229 | Joe Keain Running Podiatrist

 Join us as we chat with Joe Keain, the 2022 Australian Podiatrist of the Year, about foot health, running injuries, and innovative tech in podiatry. Discover how his expertise helps runners and athletes stay injury-free and perform their best. We delve into running biomechanics, and the latest in shoe technology, how to tape your foot and more. Discover practical tips for injury prevention, shoe selection, and optimizing your running performance. 

During the Tros Eric and Erika catch up on their recent life updates and a friendly competition between Eric and Tara. Erika is updating her spare bedroom studio, Eric got a new couch, they talk about summer running plans and their plan for the podcast in the summer months. 

Guest Segment brought to you by My Race Tatt's

Joe Keain Running Podiatrist

PodFit Podiatry

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Personal Updates
03:55 The Happy Hour Hustle and Running Competitions
06:47 Women's Sports and Recent Achievements
12:56 Guest Segment: Joe Keain The Foot Doctor
20:36 Geography and Culture of Australia
31:24 Joe's Journey into Podiatry
39:12 Growth of PodFit and Client Engagement
42:12 Innovative Technologies in Podiatry
46:47 Understanding Foot Pain and Treatment Options
52:54 Blister Management and Running Challenges
58:45 Foot Care and Personal Experiences
01:01:20 Running Journey and Early Experiences
01:05:12 The Importance of Proper Footwear
01:08:47 Managing Foot Pain and Shoe Choices
01:14:03 Injury Insights and Self-Diagnosis
01:19:17 Training for Ultra Marathons
01:24:00 Fun and Lighthearted Moments
01:28:19 Hot Takes and Playlist Additions
01:32:36 The Outro and Future Plans
01:48:25 Upcoming Events and Community Engagement

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Don't Fear The Code Brown and Don't Forget To Stretch!

Transcript

Eric (00:00)
Is it okay for me to say down under? Is that like an actual thing or is that a made up thing we have?

Erika (00:05)
You

Joe (00:06)
It's definitely a thing if you don't live in Australia. So go ahead, mate.

Eric (00:08)
Okay.

Erika (00:10)
⁓

Eric (01:07)
What's up everybody. Welcome to episode two 29 of the on the runs podcast. hope all you mothers had a fantastic mother's day weekend. Summer feels like it's right around the corner. The skis and the snowblower have finally been put away and we're running five K's and drinking beer again outside. Coca-Dona was incredible to watch. And it looks like myself and Tara, Tara, Dactyl are in a little personal battle these days. But first, before I get to any of that, I must say hello.

to my kick-ass Rockstarver co-host, six-star Erica, what's up?

Erika (01:42)
What's going on buddy? can I just tell you that I am very happy that it's not me and you in a thing right now that it's you and Tara and I get to just step back and watch the drama unfold.

Eric (01:54)
But you have to keep

posting, you have to keep doing something like go on stories. come on. Tara, Tara's, Tara's feeding into this. This is so much fun for me. And the thing is some people might think we're serious. We are serious guys. This is a battle. We are mad. Like this whole net time versus watch time versus who actually finishes ahead of the other person. I think like if we're in a personal battle, it should be a head on a head race.

Erika (02:08)
Mm-hmm. Mm.

Yeah.

Well, I think you need to talk to John and have you guys starting at the same time, because that's one of those two by two races, right? To make sure that the rail trails don't get too congested. that how you... Because you technically started first.

Eric (02:30)
So it was, yeah, it was actually,

it was really cool. So this is the happy hour hustle. My goal is to make every happy hour hustle because those are actually easier than like a Saturday morning. Sometimes it's sometimes they're not right. It just depends on the schedule of life with kids, but those, those actually, I like, I think I can make this Thursday too. It's not a happy hour hustle. It's you'll have to tell me what that event is pub run.

Erika (02:37)
Yes.

Evening runs, my favorite.

Pub run, woo.

Yep, Mm-hmm.

Eric (02:59)
That was with Millennium, but I

ran the happy hour hustle last Thursday of Tara and you put in your time, your predicted time and they start you based on that. So of like 300 people, I was number 74. She was number 76. And the way this starts is you don't leave like a four second gap. Everyone just stands in line in order of their numbers and you all just start running. So Tara actually started like two feet behind me. There was one person between us.

Erika (03:21)
Mm-hmm. ⁓

Gotcha.

Eric (03:29)
It's like

a rolling start. she was, we started at fish cat stadium and we run up the bridge. And when I got to the bridge where it got wider, I kind of just pulled over and let her pull up as long as side of me and we're running, right? We're running.

Erika (03:44)
So you actually ran together for a lot of it then.

Eric (03:46)
We ran together for 98 % of this. The 2 % we did it is when I started ahead of her and finished ahead of her. we finished the race. We're going to get a beer. walking up and my watch says I was two seconds ahead of her. Like I hit start and stop on my watch on the, on the mat. She could have hit hers a second late or second early, right?

Erika (03:49)
Until the kick.

But man, net time, chip time, don't lie.

Mm-hmm.

Eric (04:12)
She checks the Millennium Net Time and it said she was 1.1 seconds faster than me. So there's five of these. If we wanna go Net Time, that's fine. But I warn you, pteroterodactyl, it's the best of five now. And I don't mind being the underdog down by one. I'm coming for you. I'm coming for you.

Erika (04:18)
They don't lie, man. That's why they do timing. Settles all the discrepancies.

Ooh.

I am so invested in this. Like I want her to win, but I also want you to win. Like I want women to kick ass.

Eric (04:40)
Do you really want me to win? Please.

Do you really want me to win?

Erika (04:45)
You're like my ride or die, man. Like, we've been through 20 years of stuff.

Eric (04:47)
Wait a second. Was there a text

message that didn't include me that might have said, please be Eric?

Erika (04:56)
There may have been. Do you have proof? Where are the receipts?

Eric (04:59)
I might be in trouble.

I might be in trouble for repeating that, but, ⁓ our friendship level is, ⁓

Erika (05:03)
Terra!

Well, our friendship

level is the same way, so.

Eric (05:10)
For the record, she didn't tell me that until after we saw the net time. goes, Erica's going to be so happy. I beat you. ⁓

Erika (05:15)
Well, we were

just rolling with like the women are kicking so much ass lately. Like we have Rachel and Trekkin who just.

Eric (05:21)
Where's the equality?

She'd be pulling for me too. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Ladies. Don't get mad at me. I love seeing them. Did you see Rachel? We're going to get to Rachel. Let's talk about coca-dona later, but incredible. I love, I love those stories. No, I totally agree. Seeing someone like Rachel crush coca-dona and just destroy not only the men in the race, but the course record. I mean, I'm here for it. I'm here for it.

Erika (05:28)
shame shame

glued to it all weekend.

as a whole set by men.

It's absolutely mind blowing and I'm so happy for it.

Eric (05:51)
I am

I'm very upset. I'm sure you don't even know this. But the Boston Fleet season ended last night in overtime, double overtime. Were you watching? Were you watching the women? ⁓ you didn't know. I knew because I love women's sports.

Erika (05:57)
Hmm?

no, I did not know. I did not watch the game. I wasn't home.

I just got to get YouTube to watch some games. They stream them on YouTube, right?

Eric (06:12)
They do. That's actually how I watch. It's incredible. I love it. I've watched more, or just as much, women's hockey. Well, they don't play as much, so I can't say I watch more than the NHL. But every time I'm on YouTube, like right now, so I'm in the living room. We have a new couch. We just painted. And we even painted the trim. This room got destroyed in the last couple years with the kids. out our couch.

Erika (06:27)
Gotcha.

Eric (06:40)
We bought a new couch. I love it. I was so skeptical of this couch. It was an Amazon deal. You know, it's a couch made in China and it has storage underneath. And it's like, this came in three packages. The funny thing is I accidentally auto-filled the shipping address. It got delivered to work and the shipping guy at works like, did you really just have furniture delivered here? I was like, no, it's not even supposed to be delivered till Tuesday. Why it's being delivered on Thursday, right? ⁓

Erika (07:05)
Yeah.

Eric (07:09)
But we put this couch in here. I'm on it right now. I'm in love. This is Monday. It is 1154 in the morning. I love that you don't have a job because I'm like, can you record in the afternoon? We're scheduling with someone for next Monday at noon. We're scheduling maybe for someone on Wednesday. I'm like, this is amazing. This is amazing. Um, I just worked out. I'm on a runner's high right now. Can you tell I am on a high? I just went to recycled fit as I,

Erika (07:18)
I don't.

I'm glad it's convenient for you. Take advantage.

huh.

Eric (07:38)
I've now call it recycled fit instead of CrossFit. And Carla is like, I really want to do a mile cool down. You want to do a mile cool down? And I'm like, yeah, I got more time though. You want to do like two miles? She's like, sure. How much time do you have? go, I got an hour. Let's do a 5k. We just did a 5k cool down after recycled fit. I want a high. I want an absolute high. um, yeah, this is fun. And then I'm going to have this episode.

Erika (07:41)
Mm-hmm.

Thanks

I love seeing you this way,

Eric (08:06)
uploaded and ready to go before the kids are even home. So this is basically a lunch break podcast for me. And I'm like, I'm here for it. I'm so here for it. Yes. Thank you so much. Yeah. ⁓ somebody did make a comment the other day and it's like, how did, how to tell me you don't listen to the podcast without telling me you don't listen to the podcast. And because they had no clue you lost your job.

Erika (08:13)
So glad I could accommodate. Gives me something to do though, mean.

⁓ yeah. Well, we've

been talking about it more so in the, recently. So if you're a little bit behind, might not track, but that's okay.

Eric (08:39)
Sure, sure. Some people are. Like, Laura made a comment the other day around our Boston live shows. She's so behind, like 100 episodes behind, and she shared an episode of us talking about like a year recap, maybe two years ago or something, in my vision or my dream. Or it was after we went to the Boston Run show and how I'm like, I wanna do live shows, I wanna hear this. And she goes, it's so cool to hear them talk about it from two years ago on an episode.

but watching them on Instagram, you know, doing what they said they wanted to do.

Erika (09:14)
It is so mind

blowing. I absolutely love it. You just you're you're doing all the hard work. You're the one who's out there grinding, sending the emails, making connections. I appreciate you.

Eric (09:23)
Well now that you're

available every day, you're in!

Erika (09:27)
Keep scheduling

people. Let's help make the meeting. Sure, let's go.

Eric (09:33)
Can I actually, I wanna do like, what would you call this? This isn't a PSA, but this is ⁓ a reach out. We are going to do things a little different this summer. We are hoping to get eight running couples. We've already asked a few. We already have, I think, like four. And we're going to do a series all summer. So in the past summers, we've always done a best of episode and a couple classics, right? Couple best of, couple classics. We don't wanna do that this year.

Erika (09:49)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (10:02)
We want to continue to have new, fresh episodes every Tuesday for eight straight Tuesdays in July and August. But last week's episode was a lot of fun where we had Jason. There was no trolls, no chatting like this. We're like, let's do that for the summer. Let's pre-record a couple of these. They're gonna be sponsored too, which is awesome. But I'm gonna do a shout out. ⁓ If you and your partner are big time runners or small time runners, like community runners.

Reach out to us. We're working to get eight right now. We got about, I think we have a list of like 12, but we've only reached out to like four so far and they've all like, yes, let's do it. this is, yeah.

Erika (10:40)
Mm-hmm. And we'd love to talk to some new people too if we haven't

talked to them yet. So we'd love to have new people.

Eric (10:49)
you wondering, we did get the newly engaged couple from the Boston Marathon. So you'll get to hear from Dylan and Anna. We're so excited for that. We're so excited.

Erika (10:57)
I am so pumped.

Did we tell them how we actually came about finding them? Can I tell the story real quick? So Eric had made that clip, ⁓ like, hey, let's help find Dylan and get the story out there. And I'm in the car with Eric on the way to our Keen show. And I just type in Dylan Boston Marathon into Instagram. And boom, first thing that popped up was him. go, I think this is the guy.

Eric (11:02)
No. Sure, tell the story.

Erika (11:24)
did a little digging, found him, found Anna. I was like, this was the easiest research I've ever done.

Eric (11:24)
Cause it was like, was,

yeah, guys, if you are familiar at all with interstate 93, as you enter conquered, you take the exit to merge on 89 and from the merge to the corner where you're making that roundabout corner to get on 89, she found them. It was like, it was like eight seconds tops. it was a congratulations. It was a congratulations post like.

Erika (11:43)
It was probably the easiest research I've ever done. I didn't think it would work.

Eric (11:52)
from his Run Club. Congratulations to Dylan. It's so incredible. Great work. See, it's not that hard. You can do work. I was too. I was absolutely too. ⁓ God, so much cool stuff. So the happy hour hustle has been, that was so much fun. I got to hang out with Kate, who is friends with Will Runfore and Mike, and we were sending pictures. then, so Kate is actually friends with Yuki.

Erika (11:55)
Mm-hmm.

It wasn't that hard. I was shocked. ⁓

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Was she wearing the unicorn horn in your picture? I met her last November when I did the Novemberfest race in Nashua. So she's also friends with Paula and so that whole crew. So I got to meet her then. So I'm glad you finally got to.

Eric (12:21)
really good friends with Yuki and yes, yes.

Yes.

Well, I got to meet her last year at my fundraising event in Londonderry because she went with Yuki. But do you want to take a wild guess who her coach is?

Erika (12:40)
⁓ no way! Okay.

⁓ I'm going to say Nicole is a KJ.

Eric (12:50)
You love her. No, you love, you love her

coach. Absolutely love. And she is yes. Brittany Charbonneau.

Erika (12:56)
Britney. Yes! my god.

I'm so happy. ⁓ I do love Britney. She's just so much joy in a tiny little package.

Eric (13:03)
Yeah, so.

It was fun because we're taking pictures. I'm sending them to Mike. She's sending them to Brittany. You missed out. I think you did Trivia Night with Danielle. Thanks for the invite. ⁓ think you did Trivia Night. You missed out.

Erika (13:15)
you

Next time, you can come next time. Yes.

Eric (13:20)
But you're gonna be there Thursday and I'm gonna try to

make Thursday. So what is the deal Thursday? Where is it gonna be? Fill me in.

Erika (13:26)
So Thursday

night, I'll have to get back to you on the time, but it's probably around 6 o'clock. ⁓ Millennium is holding their pub run, and it's at Backyard Brewery. So I think we just go for a, I don't even know, X amount of mile run, however many you want, and then you stay for a drink. I wish I had more details. Sure.

Eric (13:42)
Love it. I think I'll definitely make the drink. I now, guys,

with gas prices, I work from home Monday, Wednesday, Fridays. I love this. I go into the office Tuesday, Thursdays. So I'll be, it's on my way back from work. So if I can run, I'll run. If not, I'll stop for a drink and say hi to everybody. Be awesome. Be so cool. You know who else was?

Erika (13:53)
Mm-hmm.

Excellent.

That's cool. Are you going to have Ashley

home with her new job change? Is she going to be around to? ⁓ perfect timing.

Eric (14:07)
Yes, because she's not working that night. So things might change

in like two weeks, but right now she's home Thursday. So I don't even have to like get a babysitter. This is in last Thursday. I didn't have to either. So yeah, job change is nice, but it's unpredictable. We'll have to figure out. She did go in to her interview and when they said we want to hire you, what are you like your days? You can't work. And she goes Mondays. I can't work Mondays. Stupid husband has a stupid podcast.

