Dirt Church Radio Trail Running

Kia ora e te whānau. This week Eugene and Matt talk to Charlotte Milne of Custom Made Fitness about the importance of strength training and how it really is about training smarter, not necessarily harder that makes the difference. We also rip through all the news, a run down of our respective marathon pacing and race directing at the weekend, and a Greatest Run Ever that highlights the importance...

Kia ora e te whānau. David Kilgore loves running on the trails in and around New York City. In 15 minutes he can move from The Bronx, where he lives, to the Hudson River Trails. David is the Trail and Ultramarathon Athlete Manager for On Running, a 4 x Florida state track and cross country champion and All-American runner. He’s also been a member of the USA Trail and Ultrarunning team. Fresh from...

Kia ora e te whānau. Matt sits down with Scotty Hawker to discuss his 2022 UTMB campaign. From 3rd place in 2019 to 2nd place at CCC last year, Scotty came into this year's race in the form and fitness of his life. We talk about his race, the lessons learnt and the positives that whilst hard-earned, made Scotty the better athlete. We have a rundown of the week’s racing and receive a dispatch...

Kia ora e te whānau. Chris Lucas owned a successful business. He worked very hard. Faced with the prospect of endless grinding because that’s what you do, and the anxiety of knowing deep down that every new thing that he attained, be it a car, or other fancy toy, would become obsolete and then need replacing, Chris walked away from it all to live in a bus, travel, and run with his partner, Charlot...

Kia ora e te whānau. This week Eugene and Matt take a deep dive into the life lived in movement with Andrew Heyden. Andrew is the current age group holder of the 50km distance with a whopping 3:05:53. Andrew has been on the Australian 100km team for multiple years and has also completed the grueling Coast to Kosci 240km. This is an incredible conversation with a self professed regular dad who beli...

Kia ora e te whānau. Tessa Chesser charges. An athlete from a super competitive background playing soccer to now a top-flight trail runner who had a huge 2021 placing in the top 10 at Canyons 100k and taking out third at Javelina Jundred Mile to earn a Golden Ticket to the 2022 Western States. A foot injury laid her low for the big dance even though she lined up at Olympic Valley. This conversatio...

Kia ora e te whānau. Dougal Allan is inspired to compete. A professional endurance coach and athlete with victories in road-based events such as Challenge Wanaka as well as the off-road formats such as the famous Coast to Coast and Xterra triathlon, Dougal is the epitome of someone who lives a life in movement. We discuss Dougal’s history in endurance sport, from his days as a student in Dunedin w...

Kia ora e te whānau. It’s only bloody well Brodie Kane!!! From territorial soldier to journalist to broadcaster to this season’s Dancing With The Stars runner-up, two things Brodie has always enjoyed is a run and a good yarn. We talk to Brodie about her life growing up in a sporting family (don’t even get us started about her mother, Jo, who swam the Cook Strait) to marathons and the mighty Coast...

Kia ora e te whānau. In 2017, Nick Ashill was completing an endeavour that he had long dreamed about. He was running across Route 66 in the United States of America to raise money for the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation. It’s often said that a journey like this will change you forever. In Nick’s case it’s true in the most serious of ways, when he was critically injured in a hit-and-run outside o...

Kia ora e te whānau. Zachary Friedley has been on a hero’s journey. From his childhood wrestling, to his attempts to gain Paralympic track glory, to living what he thought was the American dream, Zachary always felt he was searching for something. Here follows a journey from Kansas City to the electric lettuce farms of Humboldt County to the beaches and Redwoods of Mendocino California, Zachary fo...

Kia ora e te whānau. Ruth Croft, the Western States Endurance Run champ for 2022. Straight outta the mighty West Coast, Ruth of course is no stranger to Dirt Church Radio, having appeared on episodes 021,078,124, 150, and 173!!!. Ruth went on a US College running scholarship as a promising junior but  fell out of love with running, moved to Taiwan, fell back in love with running, discovered she wa...

Kia ora e te whānau. Four years has simply flown by. We both feel such privilege to be part of this community and experience the wonder of how great running can be and the amazing things that this community can accomplish. We loaded in to Hallertau Brewery with the GOAT Andrew McDowall for a celebration of DCR in front of a live audience. We were joined by two people who, whilst being vastly more...

