Cheeky Run Club

Mental Load (eyyyy ohhhhhh)

• Anna Coldham

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Hello and good morning, friends!

 Life can get busy juggling work, friends, family, running, etc… and the mental load can lead to a lot of fatigue. This week, we’re discussing how that fatigue impacts your ability to perform, and some tips on how to manage it.

 We also have a very special addition of the rundown this week – spoiler alert, it’s about ourselves! We were interviewed for an AFR article, and let’s just say the final piece wasn’t quite what we expected.

 And of course, we’d love to see you all at our shakeout run with Lululemon at the Melbourne Marathon … you can register down below! 

LINKS:

-   Sign up for our Melbourne Marathon Shakeout Run with Lululemon here!

-   Check out our latest Substack, ‘The ‘good enough’ marathon diaries’.

-   Grab a Cheeky jumper for yourself here!

-   Read our article in the Australian Financial Review… if you want.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts + Instagram, TikTok, Substack, Phoebe's Strava + Anna's Strava, and join our Strava community 🩵

Music produced by Hugh Raper & logo design by Michael Cotellessa. Podcast edited by Kiara Martin.

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Cheeky Run Club recognizes that every day we live, work, and run on Aboriginal land.

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This episode is sponsored by Lululemon supporting cheeky runners every step of the way.

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Welcome to Cheeky Run Club, Welcome to Cheeky Run Club, the social running podcast, and community for your everyday amateur runner. Hello,

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Hello, Emma.

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and hello, listeners.

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we are talking about mental load and the impact that has on our training and performance. Then in the rundown where we unpack the latest in the running news. We are talking about our own recent feature in the A FR, and diving a little deeper into the idea that running influencers are taking money away from athletes.

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but before we do all that, let's kick it off with our notable runs of the week. Phoebe, give me your worst.

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My worst was, well, when we recorded last week. I think in my heart of hearts, I still hoped that I would be racing on the weekend.

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I think you did

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I think you did. And after the pod. Yeah. You know I did because after the podcast you sat me down for, for a big chat. An

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had an intervention. Yeah.

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Yeah. and it needed to be hard. but I was really sick and I was getting sicker and I was sort of in denial because I'd already been sick for a while, so I was like, it just, it can't get

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worse. Yeah. You're sick of being sick. You are like, I've done my time. I

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like, I've like I've, I had the sickness and now I'm get, and now I get better. That's what happens. But actually what happened was I was getting a sinus infection, which is, as I learned, what can happen when you have a viral infection in your sinuses and then it sort of sets in to some of the tissue around your sinuses and becomes bacterial. So it becomes a little bit more intense, which is what I experience.

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of it. Nice.

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Thank you. You think chat gt for that one? but yes, I did say GP and got some Antibiotics the next day, because it was a lot worse on Saturday and honestly, yes, I didn't run on Sunday, which, so that's my worst running role related activity of the week is not

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running. It's a non run. Yeah, because

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I'm so. Sad

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Mm. I know. You were really looking forward to it. I could tell. Which is why I felt like a mean person being

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no. Oh my god. Can you imagine? If I tried to run it would've been awful. Yeah.

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Yeah. But I also think in a sense, the, you feeling worse on the Saturday kind of saved you because I don't know if, yeah. Only. My talking to would've actually done it. I feel like you were, I feel like when we left you were still like,

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made. I was confident that I'd

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felt worse. Well,

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as we agreed that I had to be feeling a lot better the next day.

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I think the words were a hundred percent.

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yours,

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Um,

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um,

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which

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I definitely woke up and I was straight away like, oh God, like I was actually in a lot of pain and honestly. That sinus infection. Like today's the first day that I'm not constantly en throbbing. Yeah. It was so

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Yeah, they're pretty awful. Like shooting,

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such awful

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in your cheek,

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Yeah, in my cheek, in my face. It was just awful. And yeah, I did go for like an easy run on Sunday instead. and I, I did 10 K and the whole thing, I was just like. I think in my head if I could get a 10 K in and a good 10 K, which I feel like I have in me, it would take the pressure off the marathon weekend a bit more.'cause

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And also be a bit of a confidence booster

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Yeah. Yes, because yeah, God, it's not been a good month. Anyway. That's my worst. What is yours?

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Mine was,

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that.

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I can't You win. mine was also welcome to the worst Run, being a non run. Happy to have you here.

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Happy, not happy to be here.

