question is, is what's the power to that? And was that by design or by default? Like life threw you lemons, so you made lemonade. And then the next lemon was thrown at you, so you made a different kind of lemonade.

38:40Scott Jones: Like walk me through, I think what I'm wondering is the progression of chasing things. Like I don't sense a time that you weren't. And so I just want to understand your mindset with all of that.

38:52Brett Petersen: Yeah, yeah.

38:53Scott Jones: Well, I've sort of always been competitive by nature.

38:55Brett Petersen: So even though I'm not the greatest performer, I've always competed either. I always enjoy competing against others or against myself. So that's sort of just been inbuilt into my nature, even from a young child. And I've always enjoyed sport and activity. So they're sort of foundation qualities, if you like, that I've always had. And then I've kept this spreadsheet since 1993 of every exercise session that I've done since then. And I've continued to maintain it. So what's that? That's 33 years on this spreadsheet. I've got a tab for each year and then I've got a bunch of pivot tables and charts and summaries and a whole bunch of other health statistics, etc.

39:48Brett Petersen: So it allows me to go back and look at what I've done and the different things that I've done. And I find that hugely motivating as well because I can see, well, I took up this challenge and then I took up that challenge. And then I've done something different. I enjoy doing different things and taking up challenges. And I sort of set long-term goals, if you like. So after I get through the throws next year, look, I might continue to do it. But really then my next goal after that, and that's sort of a two-year project after that, before I turn 60, is to do an ultra 100. So that's sort of, again, the opposite end of the scale.

40:24Brett Petersen: So going from explosive strength to sort of ultra running. So I want to be able to do that. So I've done a 124-hour running event already, which I really enjoyed. So, yeah, and I also like to give Backyard Ultras a go as well. We've got the current world champion world record holder in the Backyard Ultra, Phil Gore. So, yeah, he's sponsored by a local shoe company that support me as well. So, yeah, I'd love to give that a go too. But so I've sort of set long-term goals, if you like. So I sort of set markers out going out five years. So that provides me, and I will pivot and I will change what I do depending on circumstances.

41:12Brett Petersen: So saying what you were saying, Kirk, about throwing lemons, that sort of happens on a sort of semi-regular basis. So, you know, when I threw the hammer a couple of months ago, the six-kilo hammer, I injured my shoulder and then that took me six weeks to get back to where I was in the first place. And then I was sick. I had a cold a couple of weeks ago and then I sort of had eight days off. Then that's taken a while and I'm still not back to where I was before then. So it's sort of, you know, three steps forward, two steps back, but still a gradual progression as I continue. And I think what happens sometimes is I might get stale with something.

41:50Brett Petersen: And so when I don't see the progression or the improvement, then it's like, oh, well, I'll try something different. And I'm always talking to people that exercise. And like you were saying, Kirk, with my Instagram account. So I started an Instagram account last year, so fairly late to social media. but I was doing that and I'm not sure why I did it. It was just something fun to try and I started doing, you know, just recording and publishing the stuff that I was doing, which is great and I love when people do that. I really enjoy the sort of community that I've built around me and following what people do but then I started to interview people and ask what they did and what motivated them and why they exercised and so I've been able to sort of publish.

42:33Brett Petersen: every week I've sort of got, I think, about a 40-week streak of every week dropping an interview on Instagram with someone different. And it can be on different topics as well. So I'm a big supporter of people that are doing exercise for fundraising activities, so exercise events. So always trying to support that. And also using that every year, I'll do a different type of exercise to do some sort of fundraising event. So I'll use the social media platform for that as well. So, yeah, so, you know, and again, doing the charity events, I'll pick something different each year. So last year it was Step-Tember.

