May 29, 2025 • 45 mins
This episode is with the legend himself Mr. Mark Zaglas . Business leader, Ultramarathon runner and outdoor photographer. Yes, it’s all possible.
I met Mark through our work in financial services and I have always admired Marks passion, enthusiasm and kindness which is a rare combination.
We talk all things about pushing yourself to the limit and exploring where your personal limits are. Spoiler alert. You are more capable than you think you are!
Mark and I discuss how he started running, breaking down big goals to small chunks and learning how to run injury free, yes there are some good habits to pick up here.
We quickly move onto the attraction of Ultramarathons, preparation details, food , discipline and Mark's technique for training when you don't really want to. It is gold!
Outside of Ultramarathons Mark is leading light in the world of financial services, especially wealth management and business building. He is also well known as a landscape photographer. Listen now to learn how he does it all and copes with the ups and downs of a very full life always lived with a smile!
You can find aout more about the remarkable Mark Zaglas at his business Encore Advisory Group and connect with him on LinkedIn and Instagram @markzaglas
I met Mark through our work in financial services and I have always admired Marks passion, enthusiasm and kindness which is a rare combination.
We talk all things about pushing yourself to the limit and exploring where your personal limits are. Spoiler alert. You are more capable than you think you are!
Mark and I discuss how he started running, breaking down big goals to small chunks and learning how to run injury free, yes there are some good habits to pick up here.
We quickly move onto the attraction of Ultramarathons, preparation details, food , discipline and Mark's technique for training when you don't really want to. It is gold!
Outside of Ultramarathons Mark is leading light in the world of financial services, especially wealth management and business building. He is also well known as a landscape photographer. Listen now to learn how he does it all and copes with the ups and downs of a very full life always lived with a smile!
You can find aout more about the remarkable Mark Zaglas at his business Encore Advisory Group and connect with him on LinkedIn and Instagram @markzaglas
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
The most successful people in the world all have one
thing in common. They've learned how to think big by
developing a perspective of possibility. And the good news is
we all have the potential to apply the same strategies
to achieve amazing things.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
In our work and lives.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Hi, I'm Rob Hartnett, and as your chief possibility officer
and host, I'm here to inspire you to become the
star of your world as a person of possibility through
learning how people from all areas of life are thinking
big and chasing down their dreams. I'm super excited you're
I'm going to bring you one of those people today.
(00:43):
I'm bringing you the amazing, the talented, the great photographer,
the marathon runner, the financial expert, and whiz Mark z Aglas.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Welcome Mark, Rob. I haven't heard an introduction like that
on myself. Man, my mum is going to be really
pleased to hear this.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
She said it, in mate, I've got to tell you.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
I did speak to her and she said, could you
do this for me? I'm a little embarrassed. Much better
coming from a third party, So I.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Said, no problem at all. He's the bank account number.
So she did it.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
So Missus Aglas. Thank you very much for the intro
for Mark. Now let's a bit of backgrounds. Back it up,
back up the halls a little bit here. You and
I met really through through business. We worked we're doing
some work together through the NAB Group at the time,
and you were a digestink, one of the mat and
I still believe you one of the most dynamic sales professionals,
and you also have a huge amount of care for
your customers and the businesses you work with. That's where
(01:34):
we came across, and then we found out we had
this sort of common interest in sport and high performance
and then then photography as well, which maybe we'll talk
about that a little bit later on. And I think
the catalyst for me has always been wanting to I
think when you and I ever met for coffee, I
always felt, Man, I should be recording this.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
There was always that's goal. And you and I caught up,
you'd agree with that.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Yeah, I wish too. Man, it's been a little while
since we have caught up that I really enjoyed and
got a lot of energy from our conversations. Your background
and your diversity and your ability to just really simplify things.
It inspired me to really think about how I did think,
so I couldn't agree more and I've been really looking
(02:16):
forward to this conversation with you.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Rob.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yeah, great, Marg, Well we've got the record button. No,
we just double check that, so it's all good.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Now.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
What really was the catalyst for me was you and I.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
You were a connected on Facebook and so I've been
following your extracurricular activities through that as well. But what
got me was the ultra marathons and you wrote this
really really I think from the heart piece about one
of the latest ones you did do, but there were
so many good elements to it, and I thought, wow,
I really want to share this with the audience because
there were some great stuff about mindset and about physiology
(02:48):
and the connection between both. So that's kind of where
I thought, you know what, we've got to do this
thing and we're going to make it happen. So one
of the things that you always talked to your clients about,
and I've always noticed this before you deep dive into
the financialist, you always want to know what's someone's why,
like why are they in business?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
What their purpose is?
Speaker 1 (03:07):
So I throw I throw that back at you what's
your wife for doing the ultra marathons? How did you
get into that?
Speaker 3 (03:15):
That is a really good question, Rob, and depending upon
the day, would probably give you different answers. It's been
a twenty year career now, but look, if I'm being
honest with you, what got me started twenty years ago
was I thought that running would just help me to
lose the extra weight I was carrying. Yeah, and so
(03:37):
there was a little bit of I guess, physicality and
maybe a bit of vanity and a bit of health
and a few different other things mixed up in it.
He absolutely coincided with I do enjoy adventures and challenges
and this concept of running through the wall in a marathon.
(03:58):
Back in two thousand and five, running long distance wasn't
really a thing, and so there wasn't really a lot
of people to talk to. But I think for me
it was definitely a case of God, if I ever
can do a marathon, I'm going to lose this weight
that I'm carrying, right, And then it was I wonder
what it's like to run through this wall that everybody
(04:19):
talks about at the thirty five k mark. So those
were the two prevailing thoughts at the time, right.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
It's really actually quite funny because I don't know if you've
heard of the act of Brian Cranston. He was in
it was in a number of huge movies, and you know,
he was Breaking Bad, which was his big, most most
mainstream one, but yeah, he was. He was a New
York marathon runner and he was just he used just
to go down and watch it and.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Go they're idiots. And then someone said, well, well, what
a I do here for?
Speaker 1 (04:47):
And he kind of got into the why and then realized, oh, actually,
my idiots actually okay.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
I could do it, and then he.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
And then he got into it lose a bit of
a way was this kind of original reason, but then
started to find out that they actually could do it
and kind of loved it as well.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
So sometimes we do things, and that's.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Why I always say that, you know, passion, passion comes
after activity, never the other way around. You've got to
do something to realize whether you're passionate about it. You
can't just go, oh, I reckon, I'm passion about marathon running.
I've been watching it for years. You've got to actually
do it. And I think that's that's really fascinating for you.
It came from a probably a different place than where
it is now, from the attraction to it. So you
got into it from a as you said, lose a
(05:24):
bit of way, give yourself more healthy.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
But then it's obviously transcended because.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
You've you've now got into going through that wall or
getting or going through longer and longer marathons.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Yeah, Rob, I really agree with you. Passion comes after,
you know, there's many things that we explore in life
where he's talking about something that I love doing and
have become reasonable at it. There's plenty of other things
I've tried, and you know, people try and you go.
Not for me, Yeah, but you know, I mean I
feel into running by accident. I was not a runner,
(05:58):
couldn't run. My child hood is littered with a lot
of trauma from little athletics. I couldn't jump, I couldn't throw,
and I couldn't run. And really, at the age of thirty,
I had believed that running is not for me and
the body wasn't meant to move. Fast forward to today,
we are born to run and it's the most exhilarating,
(06:23):
freedom giving thing that I certainly do. That you can
get up and you can go and move. Whether it's
a walking pace or a sprinting pace, it doesn't matter
if you run one hundred meters or one hundred miles.
You're a runner in my book. And I didn't really
fully understand that at the beginning, but fast forward to today.
I don't care about distance, time, place, anything like that.
(06:46):
If you move and you're moving one hundred meters or
one kilometer, if that's your pushing your boundary, then more
power to you. And so for me, it's just it
became about just pushing those boundaries and seeing how far
I could push myself mentally and spiritually and emotionally and
physically to find out where those boundaries are. And as
(07:09):
of last December, that was one hundred and forty kilometers
and I still don't know where they are.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Hey, I just to take you back because it was
a nice intersection to where I want to talk about
the ultras. But you made a really interesting point there
and I want to I'm going to give you a
bit of science behind this, because you're absolutely you're right
about a philosophy. When I was in the ad agency business,
I was working for Mojo, one of Australia's great creative houses,
and we're working with Nike and we're working on the
relaunch of Nike Women, the women's brand, and one of
(07:36):
the things we did, we had lots of lots of
focus groups, some good outcomes from that, but we had
this view that women would think, you know, athletic, look
good looking women, athletic doing lots of sports, doing marathons,
doing all that kind of stuff would be the big vision.
And what it actually boiled down to was none of that.
We were completely wrong. What it boiled down to was
(07:58):
women said, you know, just pulling on a pair of sneakers,
I feel like I'm on the way. It's like you said,
like they said, sometimes it might be a five k run,
sometimes it might be just going down to the milk
bar to the shopping but instead.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Taking my car, I walked.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
And so we actually ended up coming with a tagline
removed all that high performance, removed all the aspiration, and
actually the tagline that really worked was Nike Women, Begin
the Journey. So Begin the Journey became the entire tagline,
and it totally resonated. It just felt, you know, I
can be anyone, but as long as I put my
sneakers on and I keep them somewhere where it's really
(08:34):
easy for me to put them on.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
I'm beginning the journey towards health.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
And I love what you just said then, because you
didn't know that story, but you didn't know that white focus, butrip,
we did. You just nailed it right. It's not about
whether it's one hundred minutes to the minute's five K,
ten k, as you're talking.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
About now one hundred and forty.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
It's all power to someone who goes you know what,
I'm going to move and if I haven't moved before,
someone moving for the first time is glorious in my view.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
I love that, Robin. I love when you can bring
the science to the art. So I think both of
those are two sides at the same point and can
feel the other. That reminds me of you know, one
of things that I've learned. I've got the five minute
rule when it comes to my training. You know, there's
plenty of times, probably more often than not, where you
just don't feel like going out and doing that training session.