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Um, mine was a spin class that I did on Tuesday night, not because of the spin, the spin class itself was completely fine. Yeah. I was just, we actually had a meeting earlier and then I just said I wasn't sure if I was gonna go. Yeah. I just I was tired and I had a tummy ache and it just wasn't that enjoyable. but that's all right. I felt, like, I was happy that I did it.

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Are you still, in retrospect, you are, you like, oh, I really should have just rested or you're like,

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No, no, no. It was fine. Like it's not as, I was like pushy. It was more just which we will actually get into. It was more just, I think I was just like mentally fatigued.

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Wow.

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What a great segue.

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Hang on.

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Pity that we have to do our best runs now. what is your best run of the week?

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My best run is, I think. I'll say. This morning was my best run. so it's a Thursday today and I was doing a session this morning. I have been feeling a lot better from the sinus infection, but my heart rate's still super high when I run, 20 beats a minute higher. Yeah. and so I knew in my session this morning I was like, I'm just gonna run to heart rate. Yeah. And I'm not gonna worry about what the pace is, which. Was, confronting, but I stuck with it. Right. Um, but I ran with my friend Ton and God, if that wasn't the best example of how running with a friend can turn a run, that if I was so in there run by myself, there's no way I would've

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Yeah.

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so not upset with myself afterwards, but So like down and out,

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Yeah. Yeah.

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And instead It just makes, it puts everything into tech. I'm like, it's fine. I'm running with my friend. Yeah. But having hi out fun. He's had heaps of sicknesses recently'cause he has a young child in daycare and so he was just happy to be running. Yeah. And it was actually a great morning. It was really, really nice. So I'll take, that's my

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best. Mm.

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What about you? I can

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I can appreciate when your heart rate is higher than you thought

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Yes,

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would be, because that has been me on every single. run. my best run was on Saturday, Ted, Dave, and myself. Yeah. Guys been

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You guys have been doing some family

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I know we went for, so, this, this whole, rehab running with the, walk runs. Dave is really enjoying, he's not like super keen runner, so he loves getting a bit of a walk.

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likes the walk run. So he's been joining

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he's been joining, which he like, he wouldn't normally join in this much, but I, I really think the rehab runs have got him.

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don't think he feels sorry for you and he is keeping your company.

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Maybe I'll say that.

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a bit of that. He's like, why

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We'll never know. but yeah, we, it was really, it was so strange. It was a really, really nice morning on Saturday morning in Melbourne, like super sunny, quite early on we went for a run. I was like, this is amazing. It's Saturday morning, people are out outrunning. I

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out running.

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I love life. it was just, yeah, it was like, and Ted was really well behaved. Sometimes it kind of, you know, he's, Yeah, he's a bit unpredictable

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Mm. Yeah.

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likes to trip you over accidentally obviously, but just kind of just stops in front of you. But he was a good boy yeah, and then it was kind of strange'cause then it got I literally went out 20 minutes later and got into my car and it was raining and all of a sudden it was absolutely freezing. So I feel like we made the most of the best part of the

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day. It was classic Melbourne weather. Well, welcome to your best round of the week being a run, because that's a few weeks in a row

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you. I

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How is the hip feeling?

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It's a feeling there. I was thinking of what the graph would be like, because I feel like each day it's a bit up and down, which I said last week, you know, it's not. a hundred percent better. But the like trajectory of

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it. The trend is good.

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trend is really good. Like it doesn't really phase me that much running. It's more, after, for instance, I went for a run today, or walk run this morning. And then when I'm at work, then when I'm sitting down for a while and I get up, it just feels quite stiff and creaky in a sense. Yeah. But it's not actually it's not sore while I'm running.

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and it's not constantly uncomfortable

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No, no, no. Yeah. I can't feel it right now, which I was I was just always feeling it. So yes.

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what do you have to say to anyone who's listening, who's on. Never ending. This might be premature, but the on the never ending like injury, dunno when it's gonna end. Mm-hmm. And now you are kind of coming up the back, like, do you have any like, words of encouragement?

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I would say, oh, words of encouragement or just keep going. I, I like, I would say, trust your gut in the sense that I felt like for a little while I wasn't really getting the most out of my, like, physio sessions and stuff. So then I got another opinion and I feel like that's kind of when Yeah, it turns. So I feel like you kind of gotta trust yourself if you don't feel like whatever you're doing is, achieving not even just achieving, but more if, if, if you feel like maybe it's a bit off and you're like, I'm just not quite sure if I'm doing the right things. Yeah. Then go and see someone else.