43:21Brett Petersen: So Step-Tember, the base model there is 10 ,000 steps a day during September. during September, but I sort of decided to double that. And then every time I hit a milestone in terms of fundraising, I'd add something extra in. So, you know, it would be if I hit$2 ,000, then I'll add an extra 1 ,000 steps a day from that point onwards. If I hit$3 ,000, then I'll make sure I do 500 ,000 steps for the month, et cetera, et cetera. So and then the year before that, it was the push-up challenge, which was to raise money for mental health. And the year before that, it was the squat challenge. So different challenges provide me with different motivations to do different types of exercise.

44:04Brett Petersen: And then this year in October, I'm going to do the Ned Brockman, Ned's Challenge. So Ned Brockman is a ultra runner in Australia. He's run across Australia and he's also, So he tried to break the 1 ,000-mile record by running around a 400-metre track a couple of years ago, but it was 10 days. The record was 10 days, and the record still stands, the world record. It was set by Janos Kuros. So Janos Kuros is known as the GOAT of ultra-running, and he's an Australian guy. I think he still holds – he broke 160 world records, I think, and I think he still holds 16 world records for ultra running. He was Greek and Australian and he broke those records during the 90s, 80s and 90s when he was, I think, mostly in his 40s.

45:03Brett Petersen: And so Ned tried to break that world record a couple of years ago. It was highly publicised and the whole thing was live online as well. So he continues to, he's a Puma-sponsored athlete and he continues to do a lot of different sort of events, et cetera, to try and break records and do different great things, mostly around charity and fundraising. So that's what I'm going to do this year. So again, that's another motivator for me to try different things and keep things interesting. I think that's the other thing too. I get bored easily. So it keeps things interesting. And, you know, and also it's also good for my body to take breaks, I think, as well in different things because it allows different body parts to recover.

45:47Brett Petersen: So over winter, because I don't do a lot of running, any niggles that I've got, like I get a little bit of plantar fascia issue at the moment, a little bit of Achilles issue. And that tends to heal up really well over winter. So it's good to give my body breaks. Because a bit like Sue, I found Sue super motivating listening to her episode, doing all this stuff over the age of 60, because I reckon the best is still ahead of me. So as 54, I'm still young by comparison to people like Sue. So, you know, I'm going to continue to take on new challenges and see where it takes me. Yeah, it's just fun.

46:23Brett Petersen: And also I just enjoy it as well. I'm not sure if I answered your question there.

46:30Scott Jones: Aren't you worried about ramping up mileage to get ready for 100 if you aren't consistently running mileage? Like if I were to be a coach right now and be like, Like, Brett, if you really care about something like 100 miles or a backyard ultra, you might want to get ahead of it a little bit. Talk to me about that. I'm going to trust you a little bit. Talk to me about that. Are you nervous about that?

46:55Brett Petersen: No. You can't. No, no, no. No, no. Because I'll start again. I'll be a brand-new athlete at the end of next year, and I'll start from zero, and I'll give myself two years. Oh, you have that much time. I reckon in two. Yeah, before I turn 60. So I'm 54 now. So I turned 55 this year. So that's like my long-term goal. And I'll do the normal things. So, you know, I'll make sure I'll probably run. So basically I exercise every day except for when I'm sick or injured. So that means that probably on average means, you know, it takes probably a week out of every two months. So it means I do get rest and recovery.

47:35Brett Petersen: But, yeah, I'll do the classic build-up. Look, I am concerned in the sense that I can, as a general rule, I'll max out at, what's that? I can run 30 miles, so 50 kilometres a week, no problems. But as I start to go above that, I do start to find I can get some different types of issues, whether it's my ankle, Achilles, calf, foot, you know, I just start and I can start to get worn out. I can start to, yeah. So that's generally, look, I can push. So, you know, even last year I did some weeks where I was doing 60 miles, but that was like as a one-off, as a heavy load when I was training for different events.

