Pedals and Paddles with Sarah Davis & Tara Lal

Foreign.

I'm charlie redding. And I'm laura sidall and this is the tribathlon podcast.

Well, I did do some cycling, you know, because it's. I didn't really do a huge amount so I definitely didn't go into the expedition over trained. I was working on the theory of adaptation to get me through it.

We know that about 50% of people will have some exposure to suicide in their lifetime. So it's a fairly universal experience in some ways and yet we never talk about it.

That was Sarah Davis and Tara Lal and this episode is pedals and paddles. Hey Sid, how you doing?

I'm very good, Charlie, how are you? How was I? Well, I'd forgotten before the weekend you were racing until I saw your picture on Instagram. Coming down the finish at Outlaw Triathlon looking pretty happy and stoked to be back. So how was it?

It was awesome. It was, it was really good. I have to say. I said so I was doing it with a mate of mine that is that we're planning to do Ironman talent together and I reckon I was as stressed in the lead up to it as I've been before almost any other triathlon just because A, it's been an age since I've done one. B, there's a whole load of new logistics with COVID that you just kind of almost expecting to put your foot the wrong side of the line somewhere on. And then the other thing, because of those logistics, I mean I think normally we'd have just said we'll stay in a hotel or we'd have just got there and checked the bike in. But we, I mean I was up at 3:30 on Sunday morning to get to the start line and, and I'd have rubbish night's sleep the night before.

You stayed, you stayed at home then?

Yeah.

And then drove it around?

Yeah, well, I mean it was an hour's drive so yeah, in theory that could have bought me, you know, another 45 minutes in bed if I'd stayed in hotel. But yeah, so logistics in the lead up, I was quite stressed about it. I was like, but why? I mean, I don't. I'm not racing it. Seriously. It's a, it's essentially a practice event for the Ironman. So I don't know why I was kind of wound up about it, but it was totally brilliant. It was really good to be racing. I met a few people I've spoken to on Zoom but met for the first time. So had a good chat with my coach, Ian Dempsey, first time I met him face to face. Good chat with Tim Don again. First time to see him in the flesh. And also with Foggy as well. Former guest. So it's really good to catch up with them and. And see them race and. Yeah, it was just really good fun to be racing.

So. And the race itself, how did it go then?

Swim went pretty well, actually. I was pretty happy with my swim time.

Was it because in the new Covid rules, is it like just individual start? Sort of, yeah.

So they've got three pontoons and it was every sort of five seconds somebody was going off.

Are you diving in?

Yeah, but I mean, actually, so one of the guys that I was with said, I'm not diving, I'm going to be doing a pro, I'm just going to be doing a belly flop in.

But.

But I mean, actually the pontoon was only a foot off the water level, so the dive in. The dive in was really easy.

Yeah, but I always lose my goggles when I dive in.

That's what I would thought. And then I thought, well, bollocks, I'm going to give it a go anyway. And they stayed on.

So there we go. There we go. All right. So the swim, dive in, Swim was all right.

Swim was good. I mean, the water was. I think it was 19 degrees, somebody said. So that was really, really good. It was a bit weedy in places, but other than that, swim was really good and I got out a minute quicker than I expected. Well, I'm actually pretty much bang on what I expected to. So that was fine. The transition was over a kilometer long, so my transition times were slightly longer than I'd expected. Yeah. So like ridiculously long.

Was it just like individual bikes every 2 meters then, at Social Distancing?

Well, no, I mean, that was it. That's what I thought it was going to be. But there was a bike pretty much. Well, I don't know whether it was a meter. Yeah, I suppose it probably was 2 meters, but I felt like there wasn't much more than a meter between each bike and then there was only.

But just two rows or something.

Two row. It was three rows for certain bits and two rows for other bits. So yes, flipping long transition the bike. I didn't do as well on the bike as I would have liked, but if I had listened to what Ian said and actually done the training plan he sent me, I'd have probably been in far better shape.

The training plan or the race day plan?