Erika (14:14)
Gotcha.

Live!

That's not what she said. ⁓ that's funny.

Eric (14:36)
No, that's the way I interpret it. I've like you could say

it. I always say blame me You know if we miss dance practice or something or something came up and we just forgot I always say just blame me. Tell me it was my fault. I'll take the hit because They're scared of me. They're scared of me They're like, I don't know. I don't think they're really scared of me. I just

Erika (14:50)
Take one for the team, man. Good for you. Why?

Like you're like a monster girl dad or something like don't mess with me.

Eric (15:02)
No, I'm the, I'm honestly, I'm

some of their favorites, but I just say, I just take the hit. go, you can blame me and just be like, my stupid husband, stupidly forgot to do something even though I didn't. And it wasn't, or maybe I did, who knows? I just try to make everyone's life easier. I do try. ⁓ but

Erika (15:14)
you

⁓ That's the easy way out, but hey.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Eric (15:26)
Anyways, Sixstar, we have an amazing guest today brought to you by our amazing guest sponsor, MyRaceTats. And this guest came from a far ways away, all the way down under.

Erika (15:38)
Yes, our doctor from Down Under Doctor. I forget how you worded it,

Yes, he's a foot doctor because Eric cannot say the word podiatr.

Eric (15:50)
And I left all that in. Because I love you guys and you guys can make fun of me. It's all good. He's a podiatrist. Did I say it A podiatrist.

Erika (15:52)
I'm so glad. I'm so happy. Worth it though. Yup.

How come you could say it now, but you couldn't say it the other day?

Eric (16:02)
I just, because it's on the fly and I'm not looking at it. Well, I'm not looking at it now, but because I've tried to say it 50 times, I guess, I don't know. Practice. mean, now what I can say, Keflezky, no problem. Right. Just take some time. Right. Well, I'll work on that when we get them. Yeah, we'll get them. It's, ⁓ it's just, it's me. It's fun. And this guy was awesome too. And.

Erika (16:06)
Practice makes perfect, yes.

There we go. Yup. Now we just need to get you saying Kipchoge.

Okay, perfect. You got it.

Eric (16:31)
I want to, well, I'll say thank you after, but he reached out a long time ago and I'm so happy he stayed on top of me because this was, this was so much

the new official foot doctor of the pod all the way from Australia guys. Enjoy Joe and we'll see you on the other side.

Eric (16:55)
next guest on the pod is an expert on everything down under who will help you run more and hurt less. An expert in foot, ankle, and lower limb injuries. He's a runner himself and we're wicked excited to welcome not just our first podiatrist, but the 2022 Australian podiatrist of the year, Joe Kane. Welcome to the On the Runs podcast. What's up, buddy?

Joe (17:15)
Guys, thank you for having best intro of all time. Although, makes me sound like I'm an expert in genitalia, which I'm not, just below the knee. Foot, ankle, lower limb, not cock.

Eric (17:27)
You

An X foot down under. I was like, I have to do it. I have to do it.

Erika (17:32)
God, I was not ready for that.

Joe (17:34)
You saw the opportunity, you took the shot.

I respect that. Just to the air, put ankle lower limb focus.

Eric (17:39)
You missed 100 % of the shots you don't take,

Erika (17:40)
I need a minute.

Eric (17:41)
Joe. I already love you.

Erika (17:44)
I cannot. I'm already like

Joe (17:45)
and we've lost

Erika (17:46)
off

Joe (17:46)
all the listeners.

Erika (17:46)
my game. OK. ⁓ We are off to a great start, guys. Eric.

Eric (17:51)
Yes we are. What's up buddy? How's

life over in the future? As I like to say for someone in Australia, we're here in the northeast of the US, New Hampshire.

Joe (18:01)
Life is good, thanks mate, life is good. A bit cold, we're coming into winter. You guys are becoming into summer now? Yes.

Erika (18:05)
Mm. Yes. Yes. We're finally getting some

Eric (18:06)
Yes.

Erika (18:08)
nice weather around here.

Eric (18:10)
Is snow something big out there? Do you guys get snow?

Joe (18:14)
We do just not here in Adelaide, so more so Victoria, sort of Eastern States. We've got no skiing here, in Victoria definitely. Yep, they get the snow there, but we're a bit too far away from that, so just cold and wet here, no snow.

Eric (18:15)
Okay.

Are there mountains? Like is there skiing? Is that an Australia thing?

See that's a bummer because I love the winters up here and I love to ski but I'll just have to visit Australia probably when it's like what is the best time? Okay I'm from New England we get four seasons a year, but sometimes you like to get away What's the best time to visit Australia like where you're from?

Erika (18:31)
You lost him.

Joe (18:51)
Definitely summer. So I would go anywhere from November to end of February. Keeping in mind though, we normally have a few very hot days, you know, in the forties, multiple days. I don't know what that is Fahrenheit. I don't know math, but warm and like a different kind of heat. So if you come during that little period, you'll be cooking, but I think you'll enjoy it still.

Eric (19:05)
Mm-hmm.

Erika (19:06)
That's warm. That's warm.

Eric (19:14)
Yes. Erica, you're going the wrong time of year because Erica is going over there in August.

Erika (19:14)
you

Yes, I'm going for the Sydney marathon. I, I'm not sure where that is in respect to where you, where Adelaide is, where Sydney is.

Joe (19:20)
Nice.

are awesome.

Yep, bit

further away, about a four hour plane flight, but that's all right. Are you going August or going July? Because I think Sydney's in July, no, no, I made that up, it's in August, Gold Coast is July. Nevermind, carry on with your flight. Are you running in it? Awesome.

Erika (19:32)
Okay.

I hope it's end of August because my plane is booked. I am running in it. Yep. I have

completed the original six majors and this is going to be number seven for me. just, yep, I'm stuck now. I to finish them all.

Joe (19:48)
They added another one and you thought, damn it, I'm going to do one more.

Eric (19:51)
She's, you know, I

don't know if this has caught on in Australia, but she's now six, seven star Erica. That might be way over his head. don't know.

Erika (20:00)
No, let's drop that.

Joe (20:03)
A kid said that to me like two weeks ago

in the clinic. So a kid like six, seven, and I was like, what? They're like, did this? And I was like, I don't know what, are you okay? Like, what are you doing? And then they showed me the video and I was like, I still don't get it. And they had to explain to me. And I was like, I still don't, am I the only one here who doesn't get this? And that was it, we just left the conversation there. I was like, I don't know.

Erika (20:06)
Did they?

you

Mm-hmm.

Sometimes that's for the best. Honestly, we've heard it so many times and I still don't get it. I don't understand. But hey, let the kids enjoy. sad when that happens.

Joe (20:32)
That was the moment I was like, I think I'm old now.

Eric (20:36)
So geography is sometimes a strong suit of mine, but not with Australia. So I know where Sydney is, because that's like southeastern Australia. I know where Perth is, because I have a friend from Perth. Where's Adelaide?

Erika (20:42)
We're not buying at all.

Joe (20:48)
So down the bottom, south, in the middle of the two, if you have Sydney and Perth, go down the bottom, in the middle.

Yeah, middle south.

Erika (20:55)
I see it.

Oh, that's a four hour plane ride from, oh, wow. Cause that's just in the little like nubby part for lack of better words. Yeah. It's just on the other side of the great Australian bite. that how you say it? Hmm. And then yeah, Sydney's on the other side. We're learning.

Joe (21:10)
Correct, yep.

Eric (21:12)
Nice. Well, we're not that smart, I guess, with Australia terms. We'll stick to this one more time. Like,

is Australia as big as the states? Like land-wise, mass, like going west coast to east coast? Like, if you wanted to fly from Sydney to Perth, is that like a six hour flight?

Joe (21:30)
No, it's not quite as big as the state. It'd be four hours roughly from Perth to Sydney. Yeah.

Eric (21:34)
It's

still massive and they say like there's so many things out there that can kill you. Like Florida to us. That's Florida to us.

Erika (21:37)
Mm-hmm.

Joe (21:40)
Heaps of stuff.

Erika (21:43)
I've seen some

Joe (21:43)
Yeah

Erika (21:44)
of those

spiders that you guys find on the insides of your houses. would, oof. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Joe (21:47)
Yeah, so like you guys would be familiar with Florida Man. That's most males here. So that's like the

Eric (21:50)
Yeah, we are.

Joe (21:54)
norm.

Erika (21:56)
I give you guys mad respect for that. would, I don't think I could do it. I don't think I could.

Joe (22:01)
We just call

them bogans and they're part of our culture.

Eric (22:04)
You

have one more ⁓ Australia question for you because I actually just saw the Devil Wears Prada 2 and I'm not going to spoil this for anyone, but there's an Australian guy in there at some big event like a big fashion event, the Met Gala or something, right? And the Australian guy's like,

I see Hugh Jackman. I'm going to go say hi. And the character, his girlfriend's like, what do you Australian people just think you're in a foreign country? You can go and like just say hi. And he goes, yeah, I can just walk over and say, hey, mate. And we're best friends. Is that true? Like, do you travel outside much? And when you see someone from Australia, are you just like, there's one of mine. How you doing, mate? And then you guys instantly best friends.

Erika (22:37)
you

Joe (22:39)
Yeah.

Yes, that is factual.

When I was in Europe, this was pre-COVID ages ago, if you hear another Australian accent and you hear the twang and you hear mate, you're like, one of us together. We're just mates now. Yep. Stick together.

Erika (22:55)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (22:55)
Yeah. He said that and I was

prepping. I was prepping for the show and I'm like, I'm going to write that down in my notes, my notes app. Anyways.

Joe (23:04)
Yeah, Australians are

Erika (23:04)
That's like somebody.

Joe (23:04)
pretty

friendly overall. Like we just, we hear the voice, so we're like, alright, one of us.

Eric (23:09)
Yeah, we don't have

Erika (23:09)
Mm-hmm. That's like somebody, I was

out in Europe at one point and I saw somebody with a Red Sox hat and I was like, my people. You can instantly go make friends. Doesn't matter if they're actually from there, but it's a conversation starter. Mm-hmm.

Joe (23:22)
Correct, correct.

Eric (23:23)
Yeah,

Joe (23:23)
So yeah, that actually happens. That's true.

Eric (23:25)
good comparison with the sports. I was gonna say we don't have that with the accent here. Not at all, but Red Sox, we do. Yeah,

Erika (23:33)
You got the Boston accent. You

Eric (23:35)
So Joe, this is wicked awesome. Wicked. That's a word we love to say here in New England. I'm super excited you reached out. You're a podiatrist. I'm going to mess that word up so many times. I don't care, but this is great because I've had some foot issues and we'll get to that soon. But tell us a little bit about yourself.

Erika (23:39)
you

Joe (23:53)
So yeah, I'm Joe, sports podiatrist here from Adelaide, South Australia. I see a lot of runners, treat a of runners in foot, ankle, low limb pain. So what I spend most of my days doing, we've got a few clinics here in Adelaide, we've got four locations, a few interstate as well, so we're a pretty decent sized team now. And yeah, really passionate about helping runners out of foot pain. I think there's a lot of myths and non-truths going around the internet about what you should do when you have foot pain, and I like to put them to rest.

Erika (24:21)
you are passionate about treating runners because you're a runner yourself, correct?

Joe (24:26)
I do give it a crack. I give it a crack.

Eric (24:28)
Yeah. What were you like before? Like growing up in Australia as a kid, did you run cross country? Did you play lacrosse, ice hockey, football, baseball? Like what did you play out there? know, it crickets? Huge? I know that from Bluey.

Erika (24:28)
That's all we can really do.

Joe (24:44)
My son loves billies watching it right now while I do this podcast. Didn't play cricket only because it's a long game. It goes for like eight hours. My parents were not sitting out there in the sun. didn't summer so it's hot watching you play eight hours of cricket where you might get out first ball and then sit on the bench for seven hours. And I was like, yeah, fair enough. So never played, just backyard cricket, but played a lot of sport, soccer, hockey, tennis, basketball, footy. So played a lot. Wasn't very good. I was a pretty fat kid.

were Italian, my mum's side and so food's big part of our culture. And so was quite skillful in terms of with the ball, but couldn't run. you never played that well. And then started running. Still got out there, still gave it a crack. That's what I'm about. ⁓ Started running more in high school, got fitter. know, sport kind of went to a high level. And yeah, really started running more during COVID when our footy or our sport season wasn't on here. So they delayed the start of the season because of COVID. We weren't sure if it was going to be on.

Erika (25:21)
You still got out there.

Joe (25:40)
to start running just to keep fit. Ended up doing a virtual marathon during that time and then yeah just continued running didn't go back to 40 so it was a nice little start.

Eric (25:42)
Yeah.

What is footy?

Joe (25:51)
AFL, Australian Rules football. So you might see on, I don't know if you've watched the game, can know a different code, different sport. Yeah, so we've got AFL, we've got rugby. Rugby's got league and union. I don't watch that stuff. It's not really big in our state, but AFL definitely is. You can kick and catch the ball. It's like a football shaped ball and you can tackle. So there's no protective padding, no anything like that. It's purely just what you go out in and then you can tackle and throw them to the ground and stuff too. So it's a pretty cool sport.

Eric (25:54)
Okay.

Do you not call it rugby?

⁓ okay, educate me.

Erika (26:02)
you

Eric (26:22)
Okay, I always thought rugby was huge, but maybe I'm completely off. Like everyone in the States thinks Bostos, Australian for beer, is huge. And then Australians say, no, we don't drink it. is rugby...

Erika (26:22)
That is a badass sport.

Joe (26:30)
No one drinks fosters here, it's a weird American thing. Like when I was overseas,

you go to a bar like, want a fosters? I'm like, no, give me anything else. Why do you guys have that? Who's buying that?

Erika (26:38)
that's great.

Eric (26:43)
Think it was like, we have this car brand called Subaru and they used to have this Australian guy be the ad, the person in all the commercials. And he was the person in the fosters too. And they just, I don't know, they made it up. Somebody made it up, dude. And it sold.

Joe (27:00)
I've never seen someone in Australia drink a Foster's. We don't even have the Foster's tap when you go to the pubs. Like you can't even get it out the keg. So I don't know who's keeping this in business.

Eric (27:10)
When we go to... Well, when Erica goes to Australia, what's something she'll see that she won't typically see here in the States?

Erika (27:10)
that's so funny. The foreigners, that's who.

Joe (27:18)
There's definitely animals. What I think is, I don't know if this is a thing in the States, people that wear, I'm gonna say the word thongs, it's a thing we use here, but you might call them flip-flops. That's a really big thing here, everyone wears thongs. ⁓ Not the type you think, flip-flops.

Erika (27:28)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (27:29)
Yeah.

Erika (27:31)
Good, I love those.

Eric (27:32)
So we have

flip-flops here, we also have thongs, but they don't wear them on their feet.

Joe (27:38)
Yes, a of different one. ⁓

Erika (27:39)
There are two different kinds of

songs, I guess. The foot kind I enjoy.

Joe (27:43)
The ones on your feet we're talking about, let's

keep... Above board.