(09:19):
But if you can just put on the runners, if
you can just get out of the door and go
for five minutes, and if you still don't feel like it, fine, stop,
But more often than not, you find that you push
through whatever was holding you back and you then get
the session done. That then becomes self fulfilling and motivating.
(09:41):
And I think, to what you said before, passion comes
after movement, and I think motivation comes after that. And
so you know, I've learned that, you know, You've just
the intentionality is actually the muscle to work. And the
more you work that at, the stronger and the discipline
(10:01):
muscle you become. And that's only just something I've learned
in the last year or two live stenning to Andrew
Herboman just house how that the discipline is a muscle,
just like yeah, muscle.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
It's like it's like it's like accountabilding, you know, I
actually I see, I mean I do more cycling than
I do running for cycling. Cycling for me was a
bit like running, like any running. I was like, yeah,
I can do it, I'll move it. But and my passion, no,
not as much as I was about cycling, which I
didn't know it was. I really wasn't a cyclist. But
I've got into that. And you're exactly right. If you
just get your stuff when you get out your clipping
and you go and sudden your doorphins kicking, and you're right,
(10:34):
and I love but I love that five minute. That's
a really cool that's a really cool thing. So let's
talk about now this this ultra marathon. So you were
talking about this this run. It was one hundred and
forty k it's through the day through the night at
man Cosioska.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
What's it called. How did you get involved? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Okay, so it's called Ultratrail Cosiosco. And these these are
the bigger runs on the circle it these days they
do get bigger, which is a whole other story. So
this is called the Miler, which represents one hundred miles
for one hundred and sixty kilometers. When we started, the
(11:13):
race was one hundred and sixty kilometers. But as we'll
get into the story, you never know what's going to
come at you, and running in the mountains you will
get every sort of weather condition, and on this particular
day last year in December, we got everything except I
would say, you know again. So it was in the
(11:35):
snowy mountains. We started in ginderbayne at three am in
the morning and people say where did you go? And
I say, well, it was one hundred and forty kilometers,
so everywhere everywhere, Charlotte Pass, Parish, Threadbow, Corsiosco, Gothika. It
was a one hundred and forty kilometer I guess, running, walking,
(11:58):
eating tour of the snowy mountains.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Now, when did you tell me back one step?
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Though?
Speaker 2 (12:04):
When did you decide to do it?
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Like?
Speaker 1 (12:06):
What was your training lead up? So when you decided
to go? You know what I'm doing it?
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Like?
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Was it some friends he said to you, let's do it,
or you just decided you know, I'm going to do it,
or you've got a bunch of guys, guys and girls
around you.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
How did that all happen? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Look Rob, for that, I got to probably take you back.
My running journey or career has you know, started with
I just want to try five k, and then it
was ten k, Then it was a half marathon, then
it was a marathon. It was like, Oh that's cool.
I'm loving all of the discipline and the training, the
endorphins and the adventure and the challenge and the heartache
(12:39):
and all that I want more. So I went to triathlon,
Olympic distance up to iron Man distance and then it
was like, oh, what's next oh tail run okay, six
ok eighty K, one hundred k, and then it was
done one hundred k. But in the back of my mind,
I think for probably ten years plus, I had in
(13:00):
the back of my mind, I really want to see
what happens when you exhaust everything mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally.
And from the earliest days, I just remember these crazy
ultra runners talking about your world and life changes at
one hundred and twenty k okay, and I just went,
(13:24):
I've got to go experience that. And there's something quite
I want to say poetic, but it's something that is
quite primal about the fact that nobody can help you
do that. Yes, yeah, we'll get into a concept of
(13:44):
there's a team and a support, but only you can
put one foot in front of the other and get
yourself out to that distance. And you've only got what
you've got, Like there isn't if you're doing a bike ride,
there's a piece of machinery that's to break that could
know it's just you. It's just you. And I think
(14:06):
that has stayed with me for years and no matter
whether I was doing road running or triathlons or any
other sports, there was always something there was like, yeah,
but you really want to go and figure out what
this is?
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Like Yeah, So it's a real drive, internal drive, isn't
it a real passion to Yeah, really push and get
past that band. And I think also you hang out
with people who've been there before. I think that's a
really interesting point. Who've been So you're hang out with
people who've been where you want to go, You're hearing
their stories, and of course hearing that one one hundred
and twenty your life changes.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
It's pretty compelling, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Yeah, it is, And I think you've just hit on
a really important point there, I think right, which it
all walks alike, whether it's business life, athletic pursuit, or
what have you. If you surround yourself with people who
have been there, or have done it, or have certainly
you know they can, that inspires they offer advice. It's
that thing you know you can't be what you can't see, yes, right,
(15:05):
And it's kind of like your journey is going to
be your journey, right, And everybody will do it in
their own way and their own style and for their
own reasons. But yeah, I've always found I've always sought
out you know, great people like yourself to talk to
that that goes, oh, actually I could do that, and
I'll bring that into my business world. Or like I said,
(15:28):
I never ever describe myself as an athlete or a
runner or anything like that, despite being in at different
athletics all my life, and in fact, I've probably only
come to accept myself as a runner in the last
five years, despite all of the different runs that I've
been doing. So it's been a really interesting journey. You know,
(15:52):
it's as much inward as it is outward.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
So what was the training lead up to this one?
Speaker 1 (15:56):
What did you decide to do because you was long
and you were probably gonna be pretty tough, which I
think it was, Well, what's to be a flavor while
you doing on a weekly basis?
Speaker 2 (16:04):
From a training perspective.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Yeah, so most people would go, oh, my god, you
must be running forever. And I guess that's true in
one sense. I'd say twelve, ten to fifteen hours a
week running. What is it? Well, no one or understood
is probably then there is another five or six hours
of strength and recovery work. And I'd say there's the
(16:27):
fundamental difference between marathons anywhere up to forty two k
and going beyond that is actually strength work, running heels
or been in the gym and doing the recovery, particularly
at fifty two. I remember a few years ago constantly
(16:48):
getting injured and saying to my coach, I don't understand, Bruce,
I'm doing everything I've always done. I'm getting injured, and
he goes, yeah, Mark, you're nearly fifty and we need
to be doing some different things getting party strong. And
so my number one realization learning now from making a
bunch of mistakes is how important strength muscle is not
(17:14):
just to running, but just to long in life.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Mark, You've just on a great point.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
I'm literally after I finished this podcast with you going
into to see to one of the I guess it's
one of a doctor and a clinic to get a
I want to call it a PHP or a PHP PHP,
which is a blood plasma jection, because I've torn two
tendons and I have never torn tendons. And you know,
(17:40):
I'm at an age too where I've just I've just
got back in a competitive yat raising and it turned
out that I hadn't done that for about three years
or so, and I've over done it. And I'm really
really frustrated because i haven't been other start for six weeks.
But I've realized that I need to do more strength
training now than I have done before. And I've gone
this never happened before, and blah blah blah, like you
you know what what's going on? And I realized that
(18:02):
actually the strength training is as important as the actual
sailing and the skills drills that I'm doing, in fact
more so now because I can't do the skills drills
and it's actually cost me going to a World championship
now because I can't get there because I can't practice
enough by the time this is all cured. So I've
just completely agree with where you're coming from. As we
(18:22):
get older, our training, there's a shift, doesn't it. Therese
a training we can't train like where were thirty or forty?
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Look, yeah, Robert, I'm running better at fifty than I
was at forty, no question, purely because of that now.
You know, certainly my running technique and all of that
has definitely improved. But you know, and I think the
cross training element of my training, doing a lot of
cycling with the running takes a lot of the load
off and I often get the question how you need
(18:51):
and I go they are amazing, like never an issue.
But I think that that's a lot to do with
the fact that many years ago I retrained myself to
run proper. Were talked to swim, we talked to cycle,
but we're never ever trained to run. A great point,
and the introduction of the running shoe from the converse
(19:13):
through to the first running shoe. There's actually a great
study in the book Born to Run which correlates running
injuries with the introduction of the running shoe. That the
more cushioning just couraged a poor running technique to land
on the heat, and so that sort of heel striking
is what sends the shockwaves through the body. So there's
(19:34):
once you kind of put together technique and the strength training,
and then once you get past a certain sort of
fitness level with running, it's like being in this I
imagine what it'd be like for sailing when the wind
picks up and it catches the sail and you're just
away and it feels like it's effortless. When I'm really running, well,
(19:58):
it feels free and feel's effortless. But the only way
to do that is to put the work in in
the gym, in the kitchen eating well, yeah, doing recovery work,
the boring stuff. Alsos. One of the centers actually hear
professional athletes talk about whether you're at the Olympics or
(20:19):
you're a punter like me, yeah, just got to do
the basics and you've got to do them. Well, yeah
you do.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
And I like you you're thinking on the cross training
as well, because that's something I came up in a
really good book written on so I think it's around
kind of the idea is it's the book of its
cycling Past fifty.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
It's kind of like that, that's the concept.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
But the guy's a bike is a buck bike fit
out fits fitzpros and people like that to their bikes.
They get the bike fit right, which is incredibly important.
