Dirt Church Radio Trail Running

Kia ora e te whānau. You can learn a bit about a person from standing on a finish line with them through the night, and we were super lucky to have had that experience at TUM with Martin Gaffuri.  We are so unbelievably stoked to bring you this conversation. It’s been a minute in the making and is well worth the wait. We spoke to Martin on the shore of Lake Hāwea, in the cradle of the mountains, w...

Kia ora e te whānau. Not to gush, but if Eugene and Matt did ever start a DCR book club, the first book in the curriculum would be Feet In The Clouds by Richard Askwith. For years we discussed inviting Richard on, but never had the courage to do so, until by happy chance we were prompted by a DCR listener. As well as being an author, Richard is a runner, journalist, and writer. He’s most famous fo...

Kia ora e te whānau. Last time Eugene and Matt spoke to Nancy Jiang was way back in 2018 on DCR #16. Way back then Nancy was beginning her trail running story, having just carved it up at the CCC and coming 15th at the world mountain running champs. Fast forward five years and we find the 2023 Tarawera 102km champion finally in a place where she’s not continuously hungry, and her feet aren’t throb...

Kia ora e te whānau. Eugene and Matt had the privilege of speaking with Ryan Montgomery from Park City, Utah, whilst he was at the Tarawera Ultramarathon by UTMB 102km. Born and raised in the misty Pacific Northwest, Ryan is a lover of outdoor spaces. Ryan ran his first marathon at 15 years old and was immediately inspired by long-distance running. Since his debut ultra marathon in 2016, he has ru...

Kia ora e te whānau. HOLY HECKA we’ve got a stacked show for you this week. From the shores of Lake Okataina (literally) to the village green where we interviewed a galaxy of this sport’s brightest stars, Tarawera Ultramarathon by UTMB always brings the goods and this year was no different. Eugene and Matt were on MC duties from Saturday evening until Sunday morning, and in between they managed to...

Kia ora e te whānau. An elite mindset is transferable across all ventures. Just ask Daniele Danesin. This week, Eugene and Matt sit down to talk with the five-time world champion rower and Olympian about his transition to running trails, his love of endurance, his background growing up in Italy, and what drove him to put down his football boots and pick up an oar. This conversation is an incredibl...

This is a DCR special bonus repeat episode. Back in Episode 126 we caught up with Dr Tom Reynolds, part of the medical team at the Tarawera Ultra. Now, in that episode, as well as talking to him about his own incredible endurance feats, we spoke to him about the top tips he has for athletes undertaking trail races of all distances - the things to do and to avoid to make it back home safely. Now, t...

Kia ora e te whānau. It’s fair to say that Eugene and Matt are  getting super excited about Tarawera coming up. And this week, they are super grateful to be able to catch up with their MC amigos Ali Pottinger and Kerry Suter. Two absolute legends and the folk behind Squadrun, the coaching and running community phenomena. Ali and Kerry are the chief cheerleaders of trail running in Aotearoa and Aus...

Kia ora e te whānau. We’re BACK!! This week Eugene and Matt speak to Matt Bixley, a South Island trail running legend. Matt went from the couch to 18 Keplers, and a bunch of Rogaines and Barkley Marathons, in fact, Matt is the International Rogaining Association president. He was a Salomon athlete for a bit there too, and what he doesn’t know about the Kepler Challenge and the lord of the race ain...

Kia ora e te whānau. Welcome to the third and final week of the 2023 DCR Summer Editions.  And what a way to finish up. Dr Stacy Sims is a powerhouse of empowerment and agency for the female athlete, her books, Roar, and Next Level have been hugely popular. The statement that women are not just smaller men sounds QED, however it is one that has been largely ignored by the academic and sporting est...

Kia ora e te whānau. Welcome to the second week of the 2022/23 DCR Summer Editions. This week we bring you the amazing conversation we had with New York Times Best Selling Author, Christopher McDougall. Matt really wanted this one replayed as he was so riddled with Covid at the time it still feels like a fever dream. This is also the episode where one Lola Rayment was launched into the trail runni...

Kia ora e te whānau. We’re taking some time off as 2022 has been a whole mood (as the youth say). So for the next few weeks we’ve got our annual summer editions. This week we have a colab! This  is an interview that the one and only Ruth Croft did with the team at the Between Two Beers podcast late last year. We heard it and thought, as many times as we’ve had Ruth on DCR this is something DCR lis...