Eric (27:45)
There was

a guy who made a song about it, his name is Cisco.

Joe (27:49)
I'm sorry.

Erika (27:49)
my god.

Ugh.

Joe (27:53)
I think the thing you'll find Erica when you come here is it's the way people speak. I was having this conversation with a client she's from Brazil and they just recently come here and she's like it's really hard to follow along with what you guys are saying one because of the accent we kind of we twang and we talked pretty quick but the things we say we say them weirdly so instead of saying where are you going I'll say where to and they'll be like where to what or depending where you go

Eric (27:53)
I digress.

Erika (28:17)
Mm-hmm.

Joe (28:22)
you if you come to Adelaide, we speak a bit more British here, you'll say, how are you going? You can understand that. You go somewhere else in the country, there's maybe a little bit more country, and I say, hey, go on cover. And you're like, what did you just call me? And so it just depends. Everyone's got different words for things.

Erika (28:40)
So people are going to mess with me and start doing it on purpose so I have no idea what they're saying. I'll to be like, come again. I have no idea.

Eric (28:44)
Please.

Joe (28:46)
Yep, you'll just be,

Eric (28:46)
People of Australia,

please mess with Erica.

Joe (28:48)
I'll think you have a processing disorder and you'll be like, what did you say?

Erika (28:52)
Little question marks will be floating above my head. I'll just try I'll be like, uh-huh. Uh-huh. I'll like I try my best you guys

Joe (28:57)
Like, Erica's a really good runner. She's just not that bright.

Eric (29:04)
She's an average runner. Don't give her too much credit.

Erika (29:08)
I am not

the best runner. do my best.

Joe (29:11)
You'll love it here though, Australia is very friendly, we're very friendly people, touch wood. ⁓

Eric (29:15)
That was

my next question actually, like when she lands in the airport, what's the vibe, what's the energy everyone's going to give her? Like when you land in Boston, you're not always going to get the happiest people. mean, it's a long, cold winter. Our sports teams, if they're not doing good, people are in a bad mood. If they haven't had their Duncan's coffee, like what's the, vibe and the energy going to be when she gets there? The Australian people.

Erika (29:26)
That's it.

Joe (29:39)
think that feeling's pretty universal. When your sport team's losing, you're not happy. That's me at the moment. ⁓ I would say I wouldn't try and derive all your joy from the airport in Sydney. I'd just wait till you step outside, because I just don't know what you're gonna get. Depends what time you land, depends who's there. Airport people that work there are normally pretty, I would say, abrasive. So I wouldn't count on them for too much. But once you get out of there, especially once you get to the Marathon area, Sydney be buzzing around then. So you'll really love it. Like that kind of buildup. Yeah, it'll be really, really good.

Erika (29:43)
Mm.

That's fair.

pretty psyched. Yeah, I don't anticipate myself being very friendly getting off that plane because I have like a red eye and it's a 16 hour flight and we get in at like seven o'clock in the morning. I'm to be so tired. I don't sleep well on flights. So I will try. Maybe. don't know.

Eric (30:07)
Yeah.

She's also in seat 37F. Her, yeah, she's

Joe (30:25)
Okay.

Eric (30:27)
sitting in the middle seat.

Joe (30:29)
how many

days do you fly in before you run?

Erika (30:31)
⁓ so we, we leave Los Angeles at like 11 o'clock at night on a Monday and we arrive on Wednesday. So I love that time travel aspect, but so, ⁓ Sunday will be the race. So I have a few days to kind of get my bearings and figure it out.

Joe (30:41)
rot.

How

come you have to fly from New Hampshire down to Los Angeles to come to Australia? That doesn't make sense to me.

Erika (30:52)
There's no great

way to do it. ⁓

Eric (30:54)
It actually, if you look at

it, makes perfect sense unless if you got the direct flight, you would go up over the North Pole. But because there's not many direct flight options, or maybe she just chose the cheap cheapo air, you hop west to ⁓ LA and then LA you go southwest over like you might go over Hawaii and then south of New Zealand to Sydney. it's it. Yeah, on a flat map.

Joe (31:02)
Okay.

Erika (31:06)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I couldn't even tell you. I just know that I'm getting on a plane. have like 20,

Joe (31:18)
Okay. Okay. I've only ever seen the world

on a flat map, so I'm trying to figure out how it...

Erika (31:23)
24 hours of flying. Let me see.

Eric (31:24)
Yeah. On a flat map, it looks almost like

a straight line to Australia going west from New Hampshire, Boston, really. We're just north of Boston, but enough about Australians, enough about Erica's trip. Let's learn about Joe. We learned you started running around COVID, but when did you get into your field of podiatr- my God, Erica, I can't do it. When did you become a podiatrist? I'm keeping all that in there.

Joe (31:32)
Okay.

Erika (31:36)
you

Joe (31:42)
Correct.

Erika (31:46)
Podiatry. ⁓ my God,

Joe (31:49)
You've nailed Kane,

Erika (31:50)
stop.

Joe (31:50)
you've nailed Adelaide and then Padawatra, which I think is not a bad word. You just, I'm not quite. That's all right. We can edit that out. Stop recording, Foot Doctor, much better title. 2017 I graduated, sorry 2016 I graduated, started working in 2017, so it's almost coming up 10 years now. It's been a little while.

Erika (31:54)
⁓

Eric (31:55)
I'm keeping it in. When

did you, how did you become like a foot doctor?

Erika (32:08)
That's great anniversary. Do you like what you do? I mean, you must if you're 10 years in.

Joe (32:12)
I love what I do. I love what I do.

Even though everyday people tell me, I don't know how you do this for a job. And I'm like, just sit there and enjoy it, all right? But yeah, I do. I really like what I do.

Eric (32:21)
So it's

been 10 years, but you weren't a runner before. And in pod fit, which we'll get into, really works with runners. Like was that who you were working on first when you started or were you just trying to like break into a field in the foot field?

Joe (32:38)
Mate, I was working with anyone who would have me when I first started. Whoever had foot pain, didn't care age, demographic, what sort of pain it was, come and see me, I'll try and help you out. ⁓ Coincidentally around that time, I started working with a little athletics club that was near our clinic. I've been with them for sort of nine, 10 years now. ⁓ Just because I couldn't, I literally couldn't crack any other big sporting clubs. They had podiatrists, had physios. They didn't care about a new grad who had no experience to come and help them. this little athletics club was around the corner. They didn't have any...

one that was coming out to see them. They had a physio sponsor, but they hadn't been out in years, had like a sign on the fence and that was it. And they were just happy to have anyone come out and give free workshops to their little athletes. And so I started there and I've been with those guys for nine seasons now. And I was really enjoyed working with that population of like young kids. And it's been cool to see them go from, know, five years old to 12, 13, 14, 15 years old now and see the kind of growth, not only their like athletic ability, but the...

Eric (33:21)
That's awesome.

Joe (33:36)
sort of pains, injuries they get as they go through the age as athletes. they start with heel pain and severs, that gets better, get oscule sliders in the knee, they get bit of groin pains, they get a bit of hip pain as they get bigger. And kind of seeing that progression has been really awesome. And then getting to see like their younger siblings come through. So that's how I started. And now we work with quite a few athletics clubs in the area. And I work with a lot of just runners in general now, adults as well.

Erika (33:39)
Mm-hmm.

I think that's super cool that you actually get to work with the same patients throughout their youth. And you get to know them well. You get to know how their body is progressing and the issues. I feel like that's a better way to help them with their issues because you just know them so well.

Joe (34:18)
It's been really awesome. It's funny though, cause sometimes like, you know, they go through puberty, change so much. I wouldn't have seen them for a year. Yeah. We're just doing like a year review, right? Cause they're going pretty well and I don't see them for a while. And then I go to the shops and I get this, Hey Joe, behind me. I'm like, and it's them, but they've gone through puberty. I'm like, Oh, Hey, I didn't recognize you. Sorry mate. Like when I saw you with this big last time. Yeah, but no, it's really cool. It's really rewarding work.

Erika (34:22)
those growing pains. ⁓ just... flashbacks. Yeah.

Thanks.

you

I think we're up so fast.

Eric (34:46)
was like the focus you had with the kids. You mentioned five to 12 year olds. What are you looking at with their feet and what they're doing compared to what you would look for with an adult?

Joe (34:58)
So first thing we kind of go out and do is a bit of like an injury prevention screening. So we go out, we give a talk on these are kind of the common things you see with kids feet that run and play the sports. And these are kind of the strength scores, mobility scores, where stuff we look for. And then from there, we normally do bit of testing and we normally pick up a few kids that maybe have a deficit on one side or they've got some pain already, or they've been walking a bit funny or their foot's turned, know, something like that and their parents are a concerned. And from there, we can go and get into the clinic, do bit more of a full assessment and go from there and put them on a treatment pathway.

Erika (35:27)
When you say testing, are we talking more like just balance or do you just like watch them run? Like how do you go about these tests to diagnose? Well, maybe not diagnose, but just to get a sense of how they move.

Joe (35:40)
bit of everything. So we watch them walk, watch them run, watch them do double leg, single leg calf raises, some single leg hopping, some like knee to wall ankle mobility stuff to get a bit of a broad idea of how they move. And then from there, if we pick up anything in that screening process, we can then come into a bit more of full assessment in the clinic and put together a plan for them.

Erika (35:59)
That's so cool. So useful.

Eric (36:00)
And then I read, and I'm guessing this is through the clinic, which I want to learn about, but you see over 700 clients a week. So you went from a couple kids getting your foot in the door to now 700 clients a week. How did you do that?

Erika (36:10)
Wow.

Joe (36:15)
That's not me personally, I'd probably see 50 a week, just based on time. But our clinic would see, build it with the team. So I've great business partners, got a great team. We've recently expanded into state too. So we've got about 200 team members now across three states, about 20 clinics. So we're a bit of a bigger business now than we previously have been. But in our state, we'd probably see, yeah, seven, 800 clients a week.

Eric (36:20)
It's still a lot. You built something though, it sounds like.

Erika (36:20)
Thank God.

Joe (36:42)
⁓ So a decent amount. And yeah, it's obviously he's grown pretty, pretty big since back in the day.

Erika (36:47)
That's amazing. Love to see the growth.

Eric (36:49)
How do you start it?

Joe (36:51)
My business partner Mel started it. So she started it in 2016. I was her first ever employee actually. Wasn't a very good one. Don't know why she stuck around with me, but she didn't have options. And then from there.

Eric (36:56)
away.

Erika (37:01)
Hey, fresh out of school, you're just

Eric (37:02)
This is Melissa.

Erika (37:03)
learning.

Joe (37:05)
Full of energy, full of confidence. But yeah, we first ever employee in 2017. They've been open for about six months. I came on board and then from there we've grown to a pretty decent sized team from there. So it's been an awesome journey. And yeah, couldn't have done it without her and our team. So definitely not just me that's doing the work.

Erika (37:23)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (37:23)
Now is your

team, maybe I misheard you, but you've spread, are you all in the same area? Like same office, or are you all around Australia?

Joe (37:32)
In three different states, we're New South Wales and Sydney, we're Victoria in Melbourne and Geelong, and we're Adelaide as well. So we started here. We've had three clinics up until February. We've gone through a merger now. So we've joined with an interstate company to come together. We've known those guys for quite a few years. We treat very similarly, have similar clinics, have the same sort of goals. So we've come together. We've got 20 clinics now across three states and quite a big team. And we've got four here, four clinics now in Adelaide.

soon to be five.

Eric (38:03)
All Here we go back again to Geographics. I had no clue Australia had states.

Joe (38:10)
Yep, so we've got seven more seven states. Hope so. Yep, seven states.

Eric (38:13)
Seven

states, okay Excuse me for being stupid. I apologize, but you're I'm learning on the go here. I got no clue

Erika (38:13)
They're big. They're big.

Joe (38:21)
Eric thinks we just got internet out here.

Erika (38:24)
He needs to travel more.

Joe (38:25)
Got the

horse with the milk and cart coming around.

Eric (38:29)
I had no clue.

Erika (38:31)
All right, they're big states

though. When he says states, they're really big. you have like, would you count Western Australia, Northern, yeah, Northern Territory, South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and then what? Australian Capital Territory. I nail them?

Eric (38:35)
Is it like how Canada has a Providence?

Joe (38:47)
ACT, yep, where all the federal parliament stuff is, definitely. The thing with Australia though is everyone lives on the edges. You don't live in the middle because it's too hot and sort of arid. So everyone lives around the coast. Whereas in the States, everything's, everyone's spread out everywhere.

Eric (38:47)
where

Erika (38:51)
That's a lot.

Eric (38:55)
⁓

Okay.

Erika (38:58)
Mmm.

Eric (39:01)
Joe's thinking to himself right now, these stupid Americans.

Erika (39:01)
Makes sense.

We're learning! I'm excited.

Eric (39:07)
We're learning.

Joe (39:07)
We're learning

from here on out, we learn together guys.

Erika (39:10)
Yay. We're a team.

Eric (39:12)
All right.

So talk, tell me about the growth a little bit more, spare no details. What you and Mel did to grow PodFit. that her name she created? At first I thought it was a podcast about fitness, but you grew PodFit over the last 10 years because you, you joined her team in 2016. Talk a little bit, spare no details about the growth. Like what were some big aha moments? Maybe what were some of those moments you're like, are we s***?

doing this right, like maybe a code brown as we call it, like an crap moment. Tell us a little bit more about the adventure over the last 10 years.

Joe (39:49)
Definitely been a journey. I think any business owner has, know, ups and downs and, you know, things that sort of take a bit of a toll. ⁓ I think the biggest, for me, the biggest shit moment was COVID for us. So leading up to COVID, I've been with the business about four or five years. I was on the path to buying and becoming a part owner. And I bought in on January 1st of the year of COVID. I think it was 2021 when it came here. So January 1st, bought in, paid a

Erika (40:02)
Hmm.

Joe (40:18)
bit of a sum of cash, went to the bank, got a bit of a loan for the rest. And then come March, COVID hit sort of eight weeks later. We watched our client numbers drop in half within four days. And I was like, ⁓ awesome. Just taking out this bank loan, just handed over some cash. You know, I was really excited and we was watching it every day. Cancel, cancel, cancel, clients canceling. Might not have the clinic open, health people shutting down, all this stuff happening. And I was like, shit. So that was a big shock to the system.

Erika (40:29)
⁓ no.

Mm-hmm.

Joe (40:46)
And from kind of March to July, things were very unsteady. You know, we didn't really have many clients coming in the door. I was doing whatever I needed to do to keep things open. I was doing home visits. I was doing all this kind of stuff, trying to find nursing homes just to like get some revenue coming in the door to keep things open. We just hired two new team members and they just started in February. So I'm about four weeks before we thought we're going to have to let them go because we didn't have any clients for them and we weren't sure what was going to happen. And we kept them on board, thankfully.

We didn't let go of any team members during that time. We all took half pay to kind of keep things open. And yeah, it was just bit of a struggle for those three months. Once July hit though, things kind of opened back up here. We were allowed to work at a sort of full capacity and sport came back on, which was a big one for us. And because people hadn't done a pre-season and started playing in July, everybody got injured. There were so many soft tissue injuries. And so we were like pumped in July. And I was like, yes.