And one of the things he's talked about was the
importance of cross training. So stop riding a freaking bike
all the time, and he said most of the week
and worries he comes across spend more time on their
bike than the guys on the pro circuit, right, and
(21:00):
those guys in the pro secut ride their bike. It's
a lot, but he said they do a lot of
cross training, and he said that you've got to do
the cross training.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
So I started debate.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
That's how I got back in the sailing a bit
to sort of take it a little bit off the bike.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
And now I'm sort of doing both. And I really
like your ways.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Your needs a group because you've got a really good
running technique, but you're also right at you're riding, so
you're getting this nice balance of cross training.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
I think the body needs it. I think that's really smart.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
So let's get back. Let's get back to this one.
You see, you're all ready the game. One thing I
want to talk about. You talked about the physical training,
you talked about the food and the intake. Did you
do any mental training for this one?
Speaker 2 (21:33):
And if so, what was that like?
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Yeah, I mean yes, is the answer to that. And
I think that it's something that you can't build up overnight.
So I definitely think going through the gears over the
years had built the mental toughness. So ultra runners will
talk about the pain cave, and look, once you get beyond,
it's different for everyone, but let's call it the thirty
(21:59):
five forty lom inter mark. It becomes less physical and
more mental, right and there. There are I call them
Jedi mind tricks and tool kits that I built up
over the years of how do you get yourself through
the pain points that just pop up out of nowhere.
It could be a niggle, it could be the gut
has shut down, you're not taking on fuel, You've you've
(22:23):
you've become a bit delirious and you haven't fueled right,
so you're now dehydrated, or you've got lack of saults,
or you've rolled an angle, or you know, you're just
the body's going, what are we doing? You know? So
there's so much the mind goes into so many different places,
and you are constantly training that on your long runs.
Your long run every Saturday Sunday morning is less about training.
(22:48):
The physicality of the long run is you're oping out there,
training your nutrition and training your your mental toolkit. And
you've got to put put yourself in situations where you're
kind of almost digging new rooms in the pain cave
(23:09):
and learning new tips and tricks. So one of them,
I'll tell you this what I did. I make up
an event for my birthday every year, and last year,
as preparation for this event, I undertook the David Goggins
four by four by forty eight challenge, which is to
run four miles six and a half kilometers every four
(23:30):
hour for forty eight hours.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Wow, it's sentense.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
And basically, so you know, sleep and so you go
out there to run the six and a half kilometers
takes you about forty five to fifty minutes. Then you've
got another three hours plus to wait for the next time,
and you're doing that every four hours for forty eight hours.
I did that specifically to practice prepare for mentally not
(24:00):
sleeping for forty eight hours and having to back having
to restart every four hours, right right, That's that's a
mental trip one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
That's I mean, that's a really good, really good strategy
and prep I mean it's hard. I mean I'm just
thinking through that and that kind of and really how
you were testing your mind because you make this really
see point which I really really resonated with me. You
said that you know, the body can go a lot
further than the mind thinks it can. Along those lines,
like you said, the body's got way more capability than
(24:33):
the mind. You're fighting your mind most of the time,
not the body. And once you could overcome that it
can change things. That's really interesting, and I think that
that forty eight hours would definitely be a prep for
doing that.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
That was something that I learned throughout last year's training.
And here I am at fifty, having done this for
twenty years, and you're still learning, right, So I've really
had to drop my ego around this and go, she's
man running along. It really teaches you that you're always
you're always a beginner. And I learned in that four
(25:14):
four forty eight that we have more capacity than we
realized and that we're only limited by our beliefs. Yes,
yes there's physicality, Yes there is training, but that's all
within control. Then it's the mind, but it's not just
(25:36):
the mind.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Everyone.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
I get asked a lot, and fair enough too, Oh
my god, how do you do a marathon? How do
you do one hundred kilometers? And my answer is quite simple. Today.
That's not the hard part. That's the fun part, that's
the reward. The hard part is getting up every single
day at four am, doing the training every day. Ryan Harleshine, Yeah,
(26:03):
go to work, living your life, recovering, getting up the
next day doing that. Yes, I mean eighteen weeks that's that's.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
That's super hard. That is really yeah, I totally totally
can associate with you. You do it for a week, but
doing it week after week, you know, day after day,
week after week, that's the really intense part of the reward.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
I said.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
It was a great point of saying, expect the reward
is the event, isn't it really? I mean you've got
to the event. The reward is being able to do
the event. One thing I to catch up was taw
about a little bit. Another part in the in doing
the ultrap was when you said you were kind of
like going through obviously going through your mind.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
You're just about, you know, be I couldn't run.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
I was walking and you had someone come pass and go, hey,
would you like to run together? And you were like, shit, yeah,
tell me about that because I thought about it, and
then you went on I just wanted to go. I
thought that was a really important part of our partners
But also that person saying that to you in your reactions,
could you remember that can take it through it?
Speaker 3 (27:01):
Rob, That'd be something I'll never forget for my entire life.
And if I could just go back to get to that,
to just to put it into context. I've been going
the event now, had been going. I was probably the
probably at the eighty ninety kilometer mark, so coming up
(27:25):
to one hundred k it's sort of fifteen sixteen hours
into the event. What I didn't mention before around the
weather conditions. We got hit with a lightning storm which
pulled us off the course for two hours, and we
got back on and that's what shortened the race from
one sixty to one forty. So that's a whole different
(27:47):
dealing with adversity. But now we did the last fifteen
sixteen hours of the event in just thundering rain, and
so you know, fifteen hours in your stomach's not working.
I couldn't consume foods, so you're just losing the energy,
which is dropping your pace. You're going through mud, it's raining,
(28:07):
it's dark, it's cold, you're in the mountains. By the stage,
three hundred people had started, but only one hundred and
forty of us had remained. You're not seeing anyone. You're
in the mountains, you don't see anyone. It's dark, it's wet,
it's cold, and your mind you're fighting your mind not
to go to I wouldn't say dark places but certainly
(28:31):
unhelpful places. Right, No, you're hearing things and nobody's there,
and you're questioning life choices. Rather, I'm going, what are
you doing out here? Just stop at the checkpoint?
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Yeah, yeah, it would have meant so just like about
five pm.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
I mating too.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
So you mean you start at three even fifteen hour
instead of five pm six pm at night, which is
in the same day. It's kind of getting towards the
end of the end of day, typical end of day
as well, and your.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Mind is, well, I'm eighty ninety k, but I'm still
fifty sixty k from the finish, like you're nowhere, you're
no man's land. And so that was, I mean, looking back,
a fascinating, interesting experience, but I could tell you in
the moment it was hard. Man. I struggled. I struggled.
(29:19):
I mean physically you're struggling, but you used to. That
was a This was a depth that I had never ever,
ever had to had to dig into. Physically, I'd never
had to go there, but I'm okay with that. But
mentally and emotionally I hadn't had to go there. And
so now you're going, you're starting to question yourself. And
(29:41):
then this woman, Jasmine is her name, I reckon, she's
a guardian angel man. She just came up alongside of
me and she said, Hi, do you mind if we
run together but don't talk, right, And I just said,
God love you, yes, yes, yes, and I We never
(30:04):
intended to run the rest of the race together. In fact,
she was running way better than I was. And so
you know golden rue ruling trail running unless someone is injured, right,
you just run your own race. But long story short,
we left the next checkpoint just coincidentally at the same time,
(30:25):
and from there on we just ran together. And I
reckon that was for probably about eight or nine hours
over fifty and I reckon we maybe spoke in total
for twenty minutes over that entire time. But there is
only one other person on the face of the planet.
There's eight billion people, and Rob, it's only one other
(30:46):
person on the face of the planet that knows exactly
what I was going through at that time, and that's her,
and vice versa. We are witness and so you know,
you know, we won't ever I don't think I don't
think we'll ever speak to each other again. Who noticed it?
Speaker 1 (31:00):
It was so to much clarify. So she wasn't a
running part of yours or anything. You just kind of
basically connected. It's it's it's in crazy and I thought.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Wow, never didn't we We've never spoke before and we
haven't spoken since, but we shared some moments yeah, where
you know, like and a lot of it's unspoken, like
I know what you're going through. You knew what I
was going through, and it was kind of like if
you can do it, I can do it, and vice versa,
(31:30):
and it really just reinforced We've all heard the adage,
you know, if you you want to go fast, go alone,
if you want to go far, go together. Yeah, And
I mean, boy, did that become real?
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Well, you know that adage is completely crap when you
think about cycling, because you actually go fast and.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Further to get those That makes make any sense at
all to me.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
It might be from loan with entrepreneurs you think that
even and even that's not true because we all know teams.
You and I both know, so I'm not sure who
came up with that, But like at the spell of
ten thousand times, if I wanted to, I love that
the fact that you guys just kind of connected up
because it actually goes back to a really primal thing.
I was cheatting to a guy called Nick Boothman many
years ago who as a communications specialist and author it
(32:15):
used to be you love him, used to be a
photographer for models, you know, and he told me that,
you know, when we're born, we were born with three
things curiosity, right, enthusiasm, and empathy.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
And so you guys running like that was pure empathy, right.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
It's like because you didn't need to speak talk, but
there was empathy in terms of what you're going through,
which she was going through.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
No words needed to be said.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
But there might have been a slightly slaying up a pace,
there might have been acceleration, there might have been you know,
it's just that watching it, watching over each other. He's
just ad a guardian angel. I'm sure you were the
same for her as well. So it's fascinating. So I've
got to ask you, though the one hundred and twenty K,
when you got to the one hundred and twenty K,
did your life change?
Speaker 3 (33:00):
That's a really good question. I probably balk at the
you know, this was life changing. That was life changing.
So the short answer is I had a word of
experience that I had never ever had before throughout the
entire leading up to the event, but through the entire event.