48:26Brett Petersen: so um look but but i can't do that on a consistent basis so it does mean i have to modify what i do it does mean though that it gives me time to do strength and conditioning um and make you know particularly paying attention to my posterior chain so you know calf hamstring glutes um so yeah so that's sort of my long-term kong kirk so yeah so i'll give myself a couple of years to sort of build up to that where i'll do you know half build up to half marathons and then build up to marathons and then and then see where it takes me from there in terms of being able to do longer events um that's my goal anyway i may have to modify that um but that's what i'd like to be

49:10Scott Jones: able to do i was thinking this is like uh next year sort of thing oh no no no no next year i

49:16Brett Petersen: look i i do see people that like you know nick bear and others that can probably hunter mcintyre where they're quite strong, they're buff, strong dudes that can do long-distance running. But, yeah, I've sort of, for me, it's a little bit mutually exclusive. So I reckon I can do, I reckon I can do, I can probably get back into doing like half marathons but not fast combined with my throws. And I'll probably push for that because I want to get back into doing more running. But, yeah, I'm not scheduling like, you know, prior years, the prior sort of three years i had been scheduled you know having a bit of an event schedule where i'd sort of say right i'm gonna do this half marathon i'm gonna do this 10k i'm gonna do this trail run i'm gonna do and i'd sort of schedule it out and i've got a running buddy that we do events together um and we'd sort of work out what we're going to do um but yeah i'm not i'm not doing that for the next i won't do that for the next 18 months or so i'll just focus on the throws events, yeah, and also throwing some high rocks as well.

50:25Brett Petersen: So, you know, high rocks is something I think I can do okay at. Definitely not at bracken levels. I looked at some of your times, bracken, not to that, but my daughter and I did, when we did the doubles, we did one hour 38. That's good. Yeah, so my daughter's got like scoliosis, femoral torsion and femoral torsion. So it does and it causes some hip issues and other issues. So it really limits her running. So, yeah, and she ran the whole thing. I thought she'd have to walk for half of it in those, and she ran all of it. So I was so proud of her. She did so well. So it was fun doing it together and fun doing the training.

51:06Brett Petersen: She's incredibly strong. So she doesn't have to do much strength work. Her focus is on the running and I have to focus on the strength side of things. but I reckon we can cut at least probably 10 minutes out because I notice the system they've got is really good where you can look at your relative times. And so our times in the rock zone, so in those drink areas, was like in the slowest 2 % or something. So, yeah, Gemma would stop and drink and stuff whereas people would keep moving. So I reckon we can carve. We can get under 90 minutes just by doing that. Yeah, so that was really good fun. And I think High Rocks, we can continue to do that together.

51:48Brett Petersen: You know, and then I might have a bit of a go myself once I get past the ultra stage or even while I'm doing that, a bit of a go myself to try and see how fast I can go in that because I think it works well with my running as well as the strength stuff. But the other thing that I might try that I haven't mentioned, that I'm not committing to this yet, but I may try, given I'm doing the strength work, given I'm going to the track, doing track and field, I could have a bit of a go at 400 metres and 800 metres on the track. But, yeah, I'll see. I'm not making any commitments there. But that could partner quite well with the throwing.

52:29Adam Pullman: Okay, so you've mentioned some things here. High rocks, ultra, javelin, discus, shot, hammer.

52:36Brett Petersen: Yeah.

52:37Adam Pullman: Now 400 metre, 800 metre.

52:39Brett Petersen: Yeah.

52:39Adam Pullman: You're naming a lot of things that have some barriers to entry from either a skill or a fitness standpoint that most people would look at and be like, I just won't be good at it or I don't want to fail on that stage or it would take so long to get the skill or the fitness up that why would I bother? you don't seem to have any verbiage yet of I would but I think that it will not go well so I'll probably try to find something else that you kind of just seem to not care about how the entry goes which I think is very unique yeah that's a good way of putting it I hadn't actually thought

53:20Brett Petersen: of it that way and what I say now and what I'll do I may change several times along the way and I'm pretty open to that. So I sort of set longer term strategic goals, but with options. So, you know, like doing the track stuff, I may find exactly what you've said, Bracken. I might find that, look, this is a bit of a pipe dream. This is ridiculous. It's ridiculous to think that I could have thought that I could have done that. So I might find... Well, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying you're picking things that are challenging

53:54Adam Pullman: and that most people would shy away from. You don't seem to be bothered by the potential for failure.