Erika (41:31)
Yes.

Eric (41:41)
Business was booming.

Joe (41:44)
Biggest July ever. Not that I wish injuries on people, but for me it was great. It was good timing. So I needed that. Correct, correct. I needed that. So yeah, that was, it was good. And from there we had a really sort of busy second half of the year. But yeah, that was a very stressful time for us. Yeah, for everyone involved, not just myself.

Erika (41:44)
It sucks for the athletes, but you're like, all right, it's Christmas. It gives you something to do. You're back at it.

Understandable. That's just uncertainty.

Eric (42:06)
Now you have a lot of cool

Joe (42:09)
Definitely, I think the world was pretty uncertain then.

Eric (42:12)
Now, one thing you mentioned when we were chatting, when you slid into our DMs is like cool tech, basically called it new ways of working on feet, whether it was like shockwave therapy or dry needling. And you do like a foot analysis. Like you do testing and everything to talk about some of the

Before we use Erica as an example in her feet because she's going to start selling feet picks, tell us about some of the cool new technologies you you use on people when it comes to feet injuries.

Erika (42:33)
you

Joe (42:42)
So we try and be pretty progressive. We try and have pretty new tech in the clinic. We're not just your average podiatrist. We don't just cut nails all day, which a lot of pods do, and that's fine. That's our bread and butter. We should be competent in that, but that's just not what we do, and that's not what I like to do. So we've got these treadmills in our clinics called Zebris treadmills, Z-E-B-R-I-S, and they're pretty expensive treadmill. They're about 75 grand. And so in the treadmill belt, they've got 7,000 pressure sensors.

Eric (42:59)
Mm-hmm.

Erika (43:05)
Whoa.

Joe (43:09)
and it gives us really highly sensitive data from the exact kilogram body weight going through the exact square centimeter of foot. And we can really figure out where that pressure's going, why they're getting that stress fracture all the time in that particular spot or that neuroma or that bursitis. And it's also got cameras at the back and the sides. in real time watch them run. We can slow it down, speed up, zoom in, zoom out, draw lines, all that kind of stuff, and really break down how someone's moving. From there, it prints out a report. Again, the report has a lot of data on it. We picked the biggest bang for buck for them.

And we go away with a plan to put together sort of how we can help them move better and reduce pain with whatever they're sort of coming in with.

Erika (43:45)
man, the science nerd in me just wants to see one of those treadmills in action.

Joe (43:49)
Well, if you want to fly down

to Adelaide Erica, we can run you on it for sure.

Erika (43:52)
Only a four hour flight, I'll be there in the end of August. So there we go, we'll come visit.

Eric (43:57)
Tell me about force plates. What are force plates?

Joe (44:01)
So they detect the force obviously going through the plate and we can use them for various sort of assessments of strength and power, whether it's pushing down on something, seeing how much force you have in your leg or your foot or your arm or your shoulder, but also jumping as well, so much force you're generating when you jump and leave the ground. So we've got those force plates in the clinic and they just help us give us, well, they just help give us really specific data on strength and the way we're moving. I think a lot of time and a lot of the sort of things I see in podiatry when you don't have the tech is that it's a lot of guesswork. It's like, know, push your foot against my hand.

Oh yeah, I think that was kind of a five out of five. Push the other one. We're gonna come back and test that in six weeks. I don't know what you pushed into my hand six weeks ago. I don't know what that felt like, I can't remember. When we've got actual data, it was 400 Newtons or this amount of kilograms, but you can actually see week to week in appointment to appointment how much you're improving and it takes out the guesswork.

Erika (44:41)
Right.

I love actually seeing the numbers, actually being able to quantify those things. Yes, we do! That's why we have the watches.

Joe (44:54)
Runners love data, because obviously I've got Strava, Garmin, they're really honed in. So when I can give them

Eric (44:56)
Yeah.

Joe (45:00)
really specific data, they're like, ⁓ this is the best.

Erika (45:03)
Yup. Even if I don't know what to do with all the data, I want it. Give it to me.

Eric (45:04)
And you're.

Joe (45:07)
You've got it. You've got it.

Eric (45:09)
And you're getting this data from force plates through this treadmill, correct? All right. When you have a runner on the treadmill, does it matter what shoe they're wearing? Like what are they getting into when you set them up? Like I could imagine, could a shoe mess up like the data?

Joe (45:14)
Correct, yep, yep.

Erika (45:16)
So cool.

Joe (45:28)
Yes, I wouldn't say mess up, but I'd say it definitely changes the data. Like I had a runner yesterday coming in, they're training for Gold Coast Marathon in July. They two pairs of shoes. They were like, I wanna know which one's actually better for me to run in. He's like, they both feel good, but I feel like this particular pair's better, but I don't know. And I wanna make sure that I've got, you know, everything stacked in my favour for this marathon. So we tested both those shoes, running at two different speeds. And yeah, one was a clear winner. It was a Brooks Adrenaline. So yeah, we can actually tell which shoe is better for that person based on the data and the way

Erika (45:56)
So cool.

Especially if you're looking to get those kind of gains where if they're trying to do like a, I don't know what their goal is, but like say like a sub three, you need to have your biomechanics down and any little bit that's gonna help you, especially a shoe. Nowadays with the shoes, like that's gonna be so useful. And I love that you are able to actually distinguish between that to give him good recommendations.

Eric (45:57)
Yeah.

Joe (46:12)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's awesome. So we looked at shoes and then we looked at cadence and arm swing were a big one for him as well. He normally runs carrying either a gel or like his phone. And so his rotation was a little bit different side to side, which was kind of throwing off his mechanics. And then cadence was a little bit lower than what we would have liked. So we worked on both those things, a couple of cues. We'll come back and test in four weeks. We'll see, run again. We'll see how the data's changed, ideally getting better. And we'll go from there.

Erika (46:36)
Mm-hmm.

So cool, I love it.

Eric (46:47)
It is cool.

I'm going to use myself as an example and Erica can do this after and she can tell you what she goes through. But when I start to really run more often, three days a week, like if I'm running three, four days a week and I'm marathon training, I don't really have foot pain and I don't really believe I have plantar specieitis. But I do think like it takes my feet time to wake up in the morning. My first few steps hurt more so on the heel.

If I put my feet right away in an UFOs, UFOs is a favorite sandal of ours we have here. Instantly I feel better. And then the rest of the day, my feet feel great unless I lay up for a while. So why do you think that's happening? And if I were to come into your clinic, if I were to take the 24 hour flight over there to check it out and to get a whole assessment and a test, what would be some of the first steps we do?

Erika (47:36)
you

Joe (47:41)
So for you based on what you've described, we'd obviously do a full assessment to get to the bottom of it, but I'd say it's probably not true plantar fasciopathy, it's probably just the irritated plantar fascia. So like just the starts of it, where it's just a bit sore in the morning, warms up within a few minutes, it's fine most of the day, might get a bit sore after sitting on the couch for a while or driving in the car for a while, but like just the very start of it, right? What we don't wanna do is leave that too long and keep irritating it, because it does become foreboding plantar fasciopathy, where that kind of warm up pain in the morning takes longer, it might take.

Eric (48:00)
Right.

Joe (48:08)
one to two hours, you get pain during the day and it starts inhibiting how much you can run, all that kind of stuff. So if you come in to see me, Eric, we take you through that full 60 minute assessment, we sort of power page first, I wanna know where the pain is, is it just in the heel where the plantar fascia attaches, is it through the arch, does it hurt when I move big toe, is it lateral heel, all that kind of stuff. We then go down to the gym, we go on the treadmill, we walk and run on it, I'd see what are the feet doing, are they externally rotating?

Is there a lot of force going through the heel and the plantar fascia? How much force is it? Is it over the threshold that I know we can expect the pain, which is about 30 Newtons per square centimeter. Anything above that, I normally see that's too much force going through a part of the tissue and that normally corresponds with a bit of pain. Is the sore side the same as the other side? In terms of rotation, in terms of way they're moving, are we using big toe well enough? We're pushing off the big toe. It's the bigger, flatter toe for a reason. We do some strength testing, both body weight and on our machines. We do some mobility testing.

Erika (48:51)
Mm.

Joe (49:05)
get a good idea of how you're moving, and then we come back into the room and probably do some treatment. Probably some shockwave therapy through there. We'd look at your shoes, maybe do a bit of taping, a of work through carbs, that kind of stuff. And we put together a nice plan to get you back to feeling pain free that you take home with you.

Eric (49:19)
All right, you mentioned a few things I want to ask about then. Strength, you do a little strength, like are we squatting? Are we doing lunges? What are we doing for strength testing here?

Erika (49:19)
That's cool.

Joe (49:29)
We try and make it relevant for that person. So if you squat and lunge normally in the gym day to day, definitely we look at that. Probably for you, look at bodyweight calf raises, either double leg or single leg, depending on how sore you are, how strong you are. We get you on the force plates, sort of seeing how strong you are to push through there. We'd look at kind of some squatting mechanics, single legs, sit to stand, single leg loop bridge, check out hamstring quad control. They're probably the ones we'd look at for you. Maybe some single leg jumping too, a bit of hopping, see how that kind of plyometric Achilles load goes. They're probably the main ones we'd look for for someone who runs.

Eric (49:59)
The other one you mentioned I want to ask about because I've actually never done this. Taping. How do you tape feet and what would be the benefit in my case where that pain is really centered to the heel in the back of my feet.

Joe (50:15)
Yep, so we call that one either a low die or a moccasin. There's a couple of different variations. Basically, it just offloads the plantar fascia, right? If this is my plantar fascia, we do three long strips going down to the heel in kind of a fan variation like that. We then lift up the arch, three across here, and then I tape around the heel and increase that fat pad, pull it together. So naturally the heel has a bit of a fat pad there, acts as a cushion. It reduces compressive load. I just tape that like that and encourage that natural fat pad to be a bit thicker.

Eric (50:28)
Sure.

Joe (50:45)
We'd lay that on for that.

Eric (50:45)
So it's like a pad,

it's like a cushion, like absorbs some of the impact and it's kind of like the first part of my stride when my heel contacts with the ground. All right.

Joe (50:48)
Natural padding.

Correct.

Correct, yep, and we leave that

tape on for 24, 48 hours just to give your plantar fascia a bit of relief for that time.

Eric (51:04)
Awesome. And now...

Erika (51:05)
So useful. So when Eric goes to see you, you do your initial assessment, you give him some exercises, you expect him to do it. When do you see him again to make sure that he's actually following doctor's orders?

Joe (51:19)
depending on his goals, if he's like, I've got a marathon in four weeks, we'd be seeing each other quite soon, I'd probably see you end of the week, so four or five days. At the most, I'd see you seven days later. So in that kind of four to seven day period when I wanna see him again, a couple of days after the tape comes off, how's it feeling now that the tape's off? How's it feeling after treatment? Do you feel any relief? We might have gone and said, let's go and get these pair of shoes in the meantime, come back with the new shoes.

Let's have a look at those, all that kind of stuff. So we see each other pretty regularly. Normally kind of in that first four weeks, that first month, I'll be trying to see you at least four times to get pain down and we spread out from there as pain starts to get better.

Eric (51:54)
Now, how much of my planner's issues I have, how much of that could also be part of below my knee, you my calf, my shin, those muscles above the foot. Like, yeah, it's all connected. So how much of that, like maybe I'm not doing something with my leg. And I asked this because I see a picture of dry kneeling. I've never tried it. I really want to try it. Like how much of those muscles are connected?

Erika (52:07)
yeah, it's all connected.

you

Eric (52:23)
that impact my heel.

Joe (52:26)
they play a huge role. Calf, Achilles, lower limb muscles play a huge role in plantar fascia pain. So we think about the calf attaching to the Achilles and the heel, the plantar fascia also attaches to the heel underneath the foot, but the calf is a much bigger muscle group. And so if that's tight, it pulls and creates tension and creates more tension through plantar fascia. So we normally test that with a bit of a knee to wall test, where you put on the ground to keep your foot flat, bend knee to the wall, and we measure how far you can get your toes away from the wall while still bending the knee and being able to touch the wall. And we aim for 10 centimetres.

Eric (52:54)
⁓ cool.

Joe (52:56)
Anything less than 10 centimeters can just create a bit more tension through plantar fascia and lead to some of that pain. So definitely we'd be looking at calf for you and the ankle as well.

Eric (53:02)
So I'm.

So I'm putting my knee on the wall and I'm seeing how far I can get my toes, my whole, my foot's flat on the floor. I'm assuming heel, heel as well, heel and toes. And 10 centimeters is preferred. I'm testing this after this. In fact, I might leave in the middle of this podcast, find a ruler, test it and come back and tell you, but we'll continue now. This is so cool. Like I'm on the website.

Joe (53:13)
Correct. Yep.

That's what we aim for. Yep.

Erika (53:22)
you

It's a time.

Eric (53:34)
Can you come to New Hampshire? I'm sure there's plenty of great foot doctors here, but you're my foot.

Joe (53:38)
I will come and do

Erika (53:38)
So hang on

Joe (53:39)
a

Erika (53:39)
a sec.

Joe (53:39)
moonlight session in New Hampshire. I want to come to the States. I love the Boston area. I've never been, but I love the thought of it. Maybe I'll come to Boston Marathon.

Erika (53:43)
⁓ we'd love to have you. But one thing I noticed,

Eric (53:45)
So.

Yes, yes.

Erika (53:47)
yes, we're always there cheering. I mean, you're welcome to cheer. You're welcome to come hang out. But if you get to run it, all the power to you will be there for you. You'll fit right in.

Joe (53:55)
I ran it in a Red Sox vert, a Guernsey.

Eric (53:58)
Nice. Or you

could be like a Dunkin Donuts coffee cup. We had a guy do that once. You mentioned Moonlight. What is Moonlight?

Joe (54:02)
Yeah.

Erika (54:04)
That's true.

Joe (54:07)
just come and do a single session in New Hampshire, know, moonlight session.

Erika (54:11)
hell yes. I'll show up for that. But one thing I did see for your website, you do blister management. So this would be huge for somebody like me. ⁓ do the marathons, I do ultras, and just trying to keep my feet in one piece for trying to run for multiple days, it's usually, for lack of better word, a shit show. My feet are a total wreck by the end of this thing. So what could you do for blister management?

Eric (54:11)
Okay, okay. ⁓

Joe (54:39)
I wanna preface this with saying, if you run ultras and run a long enough race, you're gonna get some sort of blister. Like it's just a long time on feet, feet get sweaty, they get dry, there's friction, right? That's pretty normal. But I think for most marathons, half marathons, anything shorter than that, we can definitely try and get away without blisters. It's not doing the right things. Making sure shoes fit properly, any hotspots we can put blister pads on, ⁓ putting cream of Vaseline on the feet before you run if you're someone that's prone to getting blisters, blister-proof socks, all that kind of stuff.

Erika (54:47)
Yes.

Hmm.

Joe (55:08)
But I think most blisters can be prevented with making sure when the right shoes fit properly and the right socks. We'll solve like 90 % of your shoes. Anything more than that might need look a bit further. Yeah.

Eric (55:15)
Socks are so key.

Erika (55:19)
I did make the switch. wear the toe socks now. So those have helped in the long run and just, guess, frequent sock changes helps too.