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Great advice. Thanks. No worries.

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Shall we get into it?

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Well, I think before we do, we have been talking about the Lululemon Shakeout run for a few weeks now. So we thought this week we would give you three great reasons why you should come. Number one, Anna.

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one, it is going to be the best shakeout run of the whole Melbourne Marrow. Weekends. Yeah. Phoebe, number two.

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number two Lululemon will be providing food and coffee and vibes afterwards, but we have just decided we will also be bringing something, we will be bringing some mystery freebies

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Woo, that

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if that's doesn't sound exciting, then I don't know what is

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number We'll be there. Are we not? Are we doing that one? We'll be there.

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we'll be there. We'll be there.

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Woo. And that's it.

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perfect.

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Full stop. we'll put the link to the registration form in our show notes and we'll also put it in our Instagram. We'll make a story as well, this week to just see if you haven't registered, please do so. It is super important, just so we know numbers and everything. come on, come on. Doesn't matter if you're running or not running.

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Yeah. Spots are limited, but to 400. Yeah. And golly, God, I would love nothing more than to see 400 people rock up to this shakeup run. That would be, how fun would that

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would be so

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Yay. Get around it.

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Wait, I'm just gonna go to the loo.

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oh yeah, go for it. Sorry. Number two. okay, so the main topic for today, as we alluded to at the start, is we're gonna be talking about how mental fatigue affects physical performance. Mm-hmm. We have talked a fair bit in the past about how listening to your body's really important, like understanding if your body's tired, but this is almost the importance of listening to your brain and understanding if your brain is tired.

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Mm. Yeah. It's sort of one of those things that I feel like isn't, we're so focused on our body being able to, you know, run, recover and whatnot, but we kind of forget that we're also people are also dealing with doing a million other things. Yeah. That is tiring for their brain. They're working. you're looking after kids. Yeah. You're studying, you have jobs around the house. Yeah. God forbid.

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Oh, yeah. Got a bit. Yeah. Well, one of the reasons we wanted to talk about it is because we have both, well, I'll definitely say I have been feeling. this a lot that this has been impacting. I mean, I've spoken about how it, it just impacts your motivation and I think two things, one in a marathon block, it feels more acute, but two for everyone this time of year, I don't know. It does feel like this time of year is when it, it, things feel a little bit harder and it's almost like you're almost on the home stretch, but you're not really, you kind of got another 150 meters Exactly. 150 meters to go and. I do think that people, I anticipate that our listeners are probably feeling a little bit more cognitive fatigue than they might otherwise be. So, Anna, kick us off. What is mental or cognitive fatigue?

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Okay, so to put it simply prolonged cognitive activity, which includes decision making, concentration, stress, emails, et cetera, that drains your willpower and attention. and then therefore changes your brain chemistry. So it's not actually just being tired, it's actually measurable reduction in performance, li brain exertion. I feel like the best way. To put it, I know that, that we're gonna get into it, but it's like, you know, you're having, you've had a really busy day at work, blah, blah, blah, and then you get home. Even though you're not physically exhausted, you almost just need, you almost need to be like a bit of a, you kind of like a bit of a

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Yeah.

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Yeah. Like, just for a second. I don't wanna look at my phone. I don't wanna look at tv. Yeah, like I just need to just. chill. Yeah.

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Yeah. We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll actually talk through some of the research because it is really interesting and I feel like for us reading the research is probably what helped us understand this because it's quite a complex. Effect, I would say. do you wanna talk about the first one we came across? Yeah.

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So it was from the University of Kent in 2009. from Kora Al,

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All.

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I'm not sure.

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think we need to say that? I

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I feel like it's good to give people,

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they might wanna,

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if someone was reading out something from a study that I had done, I would want them to be like, Yeah.

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Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. Well done macra,

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would've put decades of work into this probably. And you don't even wanna read their name.

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such a researcher,

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a researcher.

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you wanna honor the researcher.

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so this study, people did a cycling test and half of the cohort did a 90 minutes of stroop test beforehand, which is like a color word matching.

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that before? No. Have you? It's like, it's so hard. It's like where it'll be the letters blue, but the color will be green

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Oh.

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and you have to say green, and it's like you constantly have to stop yourself

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Yeah. Yeah. So you like really have to think.

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like genuinely so

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exhausting In what context did you do it?

