Pulling Threads

Troy did his back in six hours into a shift, spent half a day vomiting up Panadol, and still can't work out why every run this week felt like running through wet cement. Alex watched a bloke use a 30 percent app discount to quietly pocket sixty bucks off his own mate, and it's been rattling around his head for days. Then it turns into a proper barney about whether contractors are kings or scumbags...

Charlie McKenzie flew from London, quit a decade in banking, and built a running events company with his brother that does everything the old blokes won't. He sits down with Alex and Troy to pull apart the backyard ultra scene, where the rules are written on the back of a fag packet and a bloke got disqualified at yard 54 because a stranger filmed herself running next to him. This is the busi...

King of the Hill is two weeks out and Liam Henderson is back in the studio. Alex reckons it is the hardest race in Australia to win, and the reason is the hill that gives you nowhere to make up time once your pace drops. They get into who is going the distance, whether anyone would actually dope for 25 grand, and why a bloke turned down a spot in the Australian team just to be on that start line....

Troy turns 35 and celebrates by getting invited to an underground invitational trail race on the same course as Down Under 135. Pissing rain, waist-deep river crossings, a bloke who fell 15 meters off a ridge and was somehow the least hurt person out there. Then the brothers get into the stuff that actually grinds them down. Old blokes who carry deep institutional knowledge and still bring the wro...

Nobody actually chooses their trade. Your old man did it, your mum signed you up, or a mate said the cash was good. This week the brothers pull apart how every tradie really ended up on the tools, then build the ultimate family out of six trades, argue about whether an auto sparky beats a mechanic, and cop a voicenote about a gold mine that fooled its own investors with a pile of fool's gold....

Two brothers, a crib room full of degenerates, and years of workshop warfare. This week we pull the thread on the best stitch-ups we've ever seen underground, from a wobbulator that doesn't sound real to a bloke who walked out to his missus in his jocks. Plus the dad move that may have fed Mount Isa's hottest chilli to a tuna thief. In this episode: - Why Last Soul Ultra going globa...

Alex asks his AI what it actually knows about him and it spits out where he works, what truck he drives, that his dogs got picked up by the rangers, and where the material for his jobs is stacked at the workshop. Then it gets creepier. We get into how Walmart worked out women were pregnant before they knew themselves, why your flybys card is a dossier not a discount, and whether targeted ads are a...

Two brothers who've done more nine-hour drives across outback Queensland than they can count settle the only debate that matters. What is the greatest servo food in the country. Troy also drops off a sample at the fertility clinic and finds a USB stick full of surprises in the male room. Alex breaks down the Domino's versus Pizza Hut search trick that gets you 30 percent off, they run the numbers...

We left a gate open, both dogs bolted, and the council scooped them straight into the system. What followed was a two-day nightmare of hold music, an animal rescue place that wouldn't answer the phone, and a council rule that forces you to desex your dog at three months before you can get them back. Add in the emotional cost of telling our wives their children were in dog prison, and you've got th...

Welcome to the inaugural Page Parliament. That's the book club we can't call a book club because Alex would've bullied anyone who was in one. This week we pull apart To The Limit by Amber and Blaine Burke, one of the deepest female freedivers in the country and a 24-hour national champ who came second at King of the Hill. We go front to back on the mental game that separates the people...

A random German backyard ultra just put on the best livestream in the game and it hurt to watch, because every idea we'd documented after King of the Hill they pulled off one by one. The event is never how you make the money. It's the vehicle to advertise how you make the money, and if you can't get that right you're selling your house before the event dies. Plus why whinging about your missus mak...

A 10K open water swim, 420 kilometres on the bike and an 84K double marathon across three days — and Simon Cochrane did the lot on Coke, Red Bull and Tailwind. That run set the Ultraman world record. This week he sits down with Alex and Troy and goes through 39 Ironmans, a Tarawera 100 miler won on a torn calf, and the sinking kayak that left him swimming six Ks on his own in the middle of a lake....

We just ran Harry's Longest Mile and the livestream shit the bed in the first two hours. Two cameras dead, roaming cam audio clapped out, and Alex sitting up in the commentary box on one hour's sleep watching the whole thing fall apart. Then he cracked a Red Bull, stopped fighting it, and it turned into the best event we've ever run. In this episode: - The three major livestream failures and the m...