Joe (55:22)
Yep.

especially in the ultras, like trying to change between aid stations, really important. Yep.

Eric (55:28)
Now.

Now you're, you are a runner and we're going to get to that. You've run multiple marathons, you've done some ultras, you got a big one coming up. We're going to get there. But since we're on the talk of blisters and ultras, sometimes you happen to get a blister in the middle of an ultra marathon. What would be your first, this is actually useful to a lot of our listeners. What would be your first action of treatment, middle of a race when you change socks before you put the new sock on to treat that blister? Like do you...

Erika (55:50)
You

Eric (56:00)
Do you put anything on it? Do you leave it? And like what action do you take? You have call it 50 miles to go in 100 mile.

Joe (56:11)
You wanna pop it, but what you wanna do is leave the skin intact as possible. So small hole, pin, whatever you've got. Drain the fluid out with your fingers, just sort of push the fluid out, but keep as much skin covering the blister as you can. Bit of Betadine, a bandaid, bit of tape to hold it on. That way the raw skin underneath's not gonna get rubbed as much. It's the biggest mistake, I say people rip the blister off and they get the fluid out, but then it's raw skin and that just becomes even worse. So trying to keep as much skin as possible on top and then covering it with some padding and some friction sort of proof stuff, whether it's a new sock.

Eric (56:20)
Yeah.

Erika (56:33)
Mm.

Joe (56:41)
or something to stop that friction and the heat rubbing on it.

Erika (56:45)
I'm getting like the heebie-jeebies. can feel like I just know what that feels like and it's the worst, especially knowing you're not done. You have to keep running. So yeah, keep your feet intact.

Eric (56:45)
⁓ Yeah.

Joe (56:54)
It's just part of the race. You've got to

expect there's going to be some sort of irritation like that and it's just part of the race.

Eric (56:56)
Yeah.

Erika (56:59)
yeah.

Eric (57:01)
what point is it okay, post-race, to peel the skin off? Do you do that at all? Or do you leave the skin as is? Does it naturally die and come off? Like, what action do you take now?

Erika (57:10)
you

Joe (57:15)
Look, I think it depends on the degree of the blister. Hard to give a broad answer without seeing it, but I try and leave skin on for as long as possible, at least five days post, just to let the skin underneath grow. From there, it normally kind of comes off by itself, like it'll kind of fray off or become a bit sort of torn, and you can gently just trim it off without pulling it. So we don't want to pull the skin with it, we just want to trim the bit that's hanging off, trying to keep as much intact as possible. Till the new skin grows, yeah, so try and leaving that on. But yeah, try not to...

Eric (57:33)
Okay.

The old dead skin's kinda like a protective layer.

Joe (57:45)
with the skin too much.

Eric (57:45)
⁓

this so cool.

Erika (57:47)
All I can think

of is Jason's feet. we're actually releasing an episode tomorrow. ⁓ So what was that? The fifth? The fifth. ⁓ But our friend Jason just ran the Arizona Monster 300, and he was having some really terrible feet issues. I believe there were pictures, the YouTube listeners will have a feel. Or the YouTube watchers will. my gosh. He had some doozies, that's for sure.

Joe (58:02)
⁓

Eric (58:08)
There's a lot. If you watch that on YouTube.

Joe (58:08)
That one's so hard because it's a hot race too. Like it's such a warm race. So they're going to get blisters. Yeah.

Eric (58:12)
Yeah.

All right.

So now before we get to running, we're going to talk about Erica's feet. And if you don't know anything about Erica, she just...

Erika (58:20)
my feet.

Joe (58:24)
put them on the screen,

get them out, get the dogs out.

Eric (58:28)
Erica just lost her job and she's looking for a new source of income. She's going to start taking some feet pictures and selling them on the internet. So you have, you have treatment like nail and skincare. You have different kinds of assessments. her feet. Exactly.

Erika (58:28)
I could, I'm not wearing shoes. Yup.

Joe (58:34)
Did you lose them because of the fight?

Erika (58:37)
No. ⁓ man. ⁓

My feet are not the best. have what I call

faux nails, ⁓ so I have lost a few toenails and I just kind of paint whatever's left afterwards and that's my faux nail. So I think I have like, we'll call it seven and a half real toenails. And then I recently ran a marathon in ⁓ March and I got a blister under my big toe, ⁓ like the big toenail. So it...

made that nail die. So now I have literally like a curved like I cut it just because it was like trying to come off and I was like I don't want the whole thing to come off. So I have some really janky looking feet right now. It's really bad. my god.

Eric (59:26)
They're going to sell big time. But you have some cool services.

Like you do nail care. You do ingrown nail procedures. You have shockwave therapy. You have fung nail treatment, which is like, looks like this cool infrared light that's shining on someone's toe. So outside of just running like some of the other foot things, yeah, tell us more. Erica's so into this foot talk. It's not me. It's not me. I swear.

Erika (59:33)
Ugh, super helpful.

Yes, tell me more. I'm like, what can help my feet?

Joe (59:53)
feel like me

sorting your feet out Erica would be very therapeutic for me I think. Just coming over, giving them a once over and just be like, all right, that's better.

Erika (1:00:02)
Come check them out, they're all yours.

Joe (1:00:04)
So yeah, anything

foot related, skin, nail care, as well as pain, we deal with. So I see a lot of runners too, much like yourself, Erica, that run a lot, especially ultras and their feet are just cooked. Nails are thick, they're falling off, they get blood blisters into the toes, they get a lot of blistering, callus, that kind of stuff. And basically pre-race, but just trying to get them as comfortable as possible, while not sort of open them up to getting more blisters. So we don't want to take too much of the hard skin away, because sometimes it's protective, but want to take away anything we think is going to be an issue during the race.

Erika (1:00:18)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Useful. I will, I'm taking notes, but until I can come see you, I will, I will try to do the homework at home.

Eric (1:00:42)
And he's the right guy to go see because in 2022 you were the You were the foot doctor of the year. Everyone's going to have so much fun making fun of me on this episode. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You go.

Joe (1:00:42)
Sounds good.

Erika (1:00:50)
Podiatrist. This is the pediatrician.

Joe (1:00:53)
In 2022, I was the pediatrician of the year. That's right.

Erika (1:00:59)
Foot doctor. We'll call it that.

Eric (1:01:01)
That's a pretty, that's an awesome, awesome award for the entire country of Australia. Yeah, that's cool. That's cool.

Erika (1:01:05)
It is an honor.

Joe (1:01:07)
Yeah, thank you mate, appreciate it. Had to give the title

Erika (1:01:09)
Congratulations.

Joe (1:01:09)
up,

you know, four years ago. That's all right, only get it for a year. That's all right.

Erika (1:01:14)
You can get it back, there's still time.

Eric (1:01:14)
It's alright, you can win it again. It's

like this... Yeah.

Joe (1:01:17)
I could win it back. I could go back to back. 2027. I didn't think of that.

Eric (1:01:20)
Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. Tell Erica whatever she needs to do and she'll do it for you to help you win. But you are a runner. You picked up running around COVID. You ran a virtual marathon. You've run more marathons since. Tell us some of your early running stories.

Erika (1:01:21)
Let's go.

Yeah.

Joe (1:01:38)
So virtual marathon, that was a bit of a tough one. Obviously had never run a marathon before, had never run a half. So I just went straight from, you know, doing a 10K marathon. And because it was virtual, you know, had to carry everything with me. There was no one cheering me on. It was a pretty cold and wet day. Ended up giving myself a perineal tenosynovitis, which is where the tendon sheath outside of the foot were attached to the fifth metatarsal. The tendon sheath got really inflamed and that was probably about 32Ks in.

So around the last kind of 10 Ks on it. And it just felt like I had a stress fracture. Every single step was painful. I was like, ah, this is the worst, but I've come so far, I can't stop now. And I was going to work on Monday, I'll get a moon boot, so I'll be fine. And so I did that, didn't help. So that was a bit of a tough one. And then did a few more marathons after that, but like joined a running group, had proper programming, that was a lot better. I was actually chatting about this with a client yesterday. The first time I hit a wall,

Erika (1:02:05)
Ugh.

Joe (1:02:31)
was a Barossa marathon three years ago. I had never hit a wall before, I had just been sort of okay, but I went out too hard. Did the classic like race day, too excited. Ran out five minute Ks knowing I probably should have been doing 530, 535s, but I went out to five minute Ks because I felt good. And like ran the first 30 Ks pretty well. I was like, I'm gonna smash this, I'm so fit. And then 32 Ks just literally died in the ass. Like nothing I'd ever, I couldn't keep anything down. Like, I was no good.

Erika (1:02:50)
you

no.

Joe (1:03:00)
Literally went from like five minute Ks to like seven thirty Ks for the last 10. ⁓ It was awful. Still finished, but it was a horrible experience. And I was like, I'm never doing this marathon again. But it was my own fault. know, went out too hard, didn't have enough nutrition and yeah. So that was a tough one.

Erika (1:03:15)
But you treat it as a learning

experience, so did you do another one?

Joe (1:03:20)
I did another one, didn't die on the ass. That was good, that was good. Went out a bit slower. And then did an ultra after that one, which would have been about three years ago now, just 70K. The issue here, Erica and Eric, with the 70K was leading up to that race, I'd done marathons, but I hadn't done one for about a year. And the longest run I did before that 70K was a 14K. And it was all road running and the trail was obviously, the ultra was obviously all trail. So didn't do any hills. I do everything I tell my clients not to do.

Erika (1:03:23)
you

Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:03:43)
You like to take big jumps.

Erika (1:03:46)
He sounds a lot like me.

I do this kind of shit. But now I got myself a coach and so I'm a little bit better at it. But before I was just like, I'll wing it. That was like my goal. I'm just going to wing it.

Joe (1:03:56)
The

bit of David Goggins in the headphones, bit of mentor Will Powell, you're fine. And like you can, the thing I say to my clients is you can grip through a lot of stuff on the day. Like I was like, I can grip through the 70K without training and I could, but I couldn't run for 60 days afterwards because all my tendons hurt, all my bones hurt, everything was just sore, right? So even though I could do it, I probably shouldn't have done it. And now if there's ultra, I'm doing a lot more of the trials. I'm running the trials twice a week, like a lot more mileage, which has been good. And so yeah, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

Erika (1:04:01)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yep.

Eric (1:04:13)
Yeah.

Joe (1:04:26)
And you've got to think about how your body is going to respond after that event. Do you want this one event for the year to be the thing that cooks you for the whole year and you can't do any more? Or do you to be a bit sensible, maybe reduce the distance, go from a full to a half or a half to a 10, whatever it is, and then plan better for the rest of the year?

Erika (1:04:40)
Yep. And that's sometimes the hardest thing to do because as a runner, you want to complete your goals. Like you dream big and when you can't hit that goal, it's crushing sometimes. knowing when to back off a little bit is a hard thing to do. And especially when you're like, I can do this. I can just grit it out. Sometimes you shouldn't. just being a runner, sometimes you need an outside force to tell you, give you some advice, but just knowing yourself, is a hard thing to actually get yourself to do.

Joe (1:05:10)
Absolutely.

Eric (1:05:12)
Being a foot doctor, you must really get excited about buying shoes. Like you probably know exactly the kind of shoe your foot likes. You probably tested a ton of them. that something? Cause you do at your, at your pod fit, you actually do like running shoe assessments.

Erika (1:05:18)
You

Joe (1:05:31)
We do, yep. I love running shoes. I've got a lot of running shoes. Before being a podiatrist, I worked at the Athletes' Foot, which is like a big footwear franchise here in Australia. That's our running shoes. I worked there four years while I studied. So I've got a pretty decent background in running shoes. And I've always just liked collecting shoes, because I never pay full price anymore. So just get whatever. I'm always like, yeah, give me some, I'll test them. I don't care, wear them once. Like, they're a run. So I have a lot of shoes. And yeah, the treadmills at work help us test the dial So I can see what I'm running in best.

Erika (1:05:50)
Nice.

Joe (1:05:58)
what clients are running the best and kind of see how those shoes work for that person. So we can get a pretty good idea on race day. Now obviously there's a lot of other factors that go into race day, nutrition, training, that kind of stuff, conditions, whatever. But we can get a pretty good idea of how the shoes are gonna work for that person.

Erika (1:06:13)
What are your thoughts on the super shoes that they have now, like the race day carbon plated bad boys that are around these days?

Joe (1:06:20)
I've got a few thoughts. I'm definitely myself and my clients moving away from carbon plates. I don't think that it's necessarily bad, but I think unless you're running a certain time, sort of under a 430 pace, you probably don't get the benefit from a carbon plate. And because they are quite a narrow shoe or a narrow base compared to some of the other shoes, if you're just wearing them for race day and you're running pretty slow, it's just asking for tendon trouble. Tip post, perinatal tendon, it rocks too much. You're probably not getting the benefit.

So I'm finding a lot of clients now, if they're not running that speed and they're sort of their first or second marathon, we're going more to almost like a super trainer, like the Super Blast 2, Super Blast 3. Something that still has a bit of a sort of rocker soul on it. It's a bit of a stiff soul. It's got a wider base of support and it's going to be nicer coming into that back part of the race. Because carbon plates, feel, feel really good for the first 21 Ks and then they're cooky in the last 21 Ks if you don't have the condition for them. So like, you just have to be mindful. They're not bad, but I think you've got to get conditioned for them.

Erika (1:07:12)
That's true.

Understandable. Those things really do. My favorites are the New Balance Super Comp Elites. They're so bouncy that I wore them during that. Funny enough, that's what gave me the blister under my big toenail. ⁓ But I've run in that model before, which it was a weird circumstance.

Joe (1:07:23)
Yeah, cool.

Erika (1:07:37)
But anyways, I was running and then I got to take a walking break and I was literally like floating. I like couldn't walk slow enough because they were just propelling me forward. So I could see how they are definitely just going to keep launching you. And if you're not like, if you don't have the form, it could mess with things.

Joe (1:07:57)
Definitely, definitely just have to be mindful. They're not bad, but I you've got to be conditioned for them.

Eric (1:08:03)
Never would have thought of that. That's super interesting. the carbon plate really only benefits you if you're running that fast because of your form, if you were to wear it walking around doing it. Like I do see like super wealthy people, not here in New Hampshire, but like super wealthy people you see walking around just in the mall or something with carbon plates, shoes and you're like, why?

Joe (1:08:24)
Yeah, alpha flies in

the wild. You see them at the shops, they're doing their weekly shopping in these $400 carbon plates and I'm like...

Eric (1:08:27)
Yeah, exactly.

And that's actually not right. But what you're saying is that could actually be, you know, not benefiting you, your foot. It could actually be making things worse.

Erika (1:08:31)
They're so expensive too, it's not a casual shoe.

Joe (1:08:42)
Yeah, I think those people, normally they're not wearing running clothes either. They're wearing like casual clothes and the carbon plates. And I'm like, I don't get what's going on here. But yeah, I think, look, there are a certain type of shoe for a certain type of event and a certain type of person. If you're not that type of person, I think there's better shoes we can wear that are better performance for where you're at right now. Not to you can't be better and get better at the carbon plates, but I think the Super Trainers are a more stable shoe for most people that run marathons that are sort of amateurs.

Eric (1:08:47)
Yes. Yeah.