54:02Brett Petersen: Oh, absolutely. No, no, absolutely. Yeah, I absolutely don't mind failing and I don't mind using that as a learning opportunity, if you like. But yeah, certainly I've tried to drop the ego a little bit. You know, even when I'm training javelin and I'm trash talking with all my javelin buddies, which are basically 12 to 15-year-old boys and girls. You know, I'm watching the parents that are just sitting there on the sideline and I went up to them the other day and I said, come on, why don't you come and have a go? And they just laughed at me like I'm a crazy man. But, you know, so, yeah, I don't mind, yeah, seeming like I'm a bit of a twit in what I'm doing.

54:50Brett Petersen: It doesn't bother me at all. yeah as long as I'm having fun and I'm enjoying it and I'm pretty scientific in the way that I you know I do schedule things out and you know you probably picked up I've got a little bit of OCD and in terms of keeping a spreadsheet of every exercise session that I've done and and then using that as a motivator as well to sort of see how I can improve it's like well I ran this many kilometers as I particularly as I'm rebuilding from sickness or injury You know, I can see that I did this much last week. I'm going to do this much this week again. And every year I set myself a goal of doing something the best against myself.

55:30Brett Petersen: So last year it was plank seconds. So, you know, I did, I can't remember, it was 9 ,000 plank seconds or whatever it was last year. But, you know, the key to that is to invent something new every year so that then I can be the best at it and measure something that you do each year. So, you know, I'm not measuring how many squats I do, but I am measuring now how many push-ups I do. So when I did the push-up challenge, it was like for that year I did, I don't know, 6 ,500 push-ups, which when you break it down isn't that many, but, you know, I might only be doing push-ups for 20 weeks of that year.

56:03Brett Petersen: But, yeah, so I'll make sure I can look over the years and I can say, right, what was my best – what was I best at in terms of comparing against myself for that year? It could be rowing metres or rowing sec minutes. It could be running mileage. It could be cycling mileage. But every year I have to be the best. I have to have done a PB or a PR in some sort of exercise pursuit. And that's also then I can look at what I'm going to do next year and the year after in terms of that as well. So, again, that's another way that I can motivate myself.

56:40Adam Pullman: How do you determine if this seems – Kirk, this seems like the healthiest reason to do anything, like mindset-wise. Like the healthiest mindset to possibly have. Elaborate. Honestly, just that. You're set up for success either way. It's not like you have a... It's not like you fail. You're not setting out to break a record that stands. You're not setting out to... It's not like year over year, you're trying to do the same task. You're picking something new. You're playing with the metrics to set yourself up for a win. win, lose or draw, you're going to have new skills and new fitness out of it.

57:18Adam Pullman: And the enthusiasm of a new pursuit each time you start over, it just seems like a sustainable, healthy way to move through life.

57:26Brett Petersen: I think that's the key, the sustainability bit. So as I said, you know, I want to keep getting better until, you know, I don't know when I'll max out with my 5k times, but I figure I've got 10 years of improvement still um on the 5k times so my wife in 2020 my wife beginning of 2020 my wife was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer um and um that was a pretty tough time for us but at the same time i started running against this i discovered this thing called park run and so i started to get into the park runs and so just a you know my first times there were like 40 minutes where I was doing that sort of walk-run method, and I just sort of built up over time.

58:09And every year since 2020, so six years in a row,

58:15Brett Petersen: I've done a PB in the 5K. So last year's PB was actually on the track in the Australian Masters Games, which was in Canberra last year. So I did 19.35 there. So my goal last year was to crack 20 minutes for the 5K, so I managed that. but I call it Brett 2.0 because my best 5K time was when I was 23 and I did 16, 16, 25. So I know I could, look, I'm realistic. I'm not going to get back to that time. So but cracking 20 minutes was a big, so it's Brett 2.0. So I've almost reset the clock and the other way I reset the clock is my age group. So, you know, I'm old for my age right now, but in November I become super young again because I'm in the M55.