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Uh, well.'cause I studied psychology

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Oh

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uni. You always had to do like psych tests and

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Yeah. I thought it was like, some weird like job interview and I was like,

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Not a job, I imagine.

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Um, anyway, so the participants, as I said, half did the stroop test. For 90 minutes, which is huge. And then the half of the half didn't. And then they, both groups completed a cycling test. the group that did the stroop test were obviously mentally fatigued. They, well, one, their power output was actually lower even though their muscles were just as capable as others. They hadn't actually done any physical exesion and they also gave up earlier. As well as that their perceived effort, for the cycling test went up faster. So their brains felt it was harder earlier on. Yeah. Than the people who hadn't done the test beforehand.

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We'll come back to that idea of perceived effort because that's gonna come up. We'll actually dive into that a little bit more in a second. It's very interesting. the second one is a meta-analysis from Smith. Happy

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Smith

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Etal.

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Yeah.

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that how you say it? Et al

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Al? I actually have never really read it out,

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to me. I always just read it.

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just read it.

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Do you say a all in your head? What did

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this is embarrassing. It's an insight into my brain. When I'm at work reading papers, I go to say it's like Smith al, like you said. I go Smith. Oh my God, I just ignored it.

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you. Do not.

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just do. I feel like it just makes it a bit more fun.

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Oh my God, I so expecting you.

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because it kind of looks, I don't know. You can imagine it being like, uh oh.

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Oh my God.

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Oh my God.

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This is so funny. Anyway, and for people who don't know, Anna works in infectious disease research, which means she's researching things. All the time in, in my head. You research things all the time.

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I'm just constantly

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just researching things.

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uh,

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that is, oh, I don't even remember what I was saying. Okay, so the result of this meta-analysis, or their finding was basically. And this is just a little bit of a nuance to this mental fatigue effect, is that it decreases endurance performance. So it's relevant for longer periods of effort, but not short sprints or strength. So that's because endurance relies really heavily on motivation as anyone who has run a long run will know and pacing, which are both brain driven, which I find a really interesting concept because. Yeah. Again, we, and in this episode, but also in the running zeitgeist, there's a lot of focus on the physical mechanisms and how to, you know, get as fit as possible, but not as, like, how do you get as motivated as possible? Yeah. Which is actually what is determining a lot of this performance.

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do you think on a, on a personal level, if you go to the gym or something after work, do you, I never really, I mean, the motivation to get to the gym's hard. Yeah. But then once I'm there doing the exercises, I never find it tiring. So I actually kind of, I feel like, yeah.

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yeah, that

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is I, I mean, it's obviously meta analysis, but I I agree with it. Yeah.

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Yeah. I agree with them.

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Correct,

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correct findings. It's true. and I know that some people run after work all the time and love it, which I do think, I guess if you, it's a habit, then that becomes, that's a whole different thing. But the difference in effort for me running after work. Compared to before work compared to if I went to the gym before or after work where it feels the same. Yeah,

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yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. and then, so third, we just wanted to touch on in your Headspace and also in a work common test. So papers on ego depletion and decision fatigue show similar mechanisms. So. kind of like what I was saying before, like willpower is finite. it's not unlimited. which is why maybe after a long day zoom calls or you're seeing a lot of patients, your tempo run probably feels like a sprint rather than, it actually being like quite comfortable.

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And as we know with humans, like you don't just clean slate each day either. Like you wake up each day, sort of, you do kind of carry over fatigue from days before, particularly if you are on the more exhausted side. so yeah, I think that ego depletion will actually talk a little bit more about that concept of willpower in a moment as well. before we do, we wanted to dive a little bit more into some of the

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che

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Che neurochemistry that sits behind this because this is also really interesting. And to do that we wanted to talk about adenosine, which, what is adenosine?

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it's a neurotransmitter, which is a chemical messenger in your brain, and essentially it's a byproduct of brain cells working hard. So if you think about it like a car. You know, when the car is running, then the exhaust pipe, you know, there's like smoke coming out of it kind of thing. So in, in a sense that, smoke is like the byproduct. Yeah. The adenosine is a byproduct of your brain working hard. So the more active your brain is, the more adenosine builds up, so the reason why it matters is that high levels of adenosine, act like a bit of a break in a sense. So, it's actually a. A protective Mechanism more than anything else. So we perceive it as tiredness, low motivation, or reduced focus. But it's actually your brain's way of telling you like, you need to rest. There's too much adenosine buildup. Yeah. We need to have a snooze and lower that because the only way that adenosine levels of it come down is by resting. Yeah. So

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sleeping.