Erika (1:08:49)
you

Eric (1:09:09)
What kind of shoe okay? We're so all over the map here We're all over the map, but back to feet back to feet I was just at a trade show actually and I was in Washington DC at this trade show and my feet were killing me wearing a really nice pair of Like business shoes these aren't sneakers. They're not super well People could wear these at weddings no they're ⁓ Yeah, I mean they

Erika (1:09:34)
What are they, loafers?

Joe (1:09:35)
I know the style you're talking about. Yeah, they look nice,

not that comfortable.

Eric (1:09:41)
Exactly. They look amazing. I looked really good in these shoes. Erica, you've seen me in these shoes before, but after, after like a couple hours, less than that, my feet were killing me. Like what, what does someone who maybe has to go to a wedding and, or just an event where they stand up all day have to do to take care of their feet where it doesn't affect them as a runner?

Joe (1:09:44)
Fashion is pain, Eric.

Erika (1:09:47)
Play.

Joe (1:10:05)
Yeah, it's tricky, especially those guys and girls that kind of work corporate jobs. They've got to wear certain looking shoes to work, you know, 38, 40 hours a week, and then they're running on the weekends. Can be really tricky. There's things we can do to help those shoes be more comfortable, whether that's a custom orthotic made for that shoe and that person, whether it's certain padding to put in the shoes off the shelf or other, just to make those shoes more comfortable, or buying a different brand that like looks like a work shoe or a smart shoe, but it's a bit more in a podiatry specific on the inside. So there's a few

Eric (1:10:34)
Okay.

Joe (1:10:35)
to kind of play around with but I think the shoe you spend the most time in should be comfortable and I had a pretty similar story to you Eric. I was in Melbourne last month and we were at the zoo walking around and my feet were killing me. I was wearing like just like nice casual shoes they weren't anything bad but they were just not that cushioned. Had to go buy a pair of sneakers the next day I was like I've got old man feet now.

Erika (1:10:51)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:10:55)
⁓

I have old man feed too. ⁓ Well, follow up on my question. When I don't have to wear these nice shoes, I typically wear my running shoes after like the miles are knocked off on them for walking. Like maybe I put on 150 miles and then they become my everyday shoe. These are daily trainers. These aren't the alpha flies or the super comps, right? I run in a daily trainer all the time, like a New Balance 880, maybe a Saucony ride or guide or something.

The Saucony Triumph is my new running shoe right now. love it. I'm only using it for running. But in a month or two, it might become my daily walker around the office and around the house with the kids. Am I doing any disservice to my foot by wearing an old running shoe now as a walking shoe?

Joe (1:11:46)
I don't think so. I think as long as you're being smart with the total amount of mileage, if you're like, yeah, it's got a thousand miles and I'm using it every day, I'd be like, probably not. But like if it's just you've used it running and it's not quite a good enough running shoe anymore, we're just walking, that's fine. But I think if you're on a fashion irritation, started becoming worse and you were spending a majority of your days in these shoes, I'd be thinking, okay, maybe it is time to look at what you're wearing day to day because that might be contributing to the pain.

Erika (1:11:54)
you

Eric (1:11:59)
Yeah.

Erika (1:12:08)
Mm.

That does sound like a bit of a red flag. Why are my feet hurting now?

Eric (1:12:13)
That might, that

might be it. That might be it. You know, I had this really weird thing that happened to me last November, December. I diagnosed myself with, I already forget what I called it Erica. What was it? ⁓ gout. I diagnosed myself with gout and like I was convinced and I had it for a little bit. It went away after some medication.

Erika (1:12:27)
Didn't you say it was gout?

Eric (1:12:38)
And then it came back slightly not as bad and it was really, it was the most painful thing ever. And knock on wood. I don't think I've had it for like four months. Cause some people say it stays with you forever. So I must have really jammed my toe or something, but it was in that exact spot of, of, of the big knuckle on my big toe.

Erika (1:13:00)
Mmm.

Eric (1:13:01)
But like I did that, now I did go see a doctor and they thought we didn't do the test for the acid but they're like yeah it looks like gout. But like could my shoe be doing damage there?

Joe (1:13:14)
It depends, normally with gout there's a big inflammatory response. So the big toe joint's the most common place we get it. It gets really red, hot, swollen. Normally there's no traumatic event though, so you haven't stubbed your toe or gone for a run. But it's normative with what you're eating or drinking. So they call it King's disease, where nice foods have a lot higher uric acid content. Things like sauces, alcohol.

Eric (1:13:29)
Yeah.

Erika (1:13:32)
Hmm.

Joe (1:13:34)
seafood, that kind of stuff. And when you eat too much of that, normally Christmas and Easter is a big one we see in the clinic. People eat a lot of seafood, drink a lot over that kind of three, four day period. Monday morning, they come to clinic, toes red, hot, swollen, they can't walk. They have a three day course of anti-inflammatories, it goes down, they feel fine again. That's normally what gout kind of the pattern that gout has. But if there was traumatic incident where you kind of jammed the toe stub, it could be more of a traumatic injury like a bit of a turf toe or a bit of a cyanobitis in the joint. Normally for both the anti-inflammatories will help. It just depends on what the

Was there a traumatic injury for you leading up to it?

Eric (1:14:07)
I just ran the New York city marathon and two days before I went on my first run since the marathon, I ran up a mountain. I like to do that. And I ran up the trail side of the mountain, which I don't typically do. I was fine for the next day. And then all of a sudden it just came on, just came on hot and I had it honestly. Yeah. So it, my followup question was if it's not gout, because I have zero effects right now, knock on wood.

Joe (1:14:25)
Yeah, could have been the trail irritating it.

Eric (1:14:38)
what could have been, said turf toe, what are some other things you could get?

Joe (1:14:42)
Yeah, and almost the mechanics of the toe. So was it hot and swollen or was it just painful?

Eric (1:14:46)
It was hot and swollen and I would take snow. Yeah. Yeah. And it was so painful to the touch. You'd like not be, you'd be amazed. Like you wouldn't realize how often your kids would like climb on your legs and your feet and just the softest thing, like a bed sheet was so painful. Yeah, they do. They do. So I would take snow and I would feel like a big pot.

Erika (1:14:47)
He was telling me it was like a 10 out of 10 pain wise. I remember that. Yeah.

Joe (1:14:50)
Okay, pretty bad.

Yeah, it's an almost irritation of the joint. Yeah.

They become a magnet for their, yeah.

Erika (1:15:11)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:15:14)
And it would be like ice water. I'd be like taking ice baths for my foot. And that was the best thing I would do. These ice baths. I'd put icy hot on it. Not icy hot. I'd put bio freeze on it. And I was just doing everything to make it better. And there was some days walking was so painful. But then again, I can completely forgot I had gout. I couldn't remember the name of it. This is like six months ago.

Joe (1:15:36)
Yeah, that's pretty common. As long

as it goes away within a few days is the main thing and anti-inflammatories normally help that. what I would do if I was you, I'd be like, okay, go and run the trails again, see if it comes back. Have the anti-inflammatories on hand just to be safe.

Eric (1:15:47)
I've actually purposely

avoided that trail.

Joe (1:15:51)
Go and do it again, because if it comes back, you're like, okay, there's something to do with the mechanics of the toe. When I do this trail, a certain segment with the way the toe is moving, maybe the joint's getting jammed into itself, it's getting a bit of sinusitis in there, something like that, that's causing it to come back. Because what will happen if we don't kind of figure out what it is, is you'll do other random stuff throughout your life that's not the trail, but you'll be like, it came back again.

Eric (1:15:56)
Okay.

Alright. I'm nervous.

Yeah.

Okay. I am nervous.

Erika (1:16:12)
Do you wear different

shoes when you do that side of the trail as opposed to when you run on the road?

Eric (1:16:16)
No. So, so for context, I run up this ski mountain all the time on the backside of the ski mountain is a paved road. And I run up that road, but one time I decided to then run down the ski trail and turn around and run back up the ski trail, which is like a gravel type road, but it was much steeper. Same climb, less distance, really steep. Like you're, you're,

Erika (1:16:36)
you

Joe (1:16:42)
Same shoes.

Eric (1:16:43)
You're running so slow your watch pauses because it thinks you're not moving. It was that.

Joe (1:16:48)
Yeah, so what I reckon is happening

with that Eric is if it's same shoes, just getting like a lot of this with the toes, the toes kind of staying in that dorsiflex position and it's irritating the joint into itself. If we're gonna do trails, we probably should change into more of a trail shoe, bit of a stiffer toe box that's built for that like mechanic of going up the hill.

Eric (1:16:54)
Yeah.

Okay.

Alright, and I do want some new DTF shoes, Erika. Yeah. Alright.

Joe (1:17:10)
Yeah, get some. Change shoes, see if that helps.

Erika (1:17:11)
you

DTF means in the perspective of shoes.

Eric (1:17:18)
DTF driveway to trail.

Joe (1:17:19)
She knows the other meaning though.

Erika (1:17:21)
driveway

to tra- wait no there's no F in that

Eric (1:17:25)
Yes.

Driveway to forest. Driveway to forest. Yes. Sorry. ⁓ which we have a lot here. Joe, I do apologize because we're way over the, not way over, but we're like all over the map. We're off the grid. We're off the tracks as we like to call it, but you do have a pretty big ultra marathon coming up. However, I think there might be a foot issue, right? What's going on?

Erika (1:17:33)
man.

Joe (1:17:54)
There is an ankle issue.

Yes. So I've got a, I'm still locked in. Well, I've still got the ticket for the 100K Ultra July 11th. But about five weeks ago, I rolled my ankle. Not on the trails, not an exciting story. Bit of an old man injury. I was putting my son in the car and as I turned to get his bag, I tripped on the gutter on the main street of this country town we were staying at and rolled my ankle. It was so embarrassing because I was at the front of cafe.

Eric (1:17:55)
you

Joe (1:18:19)
I was like in so much pain, couldn't walk. This guy came out of the cafe, pulled this deep heat out of his pocket, had like no lid on it, just crusty. was like, do you want this? I was like, mate, please just leave me alone. was like, give me a second. Got in the car, went home, like couldn't walk on it. It like blew up straight away. I was like, I've broken something here. Like it hurts. It calmed down over a few days. I could walk on it, but I hadn't been able to run for a little while. I ran last week, 45 minutes pain free out on the roads, which is the first time in five weeks, which was good.

But I missed kind of five really important weeks of that 100K training block where I should be running sort of five, six hour long runs at the moment and I'm running 45 minutes. So I just have missed that key part and it's about 10 weeks away. And even though in my mind, Erica, like you before, I think I can do it still, I can grid it out. My coach called me on the weekend. He was like, I think we should just do a smaller one that day and aim for 100K later in the year in October. And I was like,

Erika (1:18:58)
⁓ the build, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Joe (1:19:17)
I agree with you but I still think I can do it. And he was like, yeah, I know. But yeah, we're gonna reassess. I think we'll do a shorter one that day, either a 34 or 56, depending on how the training is going. And then aim for October to do the 100K, which is the smart thing to do.

Erika (1:19:21)
you

Mm-hmm.

Well,

I applaud you for doing the smart thing because then you are ensuring your longevity in the sport because you can just keep training. And I know it's going to suck and you want to be out there for the whole 100K, but this will be better for the long run, literally the long run.

Joe (1:19:38)
It's hard.

I agree,

I agree. And look, I tell my clients this, we have these conversations every day with people that are wanting to do things that are probably a bit out of reach at the moment because of injury. And being on the receiving end of that, I was like, ah, I forgot how this feels.

Eric (1:19:48)
Being

Erika (1:19:59)
Yep.

Eric (1:20:00)
Being a foot doctor or

a doctor down under, below the knee, when you roll your ankle, are you self diagnosing yourself? Are you self treating yourself? Or do you go see one of your, one of the people in pod fit? Yeah.

Erika (1:20:12)
Yeah, your colleagues.

Joe (1:20:14)
So

look, self diagnosed. So immediate reaction was freaked out. My wife was like, you need to just relax, you're okay. And I was like freaking out. like broken my ankle, it's hot, it's swollen, it's numb. It feels like TV static, I can't feel it. Not gonna be able to do my run, can't walk. She was like, you just need to have a breath, just relax, you're fine. And then after I calmed down from that, I was like, okay, I can kind of walk on it. It didn't have any night pains, like it's not broken. I can walk on it, so it's probably not broken.

but I've definitely done some ligament damage because it bruised, it swelled up all around the side. It hurt to sort of invert, even. I was like, okay, I've probably done ATFL here, maybe another ligament. So that's going to take, you know, eight to 12 weeks to sort of come good. I was like, cool, if I get to two weeks time and it's not feeling better, maybe not be able to run pain free, but not getting better. I'll go and get a scan done. We've got an ultrasound machine at work. I'll just run that over it start with. If I find anything, I'll go get a proper scan done at a place.

but it was getting better. So even though I couldn't run, I could like, you know, put more strength in it. I could walk a bit easier, shoes weren't hurting as much, all that kind of stuff. So was getting better. And then yeah, last week ran 45 minutes pain free and that felt pretty good, but you haven't done any trials yet. I've turned the corner. Just need to build the mileage back up. So ankle feels okay, but yeah, don't have the, don't have the random legs at the moment.

Erika (1:21:22)
There we go, you turned the corner. Good.

Yep. Well, two months to still get some quality miles in and you'll be able to hit your, let's call it your B goal instead of the 100K. You've got one of your other goals. So I believe in you. You got this.

Joe (1:21:44)
Me too, the beauty of the July event was that we're having a baby in August. And so was hoping to, yeah, we're having also second kid, we've got a two and a bit year old boy having a little girl, which is very exciting. But I was hoping to bang this out as like a run before the baby comes. Because my wife was like, better not sign up for any ultras when this baby's born. And I was like, yeah, I'm gonna do one just before, loophole. But then I was like, hey, I spoke to my coach and he said maybe October. She was like, okay.

Erika (1:21:49)
congratulations!

Eric (1:21:49)
Whoa!

Erika (1:21:55)
Aww.

Mm-hmm.

You

Eric (1:22:07)
Did all this training.

Erika (1:22:13)
Well, just know that if you do, you can break up your training runs and you're still getting time on feet, but you could always do like a morning run and then an evening run or a mid nap time run or something, but also help your wife.

Joe (1:22:14)
We'll see.

That'll be a bit all over the place, I reckon. Yes. Yeah.

Eric (1:22:28)
And something

Joe (1:22:29)
So.

Eric (1:22:29)
I tell my guy friends now is don't be just a grandstand parent. Lead by example. Show them that, you know, hey, old dad here can still do the cool things too, you know, and then lead by example and go coach and be part of their teams and be active and involved in the dad's the best.

Erika (1:22:47)
Sit in

a field for eight hours watching them play cricket.

Eric (1:22:51)
Yeah,

Joe (1:22:51)
No

cricket, no horses, they're the only ones in this house.

Eric (1:22:51)
yeah, well, I- ⁓

Yeah. So I have three kids and I will say I've been sad lately because we no longer watch Bluey and I absolutely love Bluey. It was such a good show. So I'm glad you're still watching with your kid right now. It's so fun.

Joe (1:23:09)
lot of blue. My son actually

woke up this morning when I went to his room to get him out of bed. He had the blue ears on. He like found them in his room, put them on.