59:08Brett Petersen: So all of a sudden I'm young again. So then I can set. So I figure I'll get to a point where even in my BRETT 2.0, I'm not going to be able to better my 5K time. But I reckon I've got 10 years of improvement still, and so I'll chip away at that. I'd like to be able to crack 19 minutes. but this year and next year I'm accepting that I'm not going to do a 5k PB because my focus is on throws. So I realise I've got limitations in what I can do. If I was to try to beat those times, I'd need to up my mileage to at least 30 miles a week. Then I'd need to sacrifice time for my throws. So, you know, I still have this sort of chronic fatigue thing in the background that continues to limit what I do as well in terms of time.

59:54Brett Petersen: so I can do minimum five hours a week of sort of strenuous exercise up to I look some weeks I can do up to 10 hours but I start to max out at that so I've got sort of that five to 10 hours a week that I can do a good amount of exercise and then I need to also monitor it day to day and week to week as well so i'll change what i do in a day like i'll make it like scheduling stuff out in the week isn't a good way for me to necessarily train so but i'll have my at the moment i've got my checklist which is specific to throws and i'll work through that but day to day i can feel crappy some days where i'll just need to go right i'm going to need to reduce what i do and then i can feel good and then i go right i can push the envelope a bit this day but you know I'll often wait until I get up in the morning, so how I'm going to feel.

1:00:50Brett Petersen: Or I can do a day's work and I'll finish work at 4pm and go, right, so how do I feel after that day's work? I have a desk job, so it means it is sedentary type work, so it means I can be energised at the end of the day. That's the other thing I've had to do as well. So I used to, before getting really sick in that 2010-2011 period, I used to do my exercise before work and I used to feel energised for the rest of the day. If I do exercise before work now, I need a nap during the day. So I probably need a one to two hour nap. The other thing I need to do is I need to sleep a lot more than I used to as well.

1:01:25Brett Petersen: So I remember Sue saying she needs nine hours. Well, I'm a minimum of nine hours. If I get less than nine hours, I feel hungover. So, you know, I'm a nine to probably a nine to 11 hours in bed in a 24 hour cycle of which I'm probably sleeping for at least nine of those. so it means i'm getting less productive hours in my day than a lot of people that can you know i've got a mate that gets away with six hours a day uh he's getting a couple of hours more in his day than i am uh in terms of being able to do things so um yeah so it's it's certainly different now for me but again there there are the motivators so that's been another motivator is you know improving in the park run improving in my 5k times which i've really enjoyed as well how do

1:02:09Scott Jones: you determine if these pursuits are a success like how do you determine success yeah for me it's um

1:02:16Brett Petersen: for me it's setting you know personal best um i do i love i love chasing the bling so i do like getting the medals um so that's fun and the good thing about getting the i got the bronze medal in the cross country at the masters games last year so i missed that i came fourth in the fourth in the 5 ,000 metres. This is in my age group. Fourth in the 5 ,000 metres, but success that I cracked the 20 minutes. So, you know, I smashed that with 1935. So that was successful. But then three days later was the cross country. So, and I was desperate to get a medal. I looked at the medals and they got to, you know, the guys that got the medals got to stand up on the podium.

1:02:56Brett Petersen: And I thought, I really want to do that. So I just went all out 100%, absolutely just left nothing to chance on the cross country track and got the bronze medal and I felt like it felt like getting an Olympic medal I was so proud standing up on the dice but the guy who won was so non-plus by the whole thing you know he changed his clothes he was in jeans and a shirt and he was walking away from the track and they called him back and he goes oh there's a medal there's a dice he's there it's like he he really couldn't kill I say he came first and really was non-plus and was blasé about the whole thing i came third and got the bronze medal i mean i was like the yeah i was so proud and i was just yeah ecstatic with that so that was success for me because i got this medal that you had to not just finish but come first second or third in um i've never so i've never had a dnf so of every event i've started i've finished and i think i'd almost have to be dead not to finish an event so So for me, it's finish at all costs, finish at all costs.