(33:22):
And so but you know, yes is the answer, Like
once so I got, Once you got, I got beyond
one hundred and still hadn't had a marathon to go. Yes,
Like I said, I had never ever been stripped so bare.
You're soaked, it's cold, it's dark, you're in the middle
of night, it's two am in the morning, and your
(33:43):
body's going should be asleep. Yes, And you're hearing things
and you're kind of diving into your toolkit and you're going,
I've got nothing left and I can only imagine, and
this is I could only image, and then I don't
think I could. My life's not under threat. Yeah, you know, etcetera,
(34:05):
et cetera. Right, so there's a whole other world that.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Yeah, I think the point though, I think it didch.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
I mean, I asked that question, but I know it
changed you because of what you what you just told me.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
But also I think that it changes you because you
whether it was one hundred K or one hundred and
twenty K. It's a bit like when when we got
all got when the pandemic came and we all struggled
because we hadn't been there before.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
And for you, you hadn't been there.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
You said to me, I looked at the toolkit and
the Talkit was empty, right, the toolbot's it emptied by toolbots.
It was all used up. I think that's the life
changing part. We went, God, you know, I actually haven't
done this, but now I have. So now I've got
some stuff for the toolkit. And I think that's potentially
what they meant when they were talking about it is
life changing because you've emptied the toolkit.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
You didn't have anything.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
You used all that great stuff up to about one
hundred and one hundred and twenty k whatever happens to be.
I'm sure it varies for different people, but that's yeah.
I think that's really interesting. It definitely changed for you
because you just talked about that great story. You know
that meant when when you around was Jessica was in
the name that you read you ran with, Yes, yeah, Jazmin, Jasmin, Sorry,
when you ran with Jazzmin. I think that was that's
(35:16):
that's life changing.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
You know that one and you.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Said you I'll never forget it ever, because it was
a key point. So I think that's probably an interesting part.
But tell me you got so what did you end
up at? So it was it one hundred and forty
k's was the end?
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Yeah, it ended up in about one hundred and forty kilometers.
Like I said, I think that in many ways it
was well, it was a unique experience because normally these
runs are one hundred and sixty and it's well planned
and you know the course and all of that type
of thing. But you know, definitely having to deal with
the as we're approaching the fifty kilometer checkpoint, Yes, the
(35:50):
message comes through on the phone that the lightning storm
has come up onto Mount Kosiosco. You're going to be
held at the next checkpoint. Right at that point, you
don't know whether you're going to be there for five minutes,
five hours, or the whole thing's called off. And so
you just you are having to now deal with something
(36:11):
that you had not prepared for, and that in and
of itself was a really interesting moment of Okay, Mark,
but you have dealt with adversity. Slow things down, control
what you can control. Use this opportunity. Refuel a ten
to any niggles. I had some blisters, take care of it,
(36:36):
you know. I had my teammates, my crew there, and
then that was a really interesting thing, and they put
us back on and I remember texting my best friend
while I was while we were waiting, and she was saying, well,
how do you feel if you know it's one hundred
and fort it's not one sixty? And I said, really
interesting it without even really thinking, I said, that doesn't
(36:58):
worry me. I said, I'm going beyond one hundred. If
it's one hundred and one or one hundred, it's still
it's still out there, right. So whereas I would have
thought I would have been really upset by not doing
one hundred and sixty right right, And you've.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Got the past where you wanted to go, you know
your next bit matter it was one forty one sixty,
you were still going.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
You know.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
I think it reinforced to me. It probably brought to
my conscious something that's been in my subconscious. Rob. If
I do all I can do within my control, I
can live with that.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Yeah, yeah, that's a great point.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
I can live with that, which takes me. I had
crack at this event a year ago. I and my
first time ever in twenty years I didn't finish, and
I didn't finish based on it was I started the
one hundred mile one hundred and sixty k and ten
(37:55):
k in my quad's cramped. Oh okay, when I say cramped,
they locked locked, say locked. And I was at the
top of Eagle's nest and I had a three kilometer
descent and if anybody knows that your cod muscles is
what you need to descend, and so it took me
the most excruciating amount of pain to get down, and
(38:17):
I thought I could unlock them well sixty kilometers and
thirteen hours later they still had an unlocked and I
got timed out. Oh but and I thought that that
would just kill me. But again it was there's a
difference between having to stop and quitting. And I was,
in fact just as proud of continuing on then and
(38:41):
getting to sixty k as I was of crossing the
one forty in two different situations. And I think that
duelled me and prepared me. That adversity or that disappointment
of a year before that put more tools in the
talkkit that I never would have had for this one.
(39:03):
And someone said to me, you know, you don't always
get what you think you deserve, but you always get
what you need and I got what I needed then
it just took a year to pay back.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Yeah. Yeah, and it's a very good point.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
And yeah, you were timed out, not that you weren't
prepared to go on, but you've got to a point.
But again, you had more stuff for the talk kit,
you had more learning for the next one. I was
going to ask you what you've done one before? Are
you going to do another one?
Speaker 2 (39:28):
That's the question I've got for you.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Now I'm going to keep going. I mean, the sort
of yes is the answer to that. They'll take different forms.
The ultra running community rob has gone from being you know,
three people and a dog to a mainstream thing. And
so you know, one hundred miles or this one sixty
(39:50):
event used to be the longest, right, They now go
two hundred and three hundred miles. The days it's become
a thing now, Yeah, I'll just keep I want to
run a marathon in every decade of my life, and
I want to be able to run, whether that's one
hundred k or ten k or one k, every year
(40:10):
of my life.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
It's a really good point. I'm speaking to a marathon
run a friend of mine. She's listening to this, you'll
know who it is. And she's in New Zealand. She
does a lot of running and I said to her, hat,
you know, we were talking about the injury I've got
and she said, oh, yeah, yeah, I've had that.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
I've had that treatment three or four times. And she goes,
I really work. She should do it. She's actually the
catalyst for me doing it.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
And she said, you know what you've got to do
when you get when you want to keep doing stuff
as you get older, you just got to find you
just got to find doctors and medical people who get you,
because you'll come up once. She says she had one
doctor who said, what's your problem. She goes, I've got
a cramp in my hamstring and he said, well, he
Reckon's brought that on. She goes, it's probably the marathon running.
He goes, how about you stop it? And she said,
how about I get a new doctor. Because she said,
(40:51):
you've just got to go not give up. It's because
it is busy, Gord. It can be cured, and yeah,
you're going to have more of them, more niggles, but
you've just got to go with people who get you.
And she said she's now got a doctor and a
massive ADS therapist who the whole mission is keep her
going for as long as possible. Right, So she's like
their case study. You think we're good, check out, we've
(41:11):
got her going, right, And so she said, they're the
kind of people you need around you because there's so
many people will go, don't do that or stop that.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
If had hurt, stop it, you know.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
And I had a bunch of doctors tell me stop
cycling when I had a couple of issues. Well, if
it's curting you when you're cycle, used to stop cycling.
I'm going, Yeah, that's not kind of the answer I'm
looking for. Let's get a bit more proactive about this.
I'm sure you've had you've had similar things that it's
important to have the right people.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
I love that story, Rob, And yes, he's the answer
to that. I've got I've got a team. Yeah when
you actually I've never really I stopped and thought about
it the other day and it's like, yeah, coach strength,
coach massus osteo. Uh and you forget how much goes
into it, you know, you know, nutrition, all that type
(41:58):
of stuff, And yeah, I definitely I know that I
have limited myself and I probably still do many other aspects.
And this is one of those where when you hit
a wall, you go, okay, am I going through it,
around it, over it? What needs to change, what needs
to happen, you know, Rob, as we were talking just
(42:21):
before we started this, I'm in one of those right now,
you know. COVID in January and I just haven't recovered
and I'm in five years. I haven't been able to
train in the last three months, and it is it
is mucking around with men brutal.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
I'm telling you long, I call long, COVID all that
kind of you just grab the stagnation or this letharge
you called lethargic. Yes it's fairly words for it. But
I know what you're getting at, and it does. It
can take that long, too, which is which is scary.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
It's really hitting me mentally now right I don't have
I don't have the running to fall back, which is
part of one of the things that I do to
still sue meditatal to journal and running is my thing
right and so mentally I'm having to find I'm struggling
and having to find different ways to manage just the
life stress and the outlet through other ways than running.
(43:17):
But I know I'm now, I'm making appointments with doctors
and specialists and reading and research. I'm going I want
to and will find a way through this because I
got to get back to one of the things that
I love doing.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Yeah, and I think you're right, because well, the only
thing I can tell you is talking to GPS is
that long COVID is a thing and they're still finding
out stuff, and so you can't you literally I gave
up brooding on the internet about.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
This, I can tell you because it's not current enough.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
And what you're finding is the good GPS are actually
going to conferences and they're literally coming back and they're
finding newer things.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
So you've just got to go back to what are
you know now.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Because what they knew a year ago is very different
than what they know now, eavement, it's very different.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
So Yeah, I know you won't give up.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
I know you'll pursue and get this back because you've
got to get back to where you were and you'll
get there. You're you're a fit guy, and you are
you're super strong, so you'll you'll bounce it for sure. See,
let's it's a bit out of town. What's what are
some social media think? What's your Instagram?
Speaker 2 (44:16):
People?
Speaker 1 (44:16):
Some stuff that people can find out a bit more
about Mark Zaglas.