Eric (1:23:14)
Now,

Erika (1:23:15)
that's adorable.

Eric (1:23:19)
love Louis' dad Bandit and Bandit does a ton for his kids. He's so good. and then you got the entire family. And what's funny is we do this podcast. I post all the reels, the clips. I really focus on Instagram quite a bit.

And I make, I take my boys to this Bluey's house. Like they had this thing at one of the malls. You get to go and it looks just like Bluey's house. You're in Bluey's house. You're, you're watching TV. You're in the kitchen. You're doing all the fun things. I make this funny little video. It blows up. It goes viral. Has like half a million views. Has all these people asking me, where is this? Where do you find this? How do you just, just by one video. And I'm like, of all the effort we put into this podcast.

Erika (1:23:53)
you

They just love Bluey.

Eric (1:24:04)
One little video of Bluey just blew up.

Just blew up. I'll send it to you too. It's a fun video. It's a fun video.

Joe (1:24:11)
That's the the plight of social media. I'm the same to you. I put a lot of time and effort into putting out content, running assessments, going on podcasts. I make a 13 second video on my phone like this saying I fucking hate sketches and it blows up. But I'm like, what is the point of like scheduling content if I can just do stuff like that?

Eric (1:24:27)
I Erica, just do stuff like that. I made some videos saying like I'm about to throw a microphone in Erica's face. And after three minutes, it had like over a thousand views. like, well, that worked.

Erika (1:24:27)
Maybe there's hope for me yet.

Fair enough. ⁓ that's great.

Joe (1:24:43)
People hate Erica. No, sorry, here's an angle. We're gonna keep, let's just pull this thread, see how far it goes.

Erika (1:24:45)
Apparently so.

Eric (1:24:49)
People

wanted to see more. They're like, yeah, they were like, it's going to happen, by the way. I have a plan.

Erika (1:24:50)
They're waiting on part two, whatever that's gonna be. ⁓

no.

I don't want to know.

Eric (1:25:00)
I think it's official. You're our official podcast foot doctor, but you're not off the hook yet. We have two final questions and then maybe more, but these two final questions are brought to you by our amazing sponsor, My Race Tats.

My question is this, Joe, I want to hear everyone's hot take for 2026. Do you have a hot take? be about feet, can be pineapple doesn't belong on pizza, hot take, serious or silly, for the podcast?

Joe (1:25:28)
So hot take for 2026. I think we're gonna see more runners moving away from carbon plate shoes. Now the elites will still wear them. If you're running say quicker than a 430 pace, you'll probably still wear them. But I think for most runners doing, you their first marathon, second marathon, more amateur novice runners, we're gonna see them move towards more super trainers. They're a lot cheaper, they're a lot more stable, get a lot more benefits, and then not going down that carbon plate path. I think that's what we see as time goes on. And I don't know if you guys saw as well, the Puma, they're the Nitrate 3s.

There might not be that, but a puma carbon plate is getting sued for the first time because it ruined that female runner's career. Have you guys seen that? She's claiming that the carbon plate, because the heel pitch is very different from back to front, it's caused her too many forefoot injuries and she's suing puma. Because she reckons it ruined her career. She was from the States, I reckon, the runner. But yeah, she's taking them to court. And so I think we'll see more of that kind of stuff where we don't know the full effects of carbon plates yet.

Erika (1:26:02)
No way.

No.

Eric (1:26:05)
No!

Erika (1:26:14)
my God.

Ugh.

Joe (1:26:27)
and how they're gonna help switch people with ongoing stresses and stuff like that, that spend a lot of time running, it's their full-time career, how that stuff will pan out. So I think that'll be really interesting. I think we'll see people moving away from carbon plates. Not completely, but I think a percentage of people will.

Erika (1:26:30)
Mm-hmm.

I like this for a hot take. ⁓ I had not heard that either. Did you find it?

Eric (1:26:43)
Yes. Puma

is currently facing a lawsuit filed in April of 2026 by US track star, Abby Steiner, alleging that the carbon plated infused foam shoe caused severe career ending foot injuries. The suit claims that the shoes were defective and unsafe, altering biomechanics and causing injuries leading to multiple surgeries. And it goes on and on and on.

Erika (1:27:00)
⁓

Holy shit!

Joe (1:27:07)
Yeah, it was interesting

Eric (1:27:11)
Nike's had a lawsuit

Joe (1:27:11)
when this shoe came out.

Eric (1:27:12)
too

Joe (1:27:13)
When this shoe came out, there was a guy here in Australia, he's pretty into the footwear space and carbon plate shoes. And I remember he wrote a blog on it. He was like, I don't think these shoes are safe based on these features. It'll be interesting to see how this kind of pans out in the next few years. And he reposted it. I was like, I forgot about that blog. Interesting, interesting.

Erika (1:27:29)
you

Eric (1:27:31)
So not only did so not only did ⁓ Abby sue Puma, she also sued Mercedes F1 team because they were involved in the design. And it's here, Erica. She did it in Massachusetts. In the Massachusetts Superior Court. She's local, Abby Steiner. We got to get Abby. Google right now.

Erika (1:27:31)
That's heavy shit.

Joe (1:27:41)
Yeah. Yep.

Yeah, which is weird.

Erika (1:27:46)
Wow.

A bastard?

Joe (1:27:50)
Get her on the podcast.

Erika (1:27:54)
Hold on, you said it was Abby Steiner. I'm looking this up. That's insane.

Eric (1:28:00)
This is news to us, man. Typically we have.

Erika (1:28:02)
I want to get her on the podcast. This is some tea.

Eric (1:28:05)
She's a sprinter. Typically we don't have sprinters. In fact, I think we've never had a sprinter on, but this is cool. Yeah, she's well, she's from Ohio, but. Wow. Great hot take. Not bad for not being prepared. Unbelievable. Yeah.

Erika (1:28:13)
Dope. I like it.

Joe (1:28:17)
Yeah, really interesting, really interesting.

We'll see how it pans out.

Erika (1:28:23)
All right, now on a less heavy note, ⁓ my question for all time, 2026 and earlier and later, and I will never change my question, don't ask me, Eric. Joe, we have a Spotify playlist and we like to invite our guests to add a song to it. So is there something out there that just pumps you up, gets you motivated that you would like to add to the playlist?

Eric (1:28:23)
Insane.

Joe (1:28:45)
Yes, I'm probably going to mess the playlist up, but there's definitely songs that pop me up that I think should go on there.

Erika (1:28:49)
you can't mess it up.

Eric (1:28:50)
Hey,

Erika (1:28:51)
It's got a whole plethora of stuff. There's no wrong answer.

Eric (1:28:51)
you all know it's on the playlist? Dance Mode is on the playlist.

Joe (1:28:54)
who's on the playlist.

Erika (1:28:57)
See, no wrong answers for this playlist.

Joe (1:28:59)
Yes, I've recently started listening to a US band, The Ghost Inside. They're bit of a heavy band. They've got a song called Move Me. I love that song when I run. It's like real run through a wall type song.

Erika (1:29:04)
huh.

Eric (1:29:08)
Awesome.

Erika (1:29:10)
Excellent.

Eric (1:29:11)
Awesome.

guys, this was wicked awesome. We talked a little bit about it all. We went from like foot talk to devil wears Prada to learning about Australia that it actually has States. never knew who knew.

Erika (1:29:22)
to Bluey.

Eric (1:29:23)
Not me, Bluey talk, ultra talk,

running marathons. This was a lot of fun. I never knew cricket was an eight hour game. God, I'm glad we don't have that here. It would not do well here. Long sports don't do well here. Yeah. But this was I want you to come back after like the big ultra or something and talk, tell us, talk more running, talk about the stories, maybe hallucinations, maybe amazing achievement, maybe.

Erika (1:29:35)
I don't think. We don't have the attention span. No, we don't.

Eric (1:29:51)
the worst of the Code Browns, who knows? Stay in touch with us, man. We'd love to have you back and talk more running. It would be wicked awesome, as we like to say here. Awesome, guys.

Erika (1:29:56)
Please.

Joe (1:30:00)
I would love that guys, have lot of fun, thank you so much.

Erika (1:30:03)
And thank you for

sharing all of your, all of your foot knowledge. And I just hope that this encourages people that if they are having issues with their feet, that, that there's hope that you can go seek out a professional like Joe. ⁓ if you're sadly outside of the area, it might have to find somebody else, but this, is hope to keep you running and keep you healthy and just keep you moving.

Joe (1:30:25)
Definitely, we're here to help.

Eric (1:30:27)
Yeah, guys. So go grab your plane ticket, get that Delta one seat, go out to the other side of the world, go see Joe for his basic foot care. ⁓ he'll give you a deal. Use code on the runs for 50 % off. If you make the trip to Australia, I'm just going to set it right now. But Joe, that was wicked. Awesome. Thank you so much guys. Joe Kane on the on the runs podcast.

Erika (1:30:43)
He's like, shit.

Joe (1:30:43)
Let's do it.

Thank you.

Erika (1:30:56)
Thank you so much, Joe. my God, we love you. You just fit the vibe of this podcast so much and you're so knowledgeable about your profession. if anybody needs anything, reach out to Joe. He'll either direct you to the right place or can give you a couple of tips.

Eric (1:31:10)
Yeah.

It's an easy flight to Australia. Easy flight, yeah. Right, so if anyone's going to Sydney for the marathon, take a little bit of extra time post-race, go to Adelaide, get your feet looked at so they're in good shape. I love that I learned about taping your feet and how you can tape it to help with planners, in my case. That was a lot of fun. So thank you to Joe, thank you to Don for my raised hats, that was awesome. This sponsorship Don has provided us has been great.

Erika (1:31:15)
mean, Adelaide too. Gotta go visit another part of the country.

Only four extra hours.

Mm, very useful.

Eric (1:31:42)
We just sent them an email the other day with some of the, cool statistics of, know, it's not just the downloads, the episode gets it's, know, you put the logo on the YouTube videos, you put the logo in the reels and how many unique views that logo gets. There's no way to like really judge an ROI, but you can look at all those unique views and how many times your logo has been seen. And we're just talking to Don about that this morning in an email.

And it was, was fantastic. So I am so happy that my race tats is the first official real sponsor of this podcast, bringing us these amazing guests for the spring. It's been amazing guys. Please go support my race tats. Check out Joe whenever you're in Australia. And I really hope Joe that you come to the Boston marathon soon to run and hang out with us because you're a good time, dude. You're a good time.

Erika (1:32:09)
Nice.

We'd

love to see you anytime.

Erika (1:32:36)
And thanks for rolling with the doctor down on your thing.

I don't think I've laughed that part in like the beginning of an episode. I think Neil was the last time it happened. So it's been a while. It was good. I'm crying.

Eric (1:32:45)
I, I already made the reel. Like, I already edited the episode. I already clipped the

reel. It will post. It's scheduled for like today when you're listening to post later today. It's not the teaser reel. It's just kind of like a funny one. Your reaction, both of you, like I loved it. If you watch on YouTube, if you watch the whole episode of YouTube, you know how sometimes the camera switches? It switches just to the two of you for your reaction when I go, the expert on everything down under.

Erika (1:32:55)
you

beautiful.

⁓ huh. Cackling.

Eric (1:33:16)
It goes away from me and just to the two of you, which is, that's the only time it goes split screen for you too, the two of you in the video, just because your reaction, you're crying, he's, and from that moment on though, Joe knew what he was getting into.

Erika (1:33:22)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We were not prepared for that comment at all.

Yeah.

It was the perfect icebreaker. I give you kudos because it was just so funny. I'm crying again over it. my God. ⁓

Eric (1:33:40)
You're crying right now.

We nearly, we did not have enough time. Like he can be our official foot doctor. Kind of like how Alex Larson is our official nutritionist. And we might have other nutritionists come on, but when you're the first, you're the official. So, I, yeah.

Erika (1:33:49)
Yeah!

Mm-hmm. That works for me. Can I just say, though, when you

posted that, hey, let's get 10,000 followers and then make Erica do whatever, Joe commented like, hey, go run the Boston Marathon in like this pair of shoes and shave your head. I'm like, please not that part. I don't like that. But Boston, OK, I'm on board.

Eric (1:34:07)
You

Well,

for the record, I don't think you have anything to worry about. We only have 24, 2500 followers.

Erika (1:34:25)
But hey, I

would run Coco Dona. Like, keep those suggestions coming. Let's go.

Eric (1:34:28)
Yeah.

I love, so let's talk about it. Everyone, like a trend has been, if you, if we have 10,000 followers or if we get a hundred thousand, we'll do whatever the most like common is. like this one group of guys from Canada did this, that like kickstarted it. And one person wrote, become an American citizen and listen to the U S Marine Corps for 20 years. And like even the Marines got in on it, like we're following. And it was the most like.

Erika (1:34:39)
Mm-hmm.

wow.

Eric (1:34:57)
And they, they even like emailed or called the U S and they're like, how do we become a citizen? They called the Marines. They pretended to fall through with this, right? These are hockey guys. think it was like if their team lost a game or whatever, and it's all for, you know, likes and engagement, but I'm looking at it now. Like, I love this. has, you know,

Erika (1:34:58)
no.

huh.

Good comments. Although, did you notice I could not like the Iron Man comment? I did not want to boost that one. I'm like, I don't want to do one.

Eric (1:35:23)
All right guys. So one person

wrote down, let's do an iron man. Everyone go like it. My favorite was actually, I forget who wrote it. I'm looking for it now. Somebody wrote down, run a marathon, but at every mile Kayla. So at mile one, do 26 pushups at mile two, do 25. So you work your way down. So you stop at every mile and do pushups. And I was like, that, that actually is an amazing.

Erika (1:35:26)
No, no.

I think that was Kayla. I think so. I could do that.

Yep.

could do that.

Eric (1:35:52)
Amazing idea.

Erika (1:35:53)
Although they'd have to be the girly push-ups because I really have very little upper body strength. I'm working on it, but not enough to do. That's math. I can't even math how many that'll end up being, so I'm not doing it. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Eric (1:36:00)
Keep working on it.

You'll have it, you'll need a cheat sheet. You'll need to get a cheat sheet.

Erika (1:36:10)
So, man, I don't know if you could notice, I have a little bit of a adjusted studio background now. bought a new spare bed. So whoever gets to be the guest in the spare bedroom now has a queen size bed. You're welcome. But that. Sure.

Eric (1:36:15)
Mm-hmm.

So let me, I'm gonna expand your screen here. I wanna see the whole

room.

Erika (1:36:27)
you're, you can only see this, so it's literally nothing.

Eric (1:36:32)
Okay,

yeah, we need some we need to do some work there. You have a plant. Where's your flamingo?

Erika (1:36:35)
Yep.

he's, he's still there. Where, where can you see? Yep. So, so I'll, can move that over a little bit more, but I need to put more pictures up because I have like this whole space to, to my right. And, man, it was such, so hard to try to clean out this room. I do have a lot of shit in here and now I don't have room to put all of like my storage bins and I have to do a lot of cleaning.

Eric (1:36:38)
⁓ there he is when you turn.

Yeah.

Erika (1:37:01)
A lot of reorganizing. I want a new desk. It was such a pain in the ass this weekend, but this is what we're looking at.