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By sleeping, yeah. Yeah. So like something like caffeine, for instance, that can block the transmitter. So it, makes it seem like you are more alert, but the adenosine levels are still just as high.

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Is it bad that as soon as I read this research on that's the mechanism of caffeine is that blocks adenosine receptors? I'm like, I need to get me some like caffeine tablets pre-race.

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or something, you know? yeah.

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'cause I know that I've heard that it can be a performance enhancer, but now that I understand Oh yeah. Because basically to, to understand why this is important to talk to the study we were talking about before, when the participants had mental fatigue so that was basically they're doing the stroop test, essentially it's buildup of adenosine in their brain.

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Mm-hmm. And then

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the impact of that to break it down for running, is that an, an endurance performance, I should say? Not necessarily just running is that, this is where this concept of, perceived exertion comes in. Mm-hmm. Which in science, they call it RPE. I don't know why that is.

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It's the rate of

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of rate of perceived exertion.

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So because, it's like a measurement.

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Yeah. and that basically is this mechanism in our brain, which it's constantly monitoring effort, energy, reserves risk, and our brain uses that perceived exertion to regulate pace. So it basically uses this rate to be like, what is sustainable for me right now? Mm-hmm. Which is funny, even when I think about the session this morning, there's a part of my brain at every moment. Quite consciously being like, oh, that's too hard. Okay, this feels okay.

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Mm-hmm. Like, tell Yeah. Yeah. The

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that your brain sort of tells itself and

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alarm bells. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Unsustainable.

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Unsustainable, no good. And so all this is saying is that when you are mentally fatigued, that adenosine makes your brain more sensitive to effort. So a pace that might normally feel like, say a six outta 10, if you have high levels of adenosine, might feel like an eight outta 10. Your body is basically like too hard, too hard, and subconsciously slows you down earlier. Which, I remember like I, maybe this was last week or, or the week before. My worst run was when I couldn't even get out the door because I was so Yeah. The idea mentally fatigued. Yeah. And I feel like the way that I thought about it was like the idea of pushing myself. Mm.

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Mm.

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Just was I couldn't even contemplate it. Yeah. And I feel like in my head I'm like, I reckon I had a lot of adenosine building up.

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Yeah. Already built

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already built up. Already built up. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Also makes me think sleep is probably really good.

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Yep.

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rid of it.

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You heard it here for us. Sleep is good. Sleep equals good. lastly, we are going to talk about willpower, ego depletion and what it means in regards to running. So the theory is that ego depletion, which is self-control and willpower, it's like a muscle. So using them drains a limited resource, which means that later tasks requiring that. Self-control feel harder. So applying that to training. and also just day-to-day work. So work days demand, constant willpower. If you think about it, you're constantly making decisions, you're getting through boring tasks potentially, or interesting

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tasks. Mm-hmm.

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being polite in meetings, resisting Distractions. So by the time you lace up for your run later in the afternoon, that reservoir of SelfControl is already drained, which means that pushing yourself through discomfort if you are doing a session in training feels a lot harder than it would've if you hadn't had the day which demanded such constant willpower.

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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like it's not even just at work, might be at home, I feel like there might be no tasks that requires more willpower than like looking after for little kids, for example, or something like that. but basically the reason that this is quite an interesting concept as well is because I think it,

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it

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think when you think about how, okay, well how do we manage these things better? Because for willpower there is a, concept of decision fatigue and how can we. Actually just reduce the amount of decisions that we need to make day to day in order to free up ourselves to when we really need it. which might be in a running context. It also could just be an important

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Yeah, yeah. Something you've got

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that you sort of have that, willpower. But we might actually talk now we want to sort of finish by talking about practical strategies to actually help, you know, now that we know. There is this really strong effect where mental fatigue can impact your performance in a pretty meaningful way. Like, what can we actually do about that?