Kia ora e te whānau. This week, Matt and Eugene make the trek from Nor’ Westland  into the wilds of the wilds of suburbia to join the Dwight to our Taupin, the Ridgeley to our Michael, The Afanasieff to our Carey, the indomitable Andrew McDowall, to look back with the beginnings of fondness (or at least a sense of thank fond that’s over) at the year that we didn’t need, nor indeed want … 2022. The...

Kia ora e te whānau. This week, Eugene speaks to Total Sport General Manager Dave Franks about his 17 years with one of the biggest event companies in Aotearoa. Dave came to the role as an internship during his degree and never left. Having all that experience across the endurance, trail and ultramarathon space, as well as being a passionate runner and outdoors person, this really is a fantastic d...

Kia ora e te whānau. This week, Eugene and Matt head to Te Anau for our fourth live show from the iconic Fiordland Lobster Room at the Te Anau Events Centre to be joined by (the-then) 4 x Kepler winner and Auckland Marathon winner AND Queenstown Marathon Winner Dan Jones, Sophie Grant fresh from her Tor Des Geants 4th place, and Brodie Kane of being on the tele and podcasts and being good at danci...

Kia ora e te whānau. This week, Eugene and Matt have the distinct pleasure of speaking to the legendary Ben St. Lawrence. Ben is one of the greats of Australian distance running, a former Australian record holder of the 10,000 metre distance and Olympic and Commonwealth Games representative for his country. We speak to Ben about his longevity in running, his journey from talented youth, to univers...

Kia ora e te whānau. This week Eugene and Matt speak to Anna McKenna, the 2022 Ultra Trail Australia 100km champion. This is a brilliant conversation about making your way back to running and finding the joy in fellowship and the company that a running club can bring. We talk racing, surviving the pandemic as an employee of a major airline and the fact that whilst, yes, Katoomba is pretty ace, Cha...

Kia ora e te whānau. The first time we engaged with Australian running legend Vlad Shatrov was way back at Dirt Church Radio number 91. Matt caught up with Vlad after Australia and the world had gone to hell in a handbasket grappling with COVID-19. This time we got the opportunity to sit down with the man himself before he toed the line in the Ultra Trail Australia 100km in October this year. If y...

Kia ora e te whānau. This week Eugene has an epic conversation with Mel Brandon. Mel is a runner, WUU2K record holder, and road marathon speedster. This year she has accumulated a bunch of impressive PBs, and has gone from strength to strength. In this conversation we talk about hanging tough when the going gets tough, how she balances training with a busy corporate life working at Wētā Workshop a...

Kia ora e te whānau. This week Eugene and Matt take a sweet as tiki tour into the backblocks when we jump on a waka rererangi (airplane) and head over to the seriously epic and epically beautiful Blue Mountains for the 14th Ultra Trail Australia. In addition to being privileged enough to be part of the commentary team with local boys Ben Berriman and Dave Stewart we got a ton of good running in, b...

Kia ora e te whānau. This week Eugene and Matt have the pleasure of speaking to returning champion (and actual champion) Damian Hall about his new book We Can’t Run Away From This, which talks about the climate crisis we are now very much facing. We also speak about Tour De Geants, being a sponsored activist, just what makes Damian a self professed “climate hypocrite” and the ways that as we can c...

Kia ora e te whānau. This week Eugene and Matt have the pleasure of speaking with Dr Inia Raumati (Taranaki) . Inia works in emergency medicine at Auckland City Hospital and is the only person from Aotearoa/New Zealand to complete the 4 Deserts Grand Slam, completing multi-day “raids” across the Sahara, Gobi, Atacama, and the Antarctic. Inia came to medicine after graduating as a physiotherapist,...

Kia ora e te whānau. This week Matt speaks to triathlete, strength and conditioning coach, and endurance athlete Simon Cochrane about his epic 34 laps at the 24 hours Blue Lake to win The Claw, in an impressive 22 hours for 202km, a feat that had never been accomplished. We discuss his history in endurance sport, how one prepares for such a task and his mindset as he traveled just one lap further....

Kia ora e te whānau. This week Eugene and Matt talk to The North Face Australia and NZ athlete, doctor, physiologist, coach, and elite runner Andrius Ramonas about growing up playing in the outdoors of Lithuania, his love of movement, and the science and joy behind elite athletes. We also discuss Andrius’ research around nutrition and his recent line of nut butters, Roam Energy . In addition we di...

Kia ora e te whānau. This week Matt runs down the odyssey that was the 2022 Blue Lake 24 Hour Challenge, The atmosphere of this race is like nothing else. The brilliant thing about Blue Lake is that is an individual journey amongst friends. No timing chips, no distance limits or targets (if you want) and no expectations, the onus is most definitely on you. Show up, throw down. Get rad, challenge y...