Kia ora e te whānau. It’s rare that at 16, you could be considered a veteran of the trail and ultra-marathon scene, but that’s certainly the case with Sebastian Salsbury. Sebastian took to the trails with his father and sister as a wee young fella at the Born to Run Marathons and cracked out his first 100km at the Black Canyons at the ripe age of 13.  Since then, Sebastian has done a bunch more, i...

Kia ora e te whānau. Eugene and Matt spoke to New York Times Best Selling Author Christopher McDougall, and it ruled. Far from a traditional conversation, this one veered all over the map, with McDougall just having returned from a run to the hardware store for things to pack up his house pending his imminent move to Hawaii.  We discuss the impetus for writing the follow-up to Born to Run with coa...

Kia ora e te whānau. This week Eugene and Matt speak with Jo Ryder and Sarah Haerewa from Trailblazers Aotearoa. Trailblazers is a volunteer-led initiative that uses activity and trail running as a vehicle for young people to overcome the impact of adversity. Jo founded Trailblazers after having significant interactions with young people in schools through her work as a police officer. Jo realized...

Kia ora e te whānau. 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 establishment. This week Eugene and Matt have the distinct pleasure of speaking with Dr Stacy Sims. Stacy is an exercise physiologist and nutritionist, someone who is a world leader in pushing the boundaries - and the boundaries of knowledg...

Kia ora e te whānau. With his mental health in tatters and at his lowest point, Jake Malby stood literally on the crossroads of life and death. Intuition and timely action by his brother, Australian ultrarunner Ben Malby, contributed to Jake making the choice to continue in this existence and to move towards healing. Proof that our trauma can inform us, not define us, Jake has moved from his first...

Kia ora e te whānau. This week Matt has the privilege and pleasure of sitting down over a cup of (virtual) tea for a conversation with the mighty Marty Lukes. The term “legend” gets bandied about a fair bit these days, but Marty more than qualifies for this criteria. This is a deep dive into the history of Aotearoa trail and road ultramarathon running with one of the true leaders of our sport. Mar...

Kia ora e te whānau. This week on the podcast Matt and Eugene call California to catch up with Marcus Rentie … a resident of LA where he grew up loving all sorts of sports including stunt roller-blading - yes, that is a thing - and started running, then found the trails and hasn’t looked back. One of the reasons we wanted to talk to Marcus was about the non-profit organisation he has founded calle...

Kia ora e te whānau. This week on the podcast Eugene and Matt speak with ultramarathon runner, physiotherapist, and PhD candidate Emma O’Loughlin about her groundbreaking study into periodizing recovery around, well, women’s periods. We also discuss Emma’s history of Gaelic Football, why women are more prone to ACL injury, The Race Across America, and why if you work with your hands it’s better to...

Kia ora e te whānau..This week on the podcast Eugene speaks with Hayden Hawks. Hayden is  a professional runner based in Utah who famously won the first trail ultra he entered, the Speed Goat 50km in 2016. For those that know, this is not just any race. Hayden has a clutch of other races including JFK 50 Mile in a course record in 2020, Black Canyon 2020, UTMB CCC in 2017 in a course record. He re...

Kia ora e te whānau. This week’s podcast features returning champion Sam McCutcheon. If you don’t know Sam, he is one of Wellington Scottish’s finest. Last time we talked to him was way back in episode 64, where he had just moved to Edinburgh and was looking forward to hitting some of the best races that Europe had to offer in 2020. Despite his plans being changed somewhat, Sam continued to get af...

Kia ora e te whānau. This week Eugene and Matt are joined from a hotel in Taipei by the incredible Jono Lester. Jono is a third-generation race car driver who specialises in the GT format. Jono is also a formidable runner, plant-based athlete, and ambassador for the SPCA. Please enjoy this immensely good chat about the rigours and grind of being a professional athlete, the challenges of having a c...

Kia ora e te whānau. When Troy Sachs was inducted into the Australian Sports Hall of Fame, he was one of just a few disabled athletes to have had the honour bestowed upon them. After playing wheelchair basketball professionally for 20 years, attending 5 Paralympics and winning two gold and one silver medal, Troy felt that he could finally be heralled as “just” Troy. He was there because of his spo...

Kia ora e te whānau. Put 77 people on a start line with the only caveat that they need to do one 6.7km loop an hour and stir. Continue to stir until the last person is standing.  Add in beautiful conditions, challenging terrain, beer, moon dust, mind games, and non-stop banging tunes and you have the 2022 Riverhead Backyard Relaps Ultramarathon, the race that nearly wasn’t. We spent the whole week...