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Yeah, I think first, we gotta acknowledge that that's probably not gonna change. You know, and it's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just really the reality of life. But I feel like as you're saying, like it's a good thing to be aware of. so for one, if you are mentally exhausted. You might actually just need to ease up a bit on your efforts and if you, if you feel like that is sort of happening anyway, just give yourself a bit of grace doing that. Because I feel like so often, you know, you might be a bit bummed out because you're not going as, as you were saying before about your run this morning. Like unless Ton was there, you know, you would've been a bit oh, this is like. Yeah. not great, blah, blah, blah, I feel like you gotta like give yourself that grace to be like, you've had a super busy week. Yeah. And off the back of being sick.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

Yeah. Yeah. Um,

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

I don't know. You gotta be like, kind to yourself. if you struggle with that stuff. talk to yourself as if you are talking to a friend.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

Mm.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

'cause I feel, I feel like personally it's much easier. To think and believe that when I'm like talking to someone else about it. Yes. Rather than it is when I'm like trying to talk to

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

to your own self. I also wonder, and this is hypothesizing for me, but I was thinking about how, I wonder if it's kind of good training in a sense. Yeah. To, we talk a lot about load and you know, the whole way we get fitter is through progressive overload. That's sort of the function by which you get fitter and this is a form of load. It's mental load, but it is actually like you're still practicing that, Muscle or that building that willpower. Exactly. And so it's okay that you're going slower, like don't

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

stressed about that,

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

but see it as practice of like, if I can push through when I'm like really mentally fatigued, then imagine when I'm feeling really mentally fresh, how it almost like you're raising the barrier

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

Yeah. Yeah.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

what you can sort of push through. Which I don't know

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

Yeah. I like that Yeah.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

I think, it probably is.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

pink, is it? Oh, 2025. another practical strategy to implement, which we've spoken about before because it's so good in so many different ways. and it's like more efficient, but getting into a routine. So reducing the decision fatigue, lay out your clothes, plan your session, put it into your garment even. You don't have to think

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

100%.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

yeah, just try to make your life as easy as possible.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

I actually thought about this in the lead up to race week when we were prepping for this episode.'cause I was like, we've spoken before. I think Izzy, Izzy humor, who comes on the pod sometimes has spoken about how, like you try and just make all the decisions, almost like before race week starts. Mm-hmm. And I'm like, oh, I now see, and you know. In two weeks time, it'll be Melbourne Marathon in like three days.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

No, in two weeks time it'll be. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. Yeah.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

Don't freak me out. Yeah. Two days. so I almost wanna like, I mean, we were saying before, I still dunno what shoes I'm running in. Yeah. Like, I sort of wanna to side everything so that week I can

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

don't have to.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

all ready to go.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

Yeah, yeah, Why don't we, we can do a little check-in. Why by the, when we record next week, you have all that stuff sorted out.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

Yeah, maybe I'll say it on the at pod, what I'm, what my gear of choice is.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

So another point that is important is recovery. So rest isn't just physical Allow your brain to have downtime as well. Go for a walk without your phone. Do some mindfulness. Have a nap. we actually spoke about this on our rest, when we, an episode where we spoke about Yes.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

I've also written about it reasonably extensively at this stage on the substack.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

Substack. Yes. You

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

you have, I have done, I'm, I'm partway through a series on rest.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

Yeah. So you've done quite a lot of the pillars

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

I've done a few of the seven, seven types of rest for anyone who wants to, which I think it's so interesting

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

It's, yeah. that

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

actually these different Yeah. Types of

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

Well, yeah, I had no idea it was

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

Yeah, no, neither did I. So, read up on that, the final strategy that we thought of when it comes mental load and I mean, it's not really solving anything, but it is treating the symptoms, as you said, caffeine. This is sort of the power of it, is that it, does block that adenosine, which it allows you to push past. It allows the perceived effort will therefore be lower, which is huge.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

Yeah. It's like putting a, patch over a light,

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

over the, exhaust pipe.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So dangerous. Yeah.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

Wait, is that what it

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

um, no.'cause it's still doing it, but you just can't see it kind of thing. It's like putting tape over the, like low fuel. So you're like outta sight outta mind.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

Yeah. Nice. okay, well hopefully that was helpful. Mm. I hope you're all feeling non mentally fatigued, but if you are,

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

Come to our shake out. Run.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

That's, that's our fifth and final strategy.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

Um, alright, so we we are going to get into the rundown, which is where we normally talk about the topics or like what's in the news for the world. we are going to talk about something that has been in the news. Yeah. And that is actually, so we were super excited. we were featured in the A FR, which is the Australian Financial Review for those, not into finance anyway. And we were sort of we thought it would be a great opportunity to, Get the name of Cheeky Run Club out there and, you know, talk about how the running boom is great for like, so many different pillars and profiles of like runners and running communities.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