Alex climbs into his roof cavity for the first time and finds out exactly what eight grand of domestic rewiring actually bought him. Spaghetti cables, insulation ripped up and left in a pile, and a condensation tube shoved together by some dodgy cunt that slowly rotted a hole through the heater. Then Troy gets into the thing eating him alive at the new mine: a leaderboard on every wall that turns...

South Australia reckons it can fix the housing crisis by cutting apprenticeships short. Excavator operators in 18 months, road tunnel work halved, painting officially a trade you can knock out in three years. Alex and Troy pull it apart from the inside, because both of them came out of their own trades still dog shit and scared, and no shorter block was going to change that. Plus the AI watermark...

Alex nearly got flogged with a crowbar outside a mine Christmas party, Troy front-kicked his bedroom door ready to fight an intruder that turned out to be a Korean-speaking robot vacuum, and both of them reckon backyard ultra is being held back by one bloke and a Facebook group. This one goes everywhere. In this episode: - Troy's 3am home intruder that turned out to be his robot vacuum Chun-Hee do...

Two brothers swap the wildest mine site theft stories they've ever heard, from copper cathodes snapping rear axles to the greatest amnesty backfire of all time. Plus, there's actual science behind why you mutter to yourself while looking for your keys. And Troy's Garmin watch saga reaches a new low. In this episode: - The legendary 44 gallon drum amnesty heist that nobody saw coming - A bloke who...

Alex went deep on how Australia's container deposit scheme actually works and the numbers are wild. Cleanaway and Tomra are making hundreds of millions, Coca-Cola benefits when you don't recycle, and you're earning $8.50 an hour feeding cans into a machine. Plus Troy finally admits Alex was right about the knees over toes guy, we get into whether Australia should legalise drugs after Alex saw the...

Alex spent an entire week off work trying to build a deck. What he found underground nearly sent him over the edge. Buried rocks the size of a coffin, mystery pipes, failed inspections, and a $1,200 hole-digging bill with almost nothing to show for it. This is the most honest renovation meltdown you'll ever hear. In this episode: - The full deck disaster saga, from Kanga loaders to jackhammers...

Alex and Troy take an online toxic masculinity test live and compare their results. It goes exactly how you'd expect. One brother scores more toxic than average, the other less, and Troy's wife somehow outscores them both on deceitful arrogance. Before that, the boys rip through their signs of getting old, from war history podcasts to Crocs and socks to refusing to flush the toilet. Plus a...

Troy just ran his first ever 50K ultra and beat Alex by 20 minutes. This episode is the full debrief. The emotions at the finish line, the fuelling disasters, the moments where it nearly fell apart, and a pair of spray-painted gold boots that might become a family heirloom. In this episode: - Troy's complete race day breakdown from start line nerves to finish line tears - The golden Cleary boo...

Tim Kacprzak is back and he's still our most listened episode by a long shot. This time he walks us through 83 days of consecutive running, coaching Troy to his first 50K, and why backyard ultra might be the most exciting sport that nobody's figured out how to pay athletes for yet. In this episode: - Tim's 83 day running streak and the moment his body just stopped hurting - Why the men...

Three tradies sit down and talk about the stuff blokes never talk about. Fatherhood, home births, obstetric violence, and why most men show up to the biggest moment of their partner's life completely unprepared. Then it gets loose with bush mechanic stories, mine site fuck ups, apprentice disasters, and the fertility crisis nobody seems to know how to fix. In this episode: - Building the ulti...

Alex got strong-armed by an online PT course for eight months after trying to cancel. Debt collector threats, credit score scare tactics, fake final warnings. He used AI to fight back and won without paying a cent. This one's a masterclass in not rolling over when a company tries to bully you. In this episode: - The full breakdown of how an online fitness course tried to squeeze Alex for $4,000 he...

Blaine Burke dropped a carousel that put the entire backyard ultra world on notice. Women make up 5% of the field, the female world record holder gets recorded as a DNF, and the guy who invented the sport thinks splitting categories would ruin the whole point. Alex and Troy break down why that argument doesn't hold up anymore and what King of the Hill is doing differently. In this episode: - Blain...