1:04:01Brett Petersen: So for me, that's success as well. But I've had some DNSs, so I haven't been able to show up to the start line for some events, particularly in November last year. And I'd signed up for like three events and I had to skip two of them because I did that half marathon at the start of the month that I was pacing for, which put me up for the rest of the month. But I wasn't pacing for the other two events, so a trail event, so I wasn't pacing for those. So, you know, I just paid the money and I just lost the money and it was fine. So, you know, I made the sensible decision not to do those. So, yeah, success is defined in a bunch of different ways, I guess.

1:04:38Brett Petersen: Success, again, setting a PB in something different exercise related. And then when I do the charity events, I'll set myself a fundraising target. So, you know, success for that's defined by meeting my fundraising target, meeting or exceeding that. So, you know, success with my Instagram is getting a steady, I've had a steady growth of followers over time. I noticed Natalie, when you interviewed Natalie, she had that sort of trigger event that went viral when she loaded that video. And she, you know, she'd only started this year and she went from very few followers to over 10 ,000 followers. You know, I haven't done that.

1:05:14Brett Petersen: I haven't had that trigger event. But, you know, I've had sort of steady growth of a couple of hundred new followers each month and i'm up to over 2 000 now and i only start you know i was 250 followers at christmas so a good steady growth um so i suppose it's that steady you know good steady improvement over time um that that um you know provides me that gauge of success um and you know looking at it from a variety of variety of different metrics but i think bracken you're spot on i hadn't thought put it that way, I sort of set myself up to succeed, if you like. So, and it's, it helps me mentally too.

1:05:52Brett Petersen: I suppose that's the way I manage my mental health too, apart from just my physical health. It's a mental health management tool because it makes me feel better about myself too. Yeah. So this is kind of a long question, or at least the lead into it will be, so bear with me, but I'm curious why you think more people don't do this with physical pursuits.

1:06:13Adam Pullman: Because if you were to say, tell your friends, I'm going to learn piano.

1:06:18Brett Petersen: Yeah.

1:06:18Adam Pullman: Late stage in life. I'm going to learn piano. And I found an instructor who's going to give me lessons. That's really cool. I'm glad that's cool. Or I'm going to take a pottery class and there's an expert I'm going to go learn from, or I'm going to learn a second language. I'm, or I'm going to take night classes that those are all considered like really cool ways of expanding your horizons. But when you say I hired a running coach at 50 or at 60, it's always like, why? Only your runner friends get it. And even some of them are like, why would you find that? So why do you think more people don't keep your habits of choosing a physical pursuit, finding an expert in that area, getting the most you can out of them, where they would do that for a mental pursuit or a skill-based pursuit?

1:07:04Brett Petersen: Yeah, I've never been asked that before. That's a really good question. Look, I think that I admire people that are more balanced than me because I see them as being more balanced. You know, I've got friends that, you know, they'll learn the guitar and they'll then, you know, they'll learn a language and they'll be interested in travelling. But when they travel, they're looking at museum and art and they'll take up art and they'll do all these different things. And that provides a little bit more balance, I think, in life. There's more balance than me in terms of just my exercise. so I admire them being able to do that.

1:07:41Brett Petersen: I think that's absolutely fantastic. So certainly no judgment for the people that don't pursue, you know, go down the same road that I'm going down. In fact, I'm probably unique in a number of ways from that perspective, particularly around my peers and my friends. So people will do, but, you know, those balanced people will do a little bit of running or they might play, you know, a little bit of sport, but they'll do that, let's say, two, three, four times a week, and then they'll forget about it. And when they do it, they'll do it for 30 minutes to an hour, and then that's it. They're on to other pursuits, and I think that's awesome that they can do that.