Well, we should say like, we didn't reach out to the a FR, as in we didn't reach out to the FR to try and write an article with them. They reached out to us and the premise of the article at that stage was, yeah, how are brands working with running communities during the running boom? And we were like, yes, we would love to talk about this. Yeah, we love running communities. We love running brands and we love the running boom. So we are your girls. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Anyway, the Article comes out and the title is The Rise, the title is, the Rise of the Wrong Influences, cashing In On the Running Boom. Subheading, the Real Race is for followers despite finishing far behind the pro. Influencers are earning a fortune from social media and we wrote that and we're like,

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

oh God.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

okay.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

Oh God,

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

we've been hoodwinked oldest trick in the book.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

you. We were, we're just like so naive, skipping along. I mean, I'm being like,

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

We literally,

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

this is gonna be so good.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

good. We did a photo shoot. For it. And the photographer got us to pose back to back like arms crossed, like looking at each other and they've got that photo as like the cover photo. And we look like the Smuggest

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

Oh, it's

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

cashing in on the running room, making a fortune.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

I know. One of the things that we also didn't like about the heading, that's also, that's the like online version. Okay. The hard copy, which was out on the weekend. the heading was something along the lines of,'cause there was a little photo of us. On the front page and the little heading of us was something along the lines of how run influences are stealing money from professional runners. Yeah.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

Yep. Yep. And so the, the

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

With our faces attached to it,

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

Yeah. Which we felt great about.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

Oh yeah. We

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

You can imagine. Well, yeah. So no, the article, it's actually an interesting article. It's basically, most of it's focused on, Lewis Phillips, who.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

who

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

Is a runner. He's a run. Well, I don't know if I like the word run influencer.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

Well, I feel like there's not necessarily about a negative connotation to it. Is

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

I think there's a negative connotation with the word influencer. Okay. Yeah. So I think, I think it's a

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

yeah, okay. Yeah, no, I see what you

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

but I It is. Yeah, sure. I don't really care. Happy to use it, but it's basically, he's a runner. And he's got a massive following. A huge following. Actually, we don't come close, but he is also, doing a lot of content creation, partnering with brands, making by his accounts, like I. I feel like he said millions of dollars at one stage or like he's turned down millions of dollars. But the, the angle of the article is basically they then interview some actual professional runners as well and they sort of talk about how, the subtext is that the money. Is rather than going to professional runners who really need it and they, and you know, need that support, it's instead going to people like Louis Phillips and like us at Cheeky REM Club. Although our quotes are more about brands because we didn't, obviously

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

Yeah, but that's what, but I feel like that's what the article's

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

that's, that's what we felt the article was insinuating. and that, that is, I will say that's not a new idea. That is something that I feel like you see online is this idea of like, oh, brands shouldn't be paying for, you know, members of the running community with followers to do X, Y, z. They, that money should be going to athletes. And I feel like part that people seem to be misunderstanding is. guess number one, it's not that athletes were getting a lot of money and all of a sudden that's been stripped back. I would say historically, like brands haven't necessarily had a huge amount of money. I haven't all had a huge amount of money set aside to fund hundreds and hundreds of, of runners. It's that there's. That is obviously part of the budget that, that, you know, profitable brands can put aside money to sponsor athletes, which is an incredible thing for them to do. That they need to sell products to sell products they need to market, and that's where the marketing budget comes in. Which is, you know, in this running boom, brands have obviously realized that a great use of their marketing budget is to go through communities and through people with followings to get the word out about their brand. And like we agree, that's really effective storytelling, effective way to get your message across. You actually, you need to be doing that or your sort of fall behind as a brand. So that money. Marketing budgets have always existed. That marketing budget is now being spent in a slightly different way. That's not unique to running. That's like every brand in the world right now. Like that's, yeah.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

Yeah. Well,'cause I feel like the one on, I mean, I'm pretty sure, meta just came out and said that Instagram is now equal to, Facebook in terms of there's 3 billion users. It's like finally I, I

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

think Really?