Speaker 3 (44:20):
Yeah, I think that the two Instagram Mark Zaglas, that
O G L A S. You'll find my running and
photography on that.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Great photography, everybody, great photography. This does a great job.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
And yes I do stop along the way and take
photos when I run, but it's on the iPhone not
the big camera. Yeah. And yeah, Mark Agles on LinkedIn
for my for my business.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
Yeah, Mark, thanks so much for chatting today. It's been
really good and very insightful. And thanks for digging deep
as well. You went went some great places and it
took us on a journey. I really do appreciate it,
so thanks and all the best for your recovery.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
Likewise, Rob, I appreciate the opportunity man, and your questions
took me to some of those places, so I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
Thanks mate.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
I hope you enjoyed this episode of the It's All
Possible Podcast. You can contact me at Rob at Robhartner
dot com or my website Robharder dot com, or on LinkedIn.
Remember to check out the previous seasons and episodes of
the podcast, and the show notes for more details on
this episode's guest.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
For more inspiration, remember to check out the All.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Possibility Players on Spotify, which contains a collection upbeat, positive
music I use for inspiration in my live performances. Until
next time, Live with Passion at a perspective of Possibility.
The most successful people in the world all have one
thing in common. They've learned how to think big by
developing a perspective of possibility. And the good news is
we all have the potential to apply the same strategies
to achieve amazing things.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
In our work and lives.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Hi, I'm Rob Hartnett, and as your chief possibility officer
and host, I'm here to inspire you to become the
star of your world as a person of possibility through
learning how people from all areas of life are thinking
big and chasing down their dreams. I'm super excited you're
I'm going to bring you one of those people today.
(00:43):
I'm bringing you the amazing, the talented, the great photographer,
the marathon runner, the financial expert, and whiz Mark z Aglas.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Welcome Mark, Rob. I haven't heard an introduction like that
on myself. Man, my mum is going to be really
pleased to hear this.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
She said it, in mate, I've got to tell you.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
I did speak to her and she said, could you
do this for me? I'm a little embarrassed. Much better
coming from a third party, So I.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Said, no problem at all. He's the bank account number.
So she did it.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
So Missus Aglas. Thank you very much for the intro
for Mark. Now let's a bit of backgrounds. Back it up,
back up the halls a little bit here. You and
I met really through through business. We worked we're doing
some work together through the NAB Group at the time,
and you were a digestink, one of the mat and
I still believe you one of the most dynamic sales professionals,
and you also have a huge amount of care for
your customers and the businesses you work with. That's where
(01:34):
we came across, and then we found out we had
this sort of common interest in sport and high performance
and then then photography as well, which maybe we'll talk
about that a little bit later on. And I think
the catalyst for me has always been wanting to I
think when you and I ever met for coffee, I
always felt, Man, I should be recording this.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
There was always that's goal. And you and I caught up,
you'd agree with that.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Yeah, I wish too. Man, it's been a little while
since we have caught up that I really enjoyed and
got a lot of energy from our conversations. Your background
and your diversity and your ability to just really simplify things.
It inspired me to really think about how I did think,
so I couldn't agree more and I've been really looking
(02:16):
forward to this conversation with you.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Rob.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yeah, great, Marg, Well we've got the record button. No,
we just double check that, so it's all good.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Now.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
What really was the catalyst for me was you and I.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
You were a connected on Facebook and so I've been
following your extracurricular activities through that as well. But what
got me was the ultra marathons and you wrote this
really really I think from the heart piece about one
of the latest ones you did do, but there were
so many good elements to it, and I thought, wow,
I really want to share this with the audience because
there were some great stuff about mindset and about physiology
(02:48):
and the connection between both. So that's kind of where
I thought, you know what, we've got to do this
thing and we're going to make it happen. So one
of the things that you always talked to your clients about,
and I've always noticed this before you deep dive into
the financialist, you always want to know what's someone's why,
like why are they in business?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
What their purpose is?
Speaker 1 (03:07):
So I throw I throw that back at you what's
your wife for doing the ultra marathons? How did you
get into that?
Speaker 3 (03:15):
That is a really good question, Rob, and depending upon
the day, would probably give you different answers. It's been
a twenty year career now, but look, if I'm being
honest with you, what got me started twenty years ago
was I thought that running would just help me to
lose the extra weight I was carrying. Yeah, and so
(03:37):
there was a little bit of I guess, physicality and
maybe a bit of vanity and a bit of health
and a few different other things mixed up in it.
He absolutely coincided with I do enjoy adventures and challenges
and this concept of running through the wall in a marathon.
(03:58):
Back in two thousand and five, running long distance wasn't
really a thing, and so there wasn't really a lot
of people to talk to. But I think for me
it was definitely a case of God, if I ever
can do a marathon, I'm going to lose this weight
that I'm carrying, right, And then it was I wonder
what it's like to run through this wall that everybody
(04:19):
talks about at the thirty five k mark. So those
were the two prevailing thoughts at the time, right.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
It's really actually quite funny because I don't know if you've
heard of the act of Brian Cranston. He was in
it was in a number of huge movies, and you know,
he was Breaking Bad, which was his big, most most
mainstream one, but yeah, he was. He was a New
York marathon runner and he was just he used just
to go down and watch it and.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Go they're idiots. And then someone said, well, well, what
a I do here for?
Speaker 1 (04:47):
And he kind of got into the why and then realized, oh, actually,
my idiots actually okay.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
I could do it, and then he.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
And then he got into it lose a bit of
a way was this kind of original reason, but then
started to find out that they actually could do it
and kind of loved it as well.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
So sometimes we do things, and that's.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Why I always say that, you know, passion, passion comes
after activity, never the other way around. You've got to
do something to realize whether you're passionate about it. You
can't just go, oh, I reckon, I'm passion about marathon running.
I've been watching it for years. You've got to actually
do it. And I think that's that's really fascinating for you.
It came from a probably a different place than where
it is now, from the attraction to it. So you
got into it from a as you said, lose a
(05:24):
bit of way, give yourself more healthy.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
But then it's obviously transcended because.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
You've you've now got into going through that wall or
getting or going through longer and longer marathons.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Yeah, Rob, I really agree with you. Passion comes after,
you know, there's many things that we explore in life
where he's talking about something that I love doing and
have become reasonable at it. There's plenty of other things
I've tried, and you know, people try and you go.
Not for me, Yeah, but you know, I mean I
feel into running by accident. I was not a runner,
(05:58):
couldn't run. My child hood is littered with a lot
of trauma from little athletics. I couldn't jump, I couldn't throw,
and I couldn't run. And really, at the age of thirty,
I had believed that running is not for me and
the body wasn't meant to move. Fast forward to today,
we are born to run and it's the most exhilarating,
(06:23):
freedom giving thing that I certainly do. That you can
get up and you can go and move. Whether it's
a walking pace or a sprinting pace, it doesn't matter
if you run one hundred meters or one hundred miles.
You're a runner in my book. And I didn't really
fully understand that at the beginning, but fast forward to today.
I don't care about distance, time, place, anything like that.
(06:46):
If you move and you're moving one hundred meters or
one kilometer, if that's your pushing your boundary, then more
power to you. And so for me, it's just it
became about just pushing those boundaries and seeing how far
I could push myself mentally and spiritually and emotionally and
physically to find out where those boundaries are. And as
(07:09):
of last December, that was one hundred and forty kilometers
and I still don't know where they are.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Hey, I just to take you back because it was
a nice intersection to where I want to talk about
the ultras. But you made a really interesting point there
and I want to I'm going to give you a
bit of science behind this, because you're absolutely you're right
about a philosophy. When I was in the ad agency business,
I was working for Mojo, one of Australia's great creative houses,
and we're working with Nike and we're working on the
relaunch of Nike Women, the women's brand, and one of
(07:36):
the things we did, we had lots of lots of
focus groups, some good outcomes from that, but we had
this view that women would think, you know, athletic, look
good looking women, athletic doing lots of sports, doing marathons,
doing all that kind of stuff would be the big vision.
And what it actually boiled down to was none of that.
We were completely wrong. What it boiled down to was
(07:58):
women said, you know, just pulling on a pair of sneakers,
I feel like I'm on the way. It's like you said,
like they said, sometimes it might be a five k run,
sometimes it might be just going down to the milk
bar to the shopping but instead.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Taking my car, I walked.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
And so we actually ended up coming with a tagline
removed all that high performance, removed all the aspiration, and
actually the tagline that really worked was Nike Women, Begin
the Journey. So Begin the Journey became the entire tagline,
and it totally resonated. It just felt, you know, I
can be anyone, but as long as I put my
sneakers on and I keep them somewhere where it's really
(08:34):
easy for me to put them on.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
I'm beginning the journey towards health.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
And I love what you just said then, because you
didn't know that story, but you didn't know that white focus, butrip,
we did. You just nailed it right. It's not about
whether it's one hundred minutes to the minute's five K,
ten k, as you're talking.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
About now one hundred and forty.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
It's all power to someone who goes you know what,
I'm going to move and if I haven't moved before,
someone moving for the first time is glorious in my view.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
I love that, Robin. I love when you can bring
the science to the art. So I think both of
those are two sides at the same point and can
feel the other. That reminds me of you know, one
of things that I've learned. I've got the five minute
rule when it comes to my training. You know, there's
plenty of times, probably more often than not, where you
just don't feel like going out and doing that training session.
(09:19):
But if you can just put on the runners, if
you can just get out of the door and go
for five minutes, and if you still don't feel like it, fine, stop,
But more often than not, you find that you push
through whatever was holding you back and you then get
the session done. That then becomes self fulfilling and motivating.