1:08:18Brett Petersen: I struggle to be able to do that. So if I'm in, I'm all in type thing, so with something. So I do sort of have an obsession, if you like, with my exercise, which you probably picked up on and which I think you can both relate but you guys have both performed at the elite level which I so admire. If there's one regret or one thing I could have done differently it was to take my training seriously when I was younger which I didn't do. But just as a quick aside to that which I hadn't mentioned I've only had two coaches before so I've currently got a throws coach and when I was at school, in my school athletics team, I had a coach.

1:09:05Brett Petersen: Now, that coach, his name was Peter Lawler and Peter Lawler was a representative for Australia in hammer throw and javelin. And he has been a pioneer in javelin throwing methods. He's coached the Australian team. He's coached Olympic medalists in javelin and he's also coached other national teams, Fiji and others as well. He's in his 80s now. and so when we did athletics training, though, for the middle and long-distance runners, he didn't know what to do with us, and he was the only coach. So he would just go, run to the other side of town and back, and by the time we got back, he was focusing on his throws athletes and training was almost finished by then, so he sort of got us out of his hair.

1:09:53Brett Petersen: So, yeah, so that's the only time, only a couple of times I've had coaches. um but yeah so i think that um yeah it's that obsessive mindset that i've got where i'll go in all in but it'll it won't be all in on a very specific pursuit or it might be at a particular point in time like getting the best 5k time i can or training for a particular event um but again i see that i'm sort of balancing that i will pursue a bunch of different things as well which I suppose will help to give me that longevity too. But yeah, it's a good question and I don't sort of have a direct answer. I sort of circled around that question.

1:10:33Brett Petersen: Do you have an answer? What do you think?

1:10:36Adam Pullman: I don't have an answer. I think that seeking out experts in technical fields or the arts is considered almost compulsory, mandatory. That's what you do. Whereas in physical pursuits, it seems more like an extravagance. or a cop-out to some people, and I'm not sure why that is. But I can't speak for Kirk, but responding to your comment about he and I competed at a high level or high-ish level, we've done both. It's harder to do it at not an elite level.

1:11:09Brett Petersen: Right.

1:11:10Adam Pullman: When we were young or in university or right after, there are systems in place that facilitate that training and going all in. And it's when you have life and real problems and finances and draws on your time, training 10 hours a week is way harder than training 20 hours a week when there are systems in place. So, yeah, I get that, the people who think the what if. But what we did at that time, again, and it wasn't super high level, it was way easier than making it as the everyday athlete.

1:11:45Brett Petersen: You do talk yourself down, Bracken. You were pretty elite. I'm a realist. You're a pioneer in the OCR space, though. You're in that sort of first wave of professional athletes in that era. And, yeah, very, very high accomplishments. I admire both of you greatly. So, yeah, I feel I'm in real esteemed company here. I feel a bit of imposter syndrome sitting in the same virtual room as you guys. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I appreciate that.

1:12:14Adam Pullman: But even those years, the bills were being paid by someone else. Yeah.

1:12:20Brett Petersen: That changes things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it puts a different type of pressure on as well, I guess. Yeah. There's that. Yeah. Yeah.

1:12:26Scott Jones: Brett, I want to ask you, um, so I only have a couple minutes left and then I have to go to the gym. Sure. Like three minutes at max. So two things I want to make sure we get out. Um, one is, uh, tell me more about what you're, you're hoping to accomplish with these, uh, like personal interviews. Um, cause they're, they're actually quite endearing interviews that you're, I don't know if you're grabbing somebody off the street or in the gym and then asking about themselves and you can see people light up and they're just kind of excited that somebody's asking. And so they're actually very endearing interviews with like asking people what they do for exercise.

