Dirt Church Radio Trail Running

Kia Ora Whanau. This week on the podcast, Matt and Eugene take a deep dive with coach extraordinaire Craig Kirkwood. Craig has been a life-long student of running, immersing himself in the works of Arthur Lydiard when Craig was in his early teens in Timaru. From there Craig went to Oklahoma on a college track scholarship, then to London to work with Olympic runners to further hone his coaching ski...

Kia Ora Whanau. This week on the podcast, Matt and Eugene have another returning champion on the show. Mel Aitken. There was a time last year when it seemed like every couple of weeks we’d be talking about what Mel had won or podiumed next. Dominant across roads and trails, Mel was the 2018 Oceania half marathon champion, represented New Zealand at the World Trail Running Champs, and has won the Q...

Kia Ora Whanau. This week on the podcast, Matt talks to one of Dirt Church Radio’s original guests, Brad Dixon. Brad is a coach, runner, triathlete, coach, physiotherapist, father, husband, and now… author. For years, Brad has contributed to Kiwi Trail Runner Magazine and other publications around wellbeing and performance. Over the last few years Brad began to chip away at compiling his wisdom an...

Kia Ora Whanau. This week on the podcast, Eugene talks to returning guest Damian Hall about his Fastest Known Bimble of the 431 km Pennine Way. Damian set out on his meticulously-planned attempt a week after his friend, John Kelly, broke the 31-year-old record of 2 days, 17 hours, and 20 minutes by 40 minutes. Damian lowered the record to 2 days, 13 hours, and 34 seconds. If you’ve heard Damian on...

Kia Ora Whanau. Kate Southern is known in her home of Palmerston North as “The Running Lady”. Not necessarily because she is out in all weather clocking up ridiculous weekly totals, or racing constantly, but because Kate is fundamentally involved with the administration of organised running events around town. Kate is a community advocate, an organiser, and participant with The Manawatu Striders a...

Kia Ora Whanau. We are back at it. Remote podcasting as the Lockdown Level III Larry’s that we are. This week Eugene has a banger of a conversation about that most contentious of topics, NUTRITION. The nutritionist in question is Dr Mikki Williden, a registered nutritionist, podcaster with the spectacularly successful Ironman focused Fitter Radio, and amazing runner, and proponent of whole foods....

Kia Ora Whanau. New Zealand’s Jono Wyatt is a legend. The most decorated mountain runner in history with 6 world mountain running championships under his belt as well as 8 world mountain running grand prix series wins. Which in itself is a lot to take in, right? Add into the mix a final of the 5000m at the 1994 Commonwealth Games, 6th place in the men’s marathon at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in M...

Kia Ora Whanau. Sometimes you get an opportunity that is too good to pass up - like when Will Hayward messages you at 4pm on a Friday with the idea to set up a Zoom call between Hong Kong, Colorado, Alberta, and Palmerston North to reunite the top four Big’s Backyard finishers before the Riverhead Backyard Relaps... And hey, did you guys want to jump on too? One expletive laden outburst (Matt) and...

Kia Ora Whanau. Matt was never as happy as when he woke up at 0130 for the chance to speak to the most wonderful Mirna Valerio. Mirna, now residing in Vermont, is a native of Brooklyn, NY, a former educator, cross-country coach, ultrarunner, obstacle course enthusiast, and author of the recently published memoir, A Beautiful Work in Progress. Although she began running in high school, she recommit...

Kia Ora Whanau. This week Matt flies solo on the main interview and has the privilege to speak to Maree Leith, founder of Go Run Girls. Like many people who start to run, Maree was looking for a change. Unlike many who start to run, Maree’s start came from a place of great sadness and loss. Six years ago, Maree gave birth to a daughter, however this joy was preceded by years of heartache. In the y...

Kia Ora Whanau. Into our second century we are straight back to the mountains of Italy to speak to Sophie Grant. Sophie lived in the South Island until launching her OE in 2004 with her husband. Fast forward 16 years and Sophie has podiumed at Transgrancanaria, came fourth at Marathon des Sables, won the Lakes Sky Ultra and represented Great Britain at the world trail running championships. If thi...

Welcome to our 100th episode live show direct from the Barrel Room at Hallertau Brewery, Riverhead. We go down the rabbit hole (briefly) on the history of Dirt Church Radio, our highlights, favourites, and standout shows. We speak with Queen of Riverhead Tina White, and Scotty Stevenson in what was a wonderful way to notch up 100 episodes. Thank you so much for tuning in, we really appreciate it....

Kia Ora Whanau. Joining us this week from the mountains of Italy is Robbie Britton. Robbie loves pushing himself, from constantly running around playing sport as a child, to completing master’s degrees, to coming third at the world 24 hour champs in 2015 and helping his GB team take the gold. Robbie, whose run at Turin clocks in as a DCR first at being two guest’s Greatest Run Ever, radiates enthu...