(09:41):
And I think, to what you said before, passion comes
after movement, and I think motivation comes after that. And
so you know, I've learned that, you know, You've just
the intentionality is actually the muscle to work. And the
more you work that at, the stronger and the discipline
(10:01):
muscle you become. And that's only just something I've learned
in the last year or two live stenning to Andrew
Herboman just house how that the discipline is a muscle,
just like yeah, muscle.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
It's like it's like it's like accountabilding, you know, I
actually I see, I mean I do more cycling than
I do running for cycling. Cycling for me was a
bit like running, like any running. I was like, yeah,
I can do it, I'll move it. But and my passion, no,
not as much as I was about cycling, which I
didn't know it was. I really wasn't a cyclist. But
I've got into that. And you're exactly right. If you
just get your stuff when you get out your clipping
and you go and sudden your doorphins kicking, and you're right,
(10:34):
and I love but I love that five minute. That's
a really cool that's a really cool thing. So let's
talk about now this this ultra marathon. So you were
talking about this this run. It was one hundred and
forty k it's through the day through the night at
man Cosioska.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
What's it called. How did you get involved? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Okay, so it's called Ultratrail Cosiosco. And these these are
the bigger runs on the circle it these days they
do get bigger, which is a whole other story. So
this is called the Miler, which represents one hundred miles
for one hundred and sixty kilometers. When we started, the
(11:13):
race was one hundred and sixty kilometers. But as we'll
get into the story, you never know what's going to
come at you, and running in the mountains you will
get every sort of weather condition, and on this particular
day last year in December, we got everything except I
would say, you know again. So it was in the
(11:35):
snowy mountains. We started in ginderbayne at three am in
the morning and people say where did you go? And
I say, well, it was one hundred and forty kilometers,
so everywhere everywhere, Charlotte Pass, Parish, Threadbow, Corsiosco, Gothika. It
was a one hundred and forty kilometer I guess, running, walking,
(11:58):
eating tour of the snowy mountains.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Now, when did you tell me back one step?
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Though?
Speaker 2 (12:04):
When did you decide to do it?
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Like?
Speaker 1 (12:06):
What was your training lead up? So when you decided
to go? You know what I'm doing it?
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Like?
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Was it some friends he said to you, let's do it,
or you just decided you know, I'm going to do it,
or you've got a bunch of guys, guys and girls
around you.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
How did that all happen? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Look Rob, for that, I got to probably take you back.
My running journey or career has you know, started with
I just want to try five k, and then it
was ten k, Then it was a half marathon, then
it was a marathon. It was like, Oh that's cool.
I'm loving all of the discipline and the training, the
endorphins and the adventure and the challenge and the heartache
(12:39):
and all that I want more. So I went to triathlon,
Olympic distance up to iron Man distance and then it
was like, oh, what's next oh tail run okay, six
ok eighty K, one hundred k, and then it was
done one hundred k. But in the back of my mind,
I think for probably ten years plus, I had in
(13:00):
the back of my mind, I really want to see
what happens when you exhaust everything mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally.
And from the earliest days, I just remember these crazy
ultra runners talking about your world and life changes at
one hundred and twenty k okay, and I just went,
(13:24):
I've got to go experience that. And there's something quite
I want to say poetic, but it's something that is
quite primal about the fact that nobody can help you
do that. Yes, yeah, we'll get into a concept of
(13:44):
there's a team and a support, but only you can
put one foot in front of the other and get
yourself out to that distance. And you've only got what
you've got, Like there isn't if you're doing a bike ride,
there's a piece of machinery that's to break that could
know it's just you. It's just you. And I think
(14:06):
that has stayed with me for years and no matter
whether I was doing road running or triathlons or any
other sports, there was always something there was like, yeah,
but you really want to go and figure out what
this is?
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Like Yeah, So it's a real drive, internal drive, isn't
it a real passion to Yeah, really push and get
past that band. And I think also you hang out
with people who've been there before. I think that's a
really interesting point. Who've been So you're hang out with
people who've been where you want to go, You're hearing
their stories, and of course hearing that one one hundred
and twenty your life changes.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
It's pretty compelling, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Yeah, it is, And I think you've just hit on
a really important point there, I think right, which it
all walks alike, whether it's business life, athletic pursuit, or
what have you. If you surround yourself with people who
have been there, or have done it, or have certainly
you know they can, that inspires they offer advice. It's
that thing you know you can't be what you can't see, yes, right,
(15:05):
And it's kind of like your journey is going to
be your journey, right, And everybody will do it in
their own way and their own style and for their
own reasons. But yeah, I've always found I've always sought
out you know, great people like yourself to talk to
that that goes, oh, actually I could do that, and
I'll bring that into my business world. Or like I said,
(15:28):
I never ever describe myself as an athlete or a
runner or anything like that, despite being in at different
athletics all my life, and in fact, I've probably only
come to accept myself as a runner in the last
five years, despite all of the different runs that I've
been doing. So it's been a really interesting journey. You know,
(15:52):
it's as much inward as it is outward.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
So what was the training lead up to this one?
Speaker 1 (15:56):
What did you decide to do because you was long
and you were probably gonna be pretty tough, which I
think it was, Well, what's to be a flavor while
you doing on a weekly basis?
Speaker 2 (16:04):
From a training perspective.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Yeah, so most people would go, oh, my god, you
must be running forever. And I guess that's true in
one sense. I'd say twelve, ten to fifteen hours a
week running. What is it? Well, no one or understood
is probably then there is another five or six hours
of strength and recovery work. And I'd say there's the
(16:27):
fundamental difference between marathons anywhere up to forty two k
and going beyond that is actually strength work, running heels
or been in the gym and doing the recovery, particularly
at fifty two. I remember a few years ago constantly
(16:48):
getting injured and saying to my coach, I don't understand, Bruce,
I'm doing everything I've always done. I'm getting injured, and
he goes, yeah, Mark, you're nearly fifty and we need
to be doing some different things getting party strong. And
so my number one realization learning now from making a
bunch of mistakes is how important strength muscle is not
(17:14):
just to running, but just to long in life.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Mark, You've just on a great point.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
I'm literally after I finished this podcast with you going
into to see to one of the I guess it's
one of a doctor and a clinic to get a
I want to call it a PHP or a PHP PHP,
which is a blood plasma jection, because I've torn two
tendons and I have never torn tendons. And you know,
(17:40):
I'm at an age too where I've just I've just
got back in a competitive yat raising and it turned
out that I hadn't done that for about three years
or so, and I've over done it. And I'm really
really frustrated because i haven't been other start for six weeks.
But I've realized that I need to do more strength
training now than I have done before. And I've gone
this never happened before, and blah blah blah, like you
you know what what's going on? And I realized that
(18:02):
actually the strength training is as important as the actual
sailing and the skills drills that I'm doing, in fact
more so now because I can't do the skills drills
and it's actually cost me going to a World championship
now because I can't get there because I can't practice
enough by the time this is all cured. So I've
just completely agree with where you're coming from. As we
(18:22):
get older, our training, there's a shift, doesn't it. Therese
a training we can't train like where were thirty or forty?
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Look, yeah, Robert, I'm running better at fifty than I
was at forty, no question, purely because of that now.
You know, certainly my running technique and all of that
has definitely improved. But you know, and I think the
cross training element of my training, doing a lot of
cycling with the running takes a lot of the load
off and I often get the question how you need
(18:51):
and I go they are amazing, like never an issue.
But I think that that's a lot to do with
the fact that many years ago I retrained myself to
run proper. Were talked to swim, we talked to cycle,
but we're never ever trained to run. A great point,
and the introduction of the running shoe from the converse
(19:13):
through to the first running shoe. There's actually a great
study in the book Born to Run which correlates running
injuries with the introduction of the running shoe. That the
more cushioning just couraged a poor running technique to land
on the heat, and so that sort of heel striking
is what sends the shockwaves through the body. So there's
(19:34):
once you kind of put together technique and the strength training,
and then once you get past a certain sort of
fitness level with running, it's like being in this I
imagine what it'd be like for sailing when the wind
picks up and it catches the sail and you're just
away and it feels like it's effortless. When I'm really running, well,
(19:58):
it feels free and feel's effortless. But the only way
to do that is to put the work in in
the gym, in the kitchen eating well, yeah, doing recovery work,
the boring stuff. Alsos. One of the centers actually hear
professional athletes talk about whether you're at the Olympics or
(20:19):
you're a punter like me, yeah, just got to do
the basics and you've got to do them. Well, yeah
you do.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
And I like you you're thinking on the cross training
as well, because that's something I came up in a
really good book written on so I think it's around
kind of the idea is it's the book of its
cycling Past fifty.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
It's kind of like that, that's the concept.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
But the guy's a bike is a buck bike fit
out fits fitzpros and people like that to their bikes.
They get the bike fit right, which is incredibly important.
And one of the things he's talked about was the
importance of cross training. So stop riding a freaking bike
all the time, and he said most of the week
and worries he comes across spend more time on their
bike than the guys on the pro circuit, right, and
(21:00):
those guys in the pro secut ride their bike. It's
a lot, but he said they do a lot of
cross training, and he said that you've got to do
the cross training.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
So I started debate.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
That's how I got back in the sailing a bit
to sort of take it a little bit off the bike.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
And now I'm sort of doing both. And I really
like your ways.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Your needs a group because you've got a really good
running technique, but you're also right at you're riding, so
you're getting this nice balance of cross training.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
I think the body needs it. I think that's really smart.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
So let's get back. Let's get back to this one.
You see, you're all ready the game. One thing I
want to talk about. You talked about the physical training,
you talked about the food and the intake. Did you
do any mental training for this one?
Speaker 2 (21:33):
And if so, what was that like?
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Yeah, I mean yes, is the answer to that. And
I think that it's something that you can't build up overnight.