1:13:04Scott Jones: So one, what is your goal with that and your why, I guess? And then two, we got to tell people where to kind of follow along. So tell me about the interviews first.

1:13:13Brett Petersen: Oh, thanks, Kirk. Yeah, I appreciate that. That's nice you've said that. But, yeah, I've had really good feedback on those interviews. So it is a mix, actually. Sometimes it's grabbing people on the street and sometimes it's most of the people so far it's been who I know. So I guess that ratio of grabbing strangers is going to increase over time because I can only ask people who I know so many times. And the why, really, it was a good way to get the spotlight off myself while I was enjoying the, while I've been enjoying adding content onto my Instagram profile. It's provided me with a bit of a creative outlet as well.

1:13:50Brett Petersen: So I've enjoyed the process of learning how to make and edit and create the videos. So I've really enjoyed that. So that's part of the why. Getting the spotlight off me, as I mentioned, and also I actually find it really interesting myself to hear people's stories around exercise. And it's a topic that I'm obsessed by. It's a topic that I love. and then it's an excuse to be able to have a chat to them about that. So that's really and I think I'd like to keep going with that. So I sort of now have a regular cadence in terms of what I do for my Instagram account. So I drop an interview every week.

1:14:27Brett Petersen: I do a weekly tips that I write on a Post-it note that's just something about, you know, just based on my own experience and I do that every, so I do the interview on Tuesday. I drop the weekly tips on a Friday. I do a monthly poll I also do a monthly question and then I do up a post to publish the results of each of those so people can see that and then I'll do a monthly post on my journey so what am I doing at the moment and then I'll just drop a bunch of stuff in my story, it's all exercise related so it's not about my, it's only about my personal life in so far as it relates to exercise um so yeah that seems to be a formula that that seems to be uh working well for me and should be sustainable uh into the future yeah i think some of the feedback we get on some of our episodes is uh you never know who you're going to learn something from

1:15:24Adam Pullman: like uh you'll interview like a big name who's high profile and it may be entertaining but we

1:15:30Scott Jones: may not be learning much from them and then you have an interview with somebody and a listener will say, I wasn't even going to click on that episode because I didn't know who it was, but I ended up really enjoying it and learning a lot from it. And I sense that from like the, like when you ask like random people or the people, you know, like, what do you do for exercise or what does this mean to you? Like, those are the opportunities there. Like we, we don't only learn from the superstars, right? Like the people that you don't, I think there's a lot to learn from this, like the guy next door.

1:15:57Scott Jones: Uh, so I feel like that's part of the mission too. Um, so I do have to run. So tell us where, what this Instagram account is, and then we'll wrap this thing up.

1:16:05Brett Petersen: Yeah, absolutely. So it's Everyday Warrior Brett. So that's all one word. So Everyday Warrior Brett. Yep, all one word.

1:16:14Scott Jones: Yep. It's easy enough. All right. That's it. Well, hopefully now you're not just, you know, hanging on by your fingernails for the rest of the day after this early conversation.

1:16:26Brett Petersen: No, I should be fine. I'll have an extra coffee and I should be absolutely fine. And I love your, I absolutely love your podcast, by the way. It is my companion when I'm training. So I listen to podcasts when I train, when I can, depending on what I'm doing. But certainly when I'm out running, I listen to your podcast. It's absolutely fantastic. You approach it from so many different perspectives and levels and that's one of the things I really enjoy about it. I love hearing from the elite performers and hearing about your own experiences and ways to improve. but also love hearing from the everyday type people like myself and Sue and Natalie as well.

1:17:08Brett Petersen: It's absolutely, you've got a brilliant mix going there.

1:17:10Scott Jones: So yeah, keep up the great work. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate that. Well, thanks Brett. Yeah. Next episode you'll have a very humbling 50k race recap coming your way folks. So we'll, we'll get to that. We'll get to that later.

1:17:22Brett Petersen: Looking forward to it.

1:17:31Thank you.