Kia Ora Whanau. What do you say about Adam Keen? Adam and Katie Wright were the last two people at the Riverhead Backyard Relaps Ultra Marathon and relay. Adam did 17 laps of Mt Cargill in December in 24 hour for the standing record (if Crush the Cargill does records). Adam had a job running the Routeburn track, was in the army for a bit, enjoyed banditing the odd marathon or two, is one of the ca...

Kia Ora Whanau. Best laid plans go awry, right? And we’ve certainly found that out more than often of late, but we’ve had a great run, so we aren’t going to complain. Tonight we turn to our saviour Andrew McDowall to discuss his Everesting attempt at Mt Te Aroha in the Waikato. Andrew, Tom Hunt, and Dirty Geoff along for the ride as entertainment/crew chief. This is a ripper of a yarn which highli...

This week on Dirt Church Radio Eugene speaks to fellow South Auckland kid and Ultraman champion Carl Read. Coming from a rugby and cricket background, Carl decided to try his hand at Triathlon in 2007 to make some healthy change in his life. Unlike most people who make healthy changes in their life, by 2012 Carl was a professional triathlete who competed in multiple Ironman (Ironmen?) triathlons a...

Kia Ora Whanau. Together at last. After two months of lockdown, Matt and Eugene are finally able to record in the same room. There’s even a high five. And with just cause. Because this episode includes a remarkable conversation. Matt had the chance to speak to the one and only Dave Proctor, the relentless Canadian ultramarathoner. This is a conversation about running, yes, but it’s mostly about lo...

Kia Ora Whanau. No longer Lockdown Larrys, but Level 2 Larrys, Eugene and Matt remain FOILED by Matt’s sore throat in their quest to podcast in the same room, let alone suburb. But if you had to do it remotely, you couldn’t find a more engaging fellow than two-time Australian Mountain Running Champion Ben Duffus. This conversation goes all over the place from race walking to quantum physics, clima...

Kia Ora Whanau. This week we bring you a delightful conversation with Auckland Art Gallery’s Principal Conservator and ultra marathon runner Sarah Hillary. Sarah talks about her love of running the hills of the Waitakere Ranges and the trail that has her family name. We talk about art, ultramarathons, a life steeped in adventure and, her indelible links to Nepal (and Piha while we are at it) and h...

From our bedrooms to your bubbles, we bring you Dirt Church Radio in lockdown. Welcome. This week Eugene and Matt speak to Chris Hope, the founder of Running Calendar, Australasia’s most exhaustive resource for events. We discuss the history of Running Calendar, the current challenges faced by the racing community, plus a deep dive into running trends, just how niche is too niche, and Chris’ own h...

Kia Ora Whanau. We’ve been waiting for this one for a while. No, silly! Not Level 3. Vlad Shatrov!!! Initially we began engaging with Vlad around the time when Australasia went to heck in a handbasket grappling with COVID-19. It’s taken a couple weeks to get our respective water fowl lined up and boy was it worth the wait! Matt and Vlad engage in a wide-ranging discussion around Vlad’s upbringing,...

Kia Ora Whanau. This week from our bedrooms we are joined by journalist and broadcaster Rachel Smalley. One day, as a means of dealing with the stress of deadlines Rachel rummaged through her wardrobe looking for an old pair of trainers to lace up and headed out the door for a run. The rest, as they say, is history. Or indeed herstory, and Rachel’s story highlights her sheer determination, tenacit...

Kia Ora Whanau .Week Three of lockdown and this week we bring you race director extraordinaire Terry Davis. This is a ripping yarn from one of the stalwarts of the Aotearoa trail and ultramarathon community. Northburn 100 bills itself as a race that you don’t complete, you survive, one that despite being so fiendishly, awfully, difficult draws people back year after year. Terry talks about his lov...

Kia Ora Whanau. We’re all going through stuff at the moment, right? Distress, ennui, anger, denial, shock. All of these emotions and more as we continue to navigate COVID-19 and our nation being in lockdown. This week, we have an incandescently good conversation with Vibram athlete, 3rd place finisher at the 2019 UTMB and Christchurch native Scotty Hawker. This conversation is notable for a couple...

Kia Ora Whanau. We’ve just weathered our first weekend in New Zealand in lockdown and we are joined by Dr Katie Wright, fresh from her first shift at Blenheim Hospital to talk about her year, how things have changed thanks to COVID-19 (or not) and the etiquette, benefit, and perhaps pitfalls of exercise during a pandemic. We keep it comforting with a Greatest Run Ever, and a Stuff You Should Know....