So I definitely think going through the gears over the
years had built the mental toughness. So ultra runners will
talk about the pain cave, and look, once you get beyond,
it's different for everyone, but let's call it the thirty
(21:59):
five forty lom inter mark. It becomes less physical and
more mental, right and there. There are I call them
Jedi mind tricks and tool kits that I built up
over the years of how do you get yourself through
the pain points that just pop up out of nowhere.
It could be a niggle, it could be the gut
has shut down, you're not taking on fuel, You've you've
(22:23):
you've become a bit delirious and you haven't fueled right,
so you're now dehydrated, or you've got lack of saults,
or you've rolled an angle, or you know, you're just
the body's going, what are we doing? You know? So
there's so much the mind goes into so many different places,
and you are constantly training that on your long runs.
Your long run every Saturday Sunday morning is less about training.
(22:48):
The physicality of the long run is you're oping out there,
training your nutrition and training your your mental toolkit. And
you've got to put put yourself in situations where you're
kind of almost digging new rooms in the pain cave
(23:09):
and learning new tips and tricks. So one of them,
I'll tell you this what I did. I make up
an event for my birthday every year, and last year,
as preparation for this event, I undertook the David Goggins
four by four by forty eight challenge, which is to
run four miles six and a half kilometers every four
(23:30):
hour for forty eight hours.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Wow, it's sentense.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
And basically, so you know, sleep and so you go
out there to run the six and a half kilometers
takes you about forty five to fifty minutes. Then you've
got another three hours plus to wait for the next time,
and you're doing that every four hours for forty eight hours.
I did that specifically to practice prepare for mentally not
(24:00):
sleeping for forty eight hours and having to back having
to restart every four hours, right right, That's that's a
mental trip one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
That's I mean, that's a really good, really good strategy
and prep I mean it's hard. I mean I'm just
thinking through that and that kind of and really how
you were testing your mind because you make this really
see point which I really really resonated with me. You
said that you know, the body can go a lot
further than the mind thinks it can. Along those lines,
like you said, the body's got way more capability than
(24:33):
the mind. You're fighting your mind most of the time,
not the body. And once you could overcome that it
can change things. That's really interesting, and I think that
that forty eight hours would definitely be a prep for
doing that.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
That was something that I learned throughout last year's training.
And here I am at fifty, having done this for
twenty years, and you're still learning, right, So I've really
had to drop my ego around this and go, she's
man running along. It really teaches you that you're always
you're always a beginner. And I learned in that four
(25:14):
four forty eight that we have more capacity than we
realized and that we're only limited by our beliefs. Yes,
yes there's physicality, Yes there is training, but that's all
within control. Then it's the mind, but it's not just
(25:36):
the mind.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Everyone.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
I get asked a lot, and fair enough too, Oh
my god, how do you do a marathon? How do
you do one hundred kilometers? And my answer is quite simple. Today.
That's not the hard part. That's the fun part, that's
the reward. The hard part is getting up every single
day at four am, doing the training every day. Ryan Harleshine, Yeah,
(26:03):
go to work, living your life, recovering, getting up the
next day doing that. Yes, I mean eighteen weeks that's that's.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
That's super hard. That is really yeah, I totally totally
can associate with you. You do it for a week, but
doing it week after week, you know, day after day,
week after week, that's the really intense part of the reward.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
I said.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
It was a great point of saying, expect the reward
is the event, isn't it really? I mean you've got
to the event. The reward is being able to do
the event. One thing I to catch up was taw
about a little bit. Another part in the in doing
the ultrap was when you said you were kind of
like going through obviously going through your mind.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
You're just about, you know, be I couldn't run.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
I was walking and you had someone come pass and go, hey,
would you like to run together? And you were like, shit, yeah,
tell me about that because I thought about it, and
then you went on I just wanted to go. I
thought that was a really important part of our partners
But also that person saying that to you in your reactions,
could you remember that can take it through it?
Speaker 3 (27:01):
Rob, That'd be something I'll never forget for my entire life.
And if I could just go back to get to that,
to just to put it into context. I've been going
the event now, had been going. I was probably the
probably at the eighty ninety kilometer mark, so coming up
(27:25):
to one hundred k it's sort of fifteen sixteen hours
into the event. What I didn't mention before around the
weather conditions. We got hit with a lightning storm which
pulled us off the course for two hours, and we
got back on and that's what shortened the race from
one sixty to one forty. So that's a whole different
(27:47):
dealing with adversity. But now we did the last fifteen
sixteen hours of the event in just thundering rain, and
so you know, fifteen hours in your stomach's not working.
I couldn't consume foods, so you're just losing the energy,
which is dropping your pace. You're going through mud, it's raining,
(28:07):
it's dark, it's cold, you're in the mountains. By the stage,
three hundred people had started, but only one hundred and
forty of us had remained. You're not seeing anyone. You're
in the mountains, you don't see anyone. It's dark, it's wet,
it's cold, and your mind you're fighting your mind not
to go to I wouldn't say dark places but certainly
(28:31):
unhelpful places. Right, No, you're hearing things and nobody's there,
and you're questioning life choices. Rather, I'm going, what are
you doing out here? Just stop at the checkpoint?
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Yeah, yeah, it would have meant so just like about
five pm.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
I mating too.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
So you mean you start at three even fifteen hour
instead of five pm six pm at night, which is
in the same day. It's kind of getting towards the
end of the end of day, typical end of day
as well, and your.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Mind is, well, I'm eighty ninety k, but I'm still
fifty sixty k from the finish, like you're nowhere, you're
no man's land. And so that was, I mean, looking back,
a fascinating, interesting experience, but I could tell you in
the moment it was hard. Man. I struggled. I struggled.
(29:19):
I mean physically you're struggling, but you used to. That
was a This was a depth that I had never ever,
ever had to had to dig into. Physically, I'd never
had to go there, but I'm okay with that. But
mentally and emotionally I hadn't had to go there. And
so now you're going, you're starting to question yourself. And
(29:41):
then this woman, Jasmine is her name, I reckon, she's
a guardian angel man. She just came up alongside of
me and she said, Hi, do you mind if we
run together but don't talk, right, And I just said,
God love you, yes, yes, yes, and I We never
(30:04):
intended to run the rest of the race together. In fact,
she was running way better than I was. And so
you know golden rue ruling trail running unless someone is injured, right,
you just run your own race. But long story short,
we left the next checkpoint just coincidentally at the same time,
(30:25):
and from there on we just ran together. And I
reckon that was for probably about eight or nine hours
over fifty and I reckon we maybe spoke in total
for twenty minutes over that entire time. But there is
only one other person on the face of the planet.
There's eight billion people, and Rob, it's only one other
(30:46):
person on the face of the planet that knows exactly
what I was going through at that time, and that's her,
and vice versa. We are witness and so you know,
you know, we won't ever I don't think I don't
think we'll ever speak to each other again. Who noticed it?
Speaker 1 (31:00):
It was so to much clarify. So she wasn't a
running part of yours or anything. You just kind of
basically connected. It's it's it's in crazy and I thought.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Wow, never didn't we We've never spoke before and we
haven't spoken since, but we shared some moments yeah, where
you know, like and a lot of it's unspoken, like
I know what you're going through. You knew what I
was going through, and it was kind of like if
you can do it, I can do it, and vice versa,
(31:30):
and it really just reinforced We've all heard the adage,
you know, if you you want to go fast, go alone,
if you want to go far, go together. Yeah, And
I mean, boy, did that become real?
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Well, you know that adage is completely crap when you
think about cycling, because you actually go fast and.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Further to get those That makes make any sense at
all to me.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
It might be from loan with entrepreneurs you think that
even and even that's not true because we all know teams.
You and I both know, so I'm not sure who
came up with that, But like at the spell of
ten thousand times, if I wanted to, I love that
the fact that you guys just kind of connected up
because it actually goes back to a really primal thing.
I was cheatting to a guy called Nick Boothman many
years ago who as a communications specialist and author it
(32:15):
used to be you love him, used to be a
photographer for models, you know, and he told me that,
you know, when we're born, we were born with three
things curiosity, right, enthusiasm, and empathy.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
And so you guys running like that was pure empathy, right.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
It's like because you didn't need to speak talk, but
there was empathy in terms of what you're going through,
which she was going through.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
No words needed to be said.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
But there might have been a slightly slaying up a pace,
there might have been acceleration, there might have been you know,
it's just that watching it, watching over each other. He's
just ad a guardian angel. I'm sure you were the
same for her as well. So it's fascinating. So I've
got to ask you, though the one hundred and twenty K,
when you got to the one hundred and twenty K,
did your life change?
Speaker 3 (33:00):
That's a really good question. I probably balk at the
you know, this was life changing. That was life changing.
So the short answer is I had a word of
experience that I had never ever had before throughout the
entire leading up to the event, but through the entire event.
(33:22):
And so but you know, yes is the answer, Like
once so I got, Once you got, I got beyond
one hundred and still hadn't had a marathon to go. Yes,
Like I said, I had never ever been stripped so bare.
You're soaked, it's cold, it's dark, you're in the middle
of night, it's two am in the morning, and your
(33:43):
body's going should be asleep. Yes, And you're hearing things
and you're kind of diving into your toolkit and you're going,
I've got nothing left and I can only imagine, and
this is I could only image, and then I don't
think I could. My life's not under threat. Yeah, you know, etcetera,
(34:05):
et cetera. Right, so there's a whole other world that.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Yeah, I think the point though, I think it didch.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
I mean, I asked that question, but I know it
changed you because of what you what you just told me.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
But also I think that it changes you because you
whether it was one hundred K or one hundred and
twenty K. It's a bit like when when we got
all got when the pandemic came and we all struggled
because we hadn't been there before.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
And for you, you hadn't been there.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
You said to me, I looked at the toolkit and
the Talkit was empty, right, the toolbot's it emptied by toolbots.