Eric (1:37:07)
I love the corner. I

do think we need to fill that spot to your right. Do we put it up in the air? Like maybe do you take a couple of pictures of your posters and say like what poster goes here? Have everyone vote. And it could be a rotating cycle. Because what's the one behind you that says 40?

Erika (1:37:12)
Mm-hmm.

Mm, I could do that. Yep.

That is my Chicago Marathon 40th anniversary poster. So I have a few more Chicago ones. I actually have a loopy looper poster that's a little bit smaller that can go on the wall. I have a New York City poster that I could put on the wall. It's like kind of a, well, Flying Pig is still on the door, so I could move that one. Yep. So I, and then I have to put like my on air sign back up. have, I have a lot of work to do. ⁓

Eric (1:37:30)
Okay.

Mm-hmm. Flying pig.

Okay.

You know what I like about this though? The corner

of your screen is clean because I can put our logo there and it's not blended out by those lights. Finally, finally you have like Christmas lights. It's like the icicle ones, the silver icicle ones. Yeah. I like the studio change. I honestly, like I know I don't have the soundboard so I can't do the, but I so prefer like sitting on the couch and doing this in the living room.

Erika (1:37:56)
Mmm.

perfect because those are still there.

I love them. Yeah, I do like those. I'll be hard pressed to move those.

Mm-hmm. Yep. Well, I like having my little space, but yeah, I do need an expanded desk now because I have my desktop computer set up next to it and it's all very cramped. Plus, this desk that I'm sitting at, it's got like, Brandon built it. He built it like 15 years ago, I don't know. It's kind of encased and it's blocking the window right now, so there's not a whole lot of light coming in and I just needed a little bit more change.

Eric (1:38:21)
I love this, so.

Erika (1:38:49)
This is not going to be the final product, but we'll see what it turns out like.

Eric (1:38:51)
It's always

a moving, I'm still trying to figure mine out. You've crushed it and you're already beating me again. I do think I'm gonna frame our show notes from some big guest or like the Boston post. Have you gone back and listened to our Boston episode? I keep thinking of things that I, in my head I'm like, we forgot to talk about this and forgot to talk about that. And we did an hour and 45 minute episode on it.

Erika (1:39:02)
Yeah.

you

Eric (1:39:17)
But I'm going to

take like the Boston Marathon made a post that said like fan fest and the mild 27 party and they collabed with us. Like they collabed with us. Holy cow. And I want to take that. want to print it like letter size 11 by eight and a half or whatever and frame it in the wall behind me in, my room where I record typically that has right now my fat head and Hannah's fat head. I want to put those on it. Like how these picture frames are on the wall here above my head. And I need to actually.

Erika (1:39:24)
Mmm.

Yeah.

you

Yeah.

Eric (1:39:47)
like mount the on the runs poster because it's actually not mounted to the wall it just leans on the desk.

Erika (1:39:52)
Yep. So now that's

all you guys are going to see in my frame is the on the runs one because my Boston one is still on the other wall. So I just shifted over a few feet, but now I don't get to see, my Boston stuff. It's all on the runs. Got to get used to change.

Eric (1:40:04)
Yeah. Change. Change. like, yeah.

Well, I'm finally used to it being nice out because I might, I don't think I'm going to, but I might go skiing this weekend. Jay Peak. They have one trail. They have one trail top to bottom on the smaller mountain and it's the last, they announced it's their last weekend and I still have more days left on my Jay Pass because they're like sister mountains with the mountain I go to all the time.

Erika (1:40:18)
Where? Vermont, think that's the only place left.

Eric (1:40:33)
But yesterday, Mother's Day, I did go to my parents' house in the evening. My parents came here. My dad helped me load the snowblower on the truck because I leave it in his shed during the winter or the summer. Right. So I went there and I actually dropped off my skis and all that stuff too. Listen, I have like a small house as well. And sometimes it's just easier to bring them to my parents' house.

Erika (1:40:48)
nice.

Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:41:02)
then to store them in our basement because I even built something to store them in the basement. But then that gets overtaken by something else like a new kid's bike or something. I'm just like, Hey, can I take my ski boots and my skis and Adelines and the boys and just put them all in their basement, which has so much room for all that stuff. And then I kind of do it in the fall. I go, get the skis. I bring all our summer stuff there. Thank you for the free storage, mom and dad.

Erika (1:41:08)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

you

Eric (1:41:29)
But I was thinking about going skiing because I could go in a t-shirt on May 16th. No. But it's also a wicked far drive.

Erika (1:41:34)
mean, that does not suck. That sounds awesome. If I were to ski, that's

how I'd want to do it. What is it, four hours?

Eric (1:41:43)
And gas is insane. No, it's three hours, but it would be... Well, if I took the van, it'd be less than one gas tank. If I took my truck, it's two gas tanks. Isn't that bad? Yeah, yeah, round trip, round trip, round trip. I could take the van. I mean, it gets like 40 miles per gallon on the highway. It's insane. It's incredible. Yeah. Honey, take the truck all weekend. I'm going and ski in...

Erika (1:41:54)
Two gas tanks. Is that round trip? That better be round trip. Okay, good. Yeah. Holy shit.

Why not, man? These are tough times, so.

Eric (1:42:12)
in May.

Erika (1:42:14)
Hey, take advantage of it while you can, because it is getting hot. It's going to get hot.

Eric (1:42:16)
I don't think I'll go, but

I know I can't wait though. I'm so excited. Like been running, like who does a 5k cool down after a CrossFit workout.

Erika (1:42:21)
I can't wait.

Good for you. Who is this guy? Who are you?

Eric (1:42:29)
Who is this guy?

And my 5K at the happy hour hustle. I guess I would have to go back and look what I ran at the 5K last year that I did with Tara, but this was.

Erika (1:42:37)
Mm-hmm. I want to see

how you guys improve. Like, let's get the... We could all have a most improved award, too. Maybe that'll be you if she wins three out of the five.

Eric (1:42:47)
Well, I don't, I don't

need a trophy. Just bragging rights. ⁓ I do kind of like, want to make all five where I can gauge improvement. I'm not worried about time. Like I'm not, I'm not trying to be Q, but it would be, I got to take care of a couple of things. I gotta, you know, maybe do a little more speed work. I got to make sure I beat Tara. I need to get rid of the tank. I carry around with me every day.

Erika (1:43:00)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Eric (1:43:16)
I am working out. I'm running. don't know. Like, why is this tank here? I've limited my soda consumption, like by a lot. I carry around a tank with me right here in the midsection. So it's not that bad. I think it's worse than what others probably do, but.

Erika (1:43:33)
Do you want to do some speed with me? I do speed every Wednesday.

Eric (1:43:37)
Wednesday Speed Day. What are you doing this? What am I doing this Wednesday? Let's do speed work. Yes, I am. I am.

Erika (1:43:41)
What I assume you're doing recycled fit, but in the afternoon, because I am an afternoon

runner. You know me.

Eric (1:43:49)
I'll figure, yeah, I can figure this out. Speed, Speedwork Wednesday.

Erika (1:43:53)
I will offline

send you what I have to do on Wednesday. I mean, I do have seven miles worth of it though, but you could always skimp on the warmup or something.

Eric (1:43:58)
Who wants to do speed work with us guys Wednesday?

but I'm feeling good where I can run after a workout. I am. Hey, can I bring up one thing actually? I've been meaning to bring this up for a while, and he's gonna love that I bring this up. Patrick Lieber got me to join his NASCAR Fantasy League, which honestly you could join and know nothing about NASCAR and do really well.

Erika (1:44:08)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:44:27)
I have some opinions. So, so speaking of trophies, they have this league they've been doing for 20 years and they do pass around a trophy like the Stanley cup. When you win the league, you get the trophy. This costs no money. There's very minimal rules, but I am so far behind in the points because I keep trying to be. You strategy to catch up.

But the problem is you can continue, you can just continue to pick the best driver and there's no limit on how often you can use them. And everyone's picking the same guy. And I'm like, how can I ever catch up if I don't have the same guy? I need to be a different guy. And we're 11 races in and I'm like 200 points behind. so there's this group chat. That's like two races, but there's this group chat that I'm in with all of them. And it's just funny because everyone wrecked a couple of weeks ago.

Erika (1:45:04)
Mm-hmm.

wow. It's not your year,

Eric (1:45:20)
including me and I go, they have this one thing called the field choice. So can pick the field and you get the highest ranked driver who no one picked. And my, my comment was next time, next year, rule change. If you pick the field and over half the field, Rex, you get last place points. And I told, yes.

Erika (1:45:38)
I love how you come in here though as like

the outsider and you're like, let me tell you how we can improve.

Eric (1:45:43)
Well, you know what

else I said? I said, let me tell you, we need to change this where you can only pick the same driver three times in the whole season. So you have to be really picky about when you use that guy, because all what everyone's doing is they're looking at who qualified well and who ran fast in practice. And then they all pick like last week.

Erika (1:45:48)
Mm-hmm.

you

Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:46:06)
The best driver was this guy named Shane Van Gisburg and that was a really hard name for everyone in NASCAR to say when he came out. He's from New Zealand speaking of a from over that way. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine out of like 20 people picks Shane Van Gisburg. Again, I can't say SVG is actually what they call them. How can you catch up when everyone's picking the same guy? So.

Erika (1:46:12)
down under.

Mm-hmm. Okay.

you

Eric (1:46:34)
I am doing so bad in points and Patrick is in first place right now so I'm a little

Erika (1:46:41)
I see how it is.

Eric (1:46:44)
Patrick has 602 points, I have 401. I am behind Patrick by 199 points. No, hundred, 201.

Erika (1:46:52)
How many

more races are there? Like, I know you might not be able to catch up, but how much wiggle room is left?

Eric (1:46:59)
Oh, there's, there's, uh, so there are

11 or 12 races into the year. There's 36. So there's a lot I could catch up. But again, yeah, I was like, guys, we need to add some money to this. We need to make it like a little harder on who you pick. Cause I joined this league. It's really funny. It's really funny. Patrick introduced me to the group. These are all Ohio people, mostly all his buddies. And I go.

Erika (1:47:04)
⁓

Mm-hmm. Sure.

Eric (1:47:24)
I know nothing about NASCAR. swear to God, guys, I'm a new guy, new fan. love this. Like, this is cool. Thanks for letting me in. Oh, and then here's a picture of me when I worked in NASCAR. I know nothing. And then I picked the guy in the Daytona 500 who started dead last and with two laps ago he was leading and Patrick was like, holy cow. And I was like, I swear I know nothing. Then a couple of weeks ago, again, I picked a guy who I knew was going to be really good. I was the only one who picked him, Brad Keselowski.

Erika (1:47:31)
Ha ha ha ha ha.

Wow.

Eric (1:47:55)
And he won stage one, he won stage two, and he was leading the final stage all the way to four or five laps to go and got passed by the guy that everyone picked.

Erika (1:48:05)
⁓ figures.

Eric (1:48:06)
I'm just like, okay. And that was Patrick Pick too, so Patrick beat me. So I might be in like a heated battle with a few people, Tara Teradactyl, Patrick Lieber, not you right now, you and I are on great terms.

Erika (1:48:13)
⁓

not me! I'm so

excited about that.

Eric (1:48:25)
You should do some content though, because you need to pump the tires. We didn't even email them. ⁓ Gothstown Gallup. We must be too late to get our logo on the t-shirt.

Erika (1:48:37)
feel like we're not. I feel like we're not.

Eric (1:48:39)
Maybe maybe right it is May 11th

the Gaustown Gallup Erica pump the tires. Let's free ad here for Dave

Erika (1:48:47)
Yay.

The Goffstown Gallup, my most favorite road race is coming up on June 27th at 830 in the morning at the Goffstown Parks and Rec Department. And you guys need to come hang out with me on my birthday. I would love to see you. It's always so much fun. There's only one hill. It's a big one, but it's only one hill and it's so much fun. So come hang out with us that day. It's going to be a blast. Hope for nice weather.

Eric (1:49:09)
big.

It will be.

It is. Did you fail to mention it's your birthday?

Erika (1:49:16)
All that good stuff.

I did not fail to mention that. I'm pretty sure I said that. Come hang out with me on my birthday.

Eric (1:49:22)
you... When the host isn't listening. What? baby, you failed

to mention what birthday.

Erika (1:49:30)
Okay, it is my big four-O. So come hang out and make me not feel bad about getting older.

Eric (1:49:36)
You know, and since Patrick

Lever didn't make it to Boston, and if he wants to fix this little relationship we have, because he's leading the points and I'm mad, maybe he can come to the Gothstown Gallup. Are your other friends coming?

Erika (1:49:42)
Patrick, I have a queen-size bed.

boy. There we go.

My other friends, who are my other friends?

Eric (1:49:53)
your other

friends, the friends who invite you to trivia night and not me.

Erika (1:49:58)
⁓ so if we're talking Danielle, she's actually doing, I think the white lake ultra that's a millennium race, not ultra white lake triathlon. Yeah. So she might come by after, but.

Eric (1:50:05)
Triathlon because well, usually she

shows up and in Shauna shows up and a few others who. Okay. All right. Cool.

Erika (1:50:10)
Mm-hmm. I think we got Shana on board. So we'll see. But Danielle's

got prior plans. This is the last, I think the last try that she's going to do, though.

Eric (1:50:17)
⁓ Danielle.

I actually posted my triathlon bike for sale on Facebook Marketplace yesterday. I don't ride it anymore and I want to get a bike that I want to ride. I'm not doing a triathlon anytime soon. I'm not. So I want to get a bike that I'll ride with the kids and I'm not going to be out on my triathlon bike on the rail trail with my kids going 2.3 miles per hour. Nah, maybe not 2.3, maybe 6.7. Six, seven.

Erika (1:50:25)
⁓ end of an era. Yeah.

There you go.

Mm-hmm.

True.

God. Hey, speaking of tries though, did you see who's doing your favorite Iron Man Mount Tremblant coming up soon?

Eric (1:50:58)
Did say Melchor Blount has an Iron Man again?

Erika (1:51:01)
I thought so. I thought I saw that Matt Wilpers is doing it. I can look this up.

Eric (1:51:07)
⁓ I thought they don't have an iron they might still have the 70.3 Matt's doing it

Erika (1:51:12)
Well, that's what I

think that is. So half Iron Man then. Matt Wappers.

Eric (1:51:15)
Yes, yes, yes, we'll

have to get Matt. That's an amazing course. I love that place. But we got to go because our lunch break is almost over. Erica, take us home.

Erika (1:51:20)
Mm.

My day is just starting.

Once again, we have to say thank you to My Race Tats for sponsoring our guest segment. You're so awesome, Dawn. Thank you for everything you do. Thank you all for listening. You know we love you.

Eric (1:51:38)
Don't fear the code brown.

Erika (1:51:41)
And don't forget to stretch.

Eric (1:51:47)
right.

Joe (1:52:36)
I like you guys. Are you sure you're not 10 % Australian? You might be.

Eric (1:52:37)
Alright, I like you too, Joe.

Erika (1:52:38)
You

Eric (1:52:41)
I might be. I might be. But I'm not going to try because I'll just make it sound awful.

Erika (1:52:42)
⁓ I need to do the ancestry thing.