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

Really? Yeah. I think in 2021 it was like 2 billion and now, and they don't really like release stats that often, but they've just released that it's up to 3 billion. So if you think of that, it's like instead of, as you said, the marketing budget's always been there, but I guess maybe instead of having. Ads in a newspaper or like a magazine or on tv. they're like trying to connect more with either the day to day person. So they're like going to people that like, have a lot of followers, like this Louis Phillips guy who I think he has 200,000

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

Yeah. Instagram followers.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

or something ridiculous. because everyone, well not everyone, but a lot of people that follow him are obviously into running. Like that is literally their like target market. Like it's so.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

oh, it makes sense.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

it's like anything, it's like, you know, they, get like models to wear a, branded t-shirt or something. Yeah. And then everyone goes and buys

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

T-shirt. Yeah.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

it's not, it's not a new thing.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

It's not, it's not a running specific thing. They, and they interview, Andy Buchanan, who has some really great quotes in there. And one of the things he says is like, oh, it's actually, elite runners could probably learn something about like how to tell their story or whatever it is from some of these people, because definitely, I mean, elite runners could do this better than anyone because all they'd need to do is upload any content and people would love it. Yeah. but yeah, I, so I understand. I feel like it's an easy, it's a bit of a false dichotomy. Mm. But it's, it's easy to just look at it from a distance and be like. Oh, running influencers are taking money away from athletes. I truly don't think that's how it works. And I would hate that. Anyone read this article and thought, looked at us and thought like, oh, they're stealing money from,

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

from Yeah.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

athletes. Yeah. Yeah.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

much.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

Not

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

Not stealing money

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

money. Also, yeah, just the idea of, I don't know. What is the, uh, earning a fortune from social media.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

We both still work full time

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

I was like, what's your experience with what's our fortune?

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

Yeah, we're still, I don't know, must be round here somewhere.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

It was funny because when, during the interview. When he asked, he was trying to ask, how much do you earn from partners? And I kind of didn't wanna say,'cause I was like, oh, it's sort of commercially sensitive information. We're not gonna share it. And then he goes, oh, okay. Would you mind if I say it's lucrative? And I was like, yes, I might. It's.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

what did you say? Were you just like,

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

yeah. I was like, no, please don't say that. That's not what I said. And it's not what I meant.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

Maybe that's when we should have maybe

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

cl on

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

Yeah. That it was like going to be a, um, maybe something different to what we originally thought. Yeah.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

The final, the final thing to say about all of this is that some people might have seen on our social media there was also some very uncalled for and unnecessary commentary, about us.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

flabby patties,

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

these two fluffy patties.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

I laugh now. I was crying the other day.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

yeah. Well, like, I don't know. I, what has been really nice, we put up a reel and a lot of people have done some nice comments

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

so,

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

obviously don't worry about it. Which we'd, we'd sort of gotten there being like, okay, no. We can see how unreasonable this is. Would you say we'd gotten there?

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

you Definitely. I feel like you got there a little bit sooner than I did. Oh.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

but it was, I mean, to be fair, you came across it of your own accord, which would've been awful. Like, just to be scrolling. Oh, there's us. It was so exciting.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

Boom.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

Whoa.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

Out of nowhere. so

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

the, yeah, the context is people were commenting. The main thread of the comments was that we didn't have enough muscles in our legs, therefore we weren't real runners, or we didn't look like we were real

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

Yeah. Which. I mean, for all of you that listen to the podcast, just know that

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

promise everyone runners

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

Like that is not the definition of a real runner. You are a runner if you go for a run. Doesn't matter how fast or slow, doesn't matter what you look like. but I guess in a sense, like the comments just prove that people, people don't know what a runner is.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

Yeah. I, I can, they're still out there.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

the message.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

the good fight. I also just feel like, what a cliche thing for like a picture of a woman in a business magazine and the first comments are about how they

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

look. They look. Yeah.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

Like that is just tells all this time, like,

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

Yeah.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

but no, I wanna say thanks to everyone who's. Supported Tiki at any stage, whether, like even just the people lacking and commenting that reel, but also anyone subscribed, likes, like supported at any stage yeah, it is so nice to know that there are so many of you who enjoy listening and supporting and that definitely, yeah. Made out a

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

Yeah. Thank you very much. and on that note, we can't wait to be in your ears. Next week we will pop the link to our, which we didn't say before. We'll pop the link to the registration for the shakeout run in our show note. and we won't pop the link to the financial review article. No, I'm just

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

we might leave that one. Oh no, we'll put it in. We'll put it in.

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

We'll put it in. Okay.

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

We'll let people, let people read if they want. and we can't wait to be in your ears next week. Woo. Bye. Bye. there are downs, it is so nice to look at, like all the wonderful. It too long. Am I going for too long? No,

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

No, I was just making sure that that

ZOOM0009_Tr3:

recording. I was checking the,

ZOOM0009_Tr4:

sorry, sorry. No, that was really nice. Keep going, keep going.