It was all used up. I think that's the life
changing part. We went, God, you know, I actually haven't
done this, but now I have. So now I've got
some stuff for the toolkit. And I think that's potentially
what they meant when they were talking about it is
life changing because you've emptied the toolkit.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
You didn't have anything.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
You used all that great stuff up to about one
hundred and one hundred and twenty k whatever happens to be.
I'm sure it varies for different people, but that's yeah.
I think that's really interesting. It definitely changed for you
because you just talked about that great story. You know
that meant when when you around was Jessica was in
the name that you read you ran with, Yes, yeah, Jazmin, Jasmin, Sorry,
when you ran with Jazzmin. I think that was that's
(35:16):
that's life changing.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
You know that one and you.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Said you I'll never forget it ever, because it was
a key point. So I think that's probably an interesting part.
But tell me you got so what did you end
up at? So it was it one hundred and forty
k's was the end?
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Yeah, it ended up in about one hundred and forty kilometers.
Like I said, I think that in many ways it
was well, it was a unique experience because normally these
runs are one hundred and sixty and it's well planned
and you know the course and all of that type
of thing. But you know, definitely having to deal with
the as we're approaching the fifty kilometer checkpoint, Yes, the
(35:50):
message comes through on the phone that the lightning storm
has come up onto Mount Kosiosco. You're going to be
held at the next checkpoint. Right at that point, you
don't know whether you're going to be there for five minutes,
five hours, or the whole thing's called off. And so
you just you are having to now deal with something
(36:11):
that you had not prepared for, and that in and
of itself was a really interesting moment of Okay, Mark,
but you have dealt with adversity. Slow things down, control
what you can control. Use this opportunity. Refuel a ten
to any niggles. I had some blisters, take care of it,
(36:36):
you know. I had my teammates, my crew there, and
then that was a really interesting thing, and they put
us back on and I remember texting my best friend
while I was while we were waiting, and she was saying, well,
how do you feel if you know it's one hundred
and fort it's not one sixty? And I said, really
interesting it without even really thinking, I said, that doesn't
(36:58):
worry me. I said, I'm going beyond one hundred. If
it's one hundred and one or one hundred, it's still
it's still out there, right. So whereas I would have
thought I would have been really upset by not doing
one hundred and sixty right right, And you've.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Got the past where you wanted to go, you know
your next bit matter it was one forty one sixty,
you were still going.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
You know.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
I think it reinforced to me. It probably brought to
my conscious something that's been in my subconscious. Rob. If
I do all I can do within my control, I
can live with that.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Yeah, yeah, that's a great point.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
I can live with that, which takes me. I had
crack at this event a year ago. I and my
first time ever in twenty years I didn't finish, and
I didn't finish based on it was I started the
one hundred mile one hundred and sixty k and ten
(37:55):
k in my quad's cramped. Oh okay, when I say cramped,
they locked locked, say locked. And I was at the
top of Eagle's nest and I had a three kilometer
descent and if anybody knows that your cod muscles is
what you need to descend, and so it took me
the most excruciating amount of pain to get down, and
(38:17):
I thought I could unlock them well sixty kilometers and
thirteen hours later they still had an unlocked and I
got timed out. Oh but and I thought that that
would just kill me. But again it was there's a
difference between having to stop and quitting. And I was,
in fact just as proud of continuing on then and
(38:41):
getting to sixty k as I was of crossing the
one forty in two different situations. And I think that
duelled me and prepared me. That adversity or that disappointment
of a year before that put more tools in the
talkkit that I never would have had for this one.
(39:03):
And someone said to me, you know, you don't always
get what you think you deserve, but you always get
what you need and I got what I needed then
it just took a year to pay back.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Yeah. Yeah, and it's a very good point.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
And yeah, you were timed out, not that you weren't
prepared to go on, but you've got to a point.
But again, you had more stuff for the talk kit,
you had more learning for the next one. I was
going to ask you what you've done one before? Are
you going to do another one?
Speaker 2 (39:28):
That's the question I've got for you.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Now I'm going to keep going. I mean, the sort
of yes is the answer to that. They'll take different forms.
The ultra running community rob has gone from being you know,
three people and a dog to a mainstream thing. And
so you know, one hundred miles or this one sixty
(39:50):
event used to be the longest, right, They now go
two hundred and three hundred miles. The days it's become
a thing now, Yeah, I'll just keep I want to
run a marathon in every decade of my life, and
I want to be able to run, whether that's one
hundred k or ten k or one k, every year
(40:10):
of my life.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
It's a really good point. I'm speaking to a marathon
run a friend of mine. She's listening to this, you'll
know who it is. And she's in New Zealand. She
does a lot of running and I said to her, hat,
you know, we were talking about the injury I've got
and she said, oh, yeah, yeah, I've had that.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
I've had that treatment three or four times. And she goes,
I really work. She should do it. She's actually the
catalyst for me doing it.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
And she said, you know what you've got to do
when you get when you want to keep doing stuff
as you get older, you just got to find you
just got to find doctors and medical people who get you,
because you'll come up once. She says she had one
doctor who said, what's your problem. She goes, I've got
a cramp in my hamstring and he said, well, he
Reckon's brought that on. She goes, it's probably the marathon running.
He goes, how about you stop it? And she said,
how about I get a new doctor. Because she said,
(40:51):
you've just got to go not give up. It's because
it is busy, Gord. It can be cured, and yeah,
you're going to have more of them, more niggles, but
you've just got to go with people who get you.
And she said she's now got a doctor and a
massive ADS therapist who the whole mission is keep her
going for as long as possible. Right, So she's like
their case study. You think we're good, check out, we've
(41:11):
got her going, right, And so she said, they're the
kind of people you need around you because there's so
many people will go, don't do that or stop that.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
If had hurt, stop it, you know.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
And I had a bunch of doctors tell me stop
cycling when I had a couple of issues. Well, if
it's curting you when you're cycle, used to stop cycling.
I'm going, Yeah, that's not kind of the answer I'm
looking for. Let's get a bit more proactive about this.
I'm sure you've had you've had similar things that it's
important to have the right people.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
I love that story, Rob, And yes, he's the answer
to that. I've got I've got a team. Yeah when
you actually I've never really I stopped and thought about
it the other day and it's like, yeah, coach strength,
coach massus osteo. Uh and you forget how much goes
into it, you know, you know, nutrition, all that type
(41:58):
of stuff, And yeah, I definitely I know that I
have limited myself and I probably still do many other aspects.
And this is one of those where when you hit
a wall, you go, okay, am I going through it,
around it, over it? What needs to change, what needs
to happen, you know, Rob, as we were talking just
(42:21):
before we started this, I'm in one of those right now,
you know. COVID in January and I just haven't recovered
and I'm in five years. I haven't been able to
train in the last three months, and it is it
is mucking around with men brutal.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
I'm telling you long, I call long, COVID all that
kind of you just grab the stagnation or this letharge
you called lethargic. Yes it's fairly words for it. But
I know what you're getting at, and it does. It
can take that long, too, which is which is scary.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
It's really hitting me mentally now right I don't have
I don't have the running to fall back, which is
part of one of the things that I do to
still sue meditatal to journal and running is my thing
right and so mentally I'm having to find I'm struggling
and having to find different ways to manage just the
life stress and the outlet through other ways than running.
(43:17):
But I know I'm now, I'm making appointments with doctors
and specialists and reading and research. I'm going I want
to and will find a way through this because I
got to get back to one of the things that
I love doing.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Yeah, and I think you're right, because well, the only
thing I can tell you is talking to GPS is
that long COVID is a thing and they're still finding
out stuff, and so you can't you literally I gave
up brooding on the internet about.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
This, I can tell you because it's not current enough.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
And what you're finding is the good GPS are actually
going to conferences and they're literally coming back and they're
finding newer things.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
So you've just got to go back to what are
you know now.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Because what they knew a year ago is very different
than what they know now, eavement, it's very different.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
So Yeah, I know you won't give up.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
I know you'll pursue and get this back because you've
got to get back to where you were and you'll
get there. You're you're a fit guy, and you are
you're super strong, so you'll you'll bounce it for sure. See,
let's it's a bit out of town. What's what are
some social media think? What's your Instagram?
Speaker 2 (44:16):
People?
Speaker 1 (44:16):
Some stuff that people can find out a bit more
about Mark Zaglas.
Speaker 3 (44:20):
Yeah, I think that the two Instagram Mark Zaglas, that
O G L A S. You'll find my running and
photography on that.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Great photography, everybody, great photography. This does a great job.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
And yes I do stop along the way and take
photos when I run, but it's on the iPhone not
the big camera. Yeah. And yeah, Mark Agles on LinkedIn
for my for my business.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
Yeah, Mark, thanks so much for chatting today. It's been
really good and very insightful. And thanks for digging deep
as well. You went went some great places and it
took us on a journey. I really do appreciate it,
so thanks and all the best for your recovery.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
Likewise, Rob, I appreciate the opportunity man, and your questions
took me to some of those places, so I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
Thanks mate.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
I hope you enjoyed this episode of the It's All
Possible Podcast. You can contact me at Rob at Robhartner
dot com or my website Robharder dot com, or on LinkedIn.
Remember to check out the previous seasons and episodes of
the podcast, and the show notes for more details on
this episode's guest.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
For more inspiration, remember to check out the All.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Possibility Players on Spotify, which contains a collection upbeat, positive
music I use for inspiration in my live performances. Until
next time, Live with Passion at a perspective of Possibility.
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