Training plan. So stupidly I had on when on Friday he had planned A swim in. And I totally forgot, but I was going to meet Chris from Incas Nova to go and do a run with him to try out the Incas, and obviously we ran further than we were supposed to and faster than we were supposed to, so therefore, that was a bit more than I should have done. And then on Saturday, a bit of a communication or misinterpretation of what Ian was telling me on WhatsApp, but I didn't look again at Training Peaks after we'd spoken on WhatsApp. So I did twice the distance on the bike that I was supposed to and I probably worked a bit harder than I was supposed to.

And.

Yeah, so. And so then we had to go check in on Saturday afternoon. So actually, by Saturday night I was totally shattered.

And I drove an hour up, an hour down to check in.

Yeah. And then. And then. So I knew I'd not done quite right, but. Yeah. So this bike didn't quite have the power I wanted, but I was pretty happy with it. And it was. And I was managing to hold my aero position for most of it, which is the. So that's probably the second longest ride I've done on the bike since Botti sorted out the. All the positioning. And then, yeah, the run, I felt pretty good, actually. Run was my second fastest half marathon, so I was. Yeah, the run I was really happy with. So he's. So Ian's making some progress with my running, even if I've totally ignored him on the. But I think it wouldn't surprise me if there's still a bit of fatigue in my legs from my week in the Lake District as well. So. Yeah, so I was. I was pretty happy my transitions were too slow, but then that's because. Partly because you've got like a extra kilometer run.

Well, I can't. I can't imagine anyone's transitions are that fast with a kilometer run.

No, no. But anyway. But the point was, it was brilliant to be racing again. Great fun, really good event, really nice venue to do it in. And. Yeah, itching to get onto the next one now. Which is only two weeks away, I.

Was going to say. Which is when Two weeks away. So another Outlaw.

Outlaw, yeah, Holcomb. And we've got. I know that Lucy Charles Barkley was supposed to race at Outlaw half, but he's now racing at Holcomb, I think. Not sure who else is racing at Holcomb, actually, but. Yeah. So really looking forward to that.

And then I'm not sure if there'll be many people racing at Holcomb because that's the same day as Ironman UK and most people are going to do Ironman UK out of the British pros.

Yeah, yeah.

So there's a bit of a faux pas.

It was a bit of a faux pas of. Because is the Holcomb won the PTO supported.

Yes.

That's a bit of a faux pas by the PTO for putting it on the same day as another UK race. Yeah, we don't have that many races in the UK and for athletes this year anyway.

And will that be why Lucy Charles Barkley is racing outlaw Holcomb as. Because it's a PTO event or.

I doubt it. I think she'll just be. It'll just be what she wants to race for her race season. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's why I was just surprised because obviously it's 70.3 rather than the longest.

It's a half distance.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So. So yeah, so that it was a. It was a really good event and yeah. Looking forward to it and, and what have you. Oh and yeah, and it's worth just coming back to this in terms of. So Tim Don finished third which was great to see. The guy who won it, I didn't know very well, but Josh Lewis, but apparently he's come in from a swimming background and is making big strides in the triathlon world at a pretty young age. And then on the ladies, I think it was. Yeah. Lydia Dant. I don't know if you do you know Lydia.

Yeah, I know of. Well only through like of social media. So there weren't any. I think it was an elite wave as far as I can work out. I mean I think Tim was really the only. I'd say probably professional racing. I think the rest were kind of an elite, elite wave. So that kind of very, very good age groupers we could turn. Could turn pro but sort of in that middle, middle ground sort of thing I think is probably with trying to give them, you know, great performances and respect they deserve.

And Ian Dempsey came in at 20th, which I think. I think I saw his post saying that he didn't think it was possible to swim that slow. I haven't looked at his time yet. I dare say I still swam significantly slower than that. Uh, and. And actually a mate of mine, Giles Brook, who, one of the guys I trained with, he got a podium for age group so he, he got. Came third. So he was really chuffed with that. So that was good. Um, so yeah, yeah, it was, it was all good.

Sounds like it Sounds like a great weekend. And it's like racing's back in the UK and two weeks we got. Yeah. Holcombe, which would be another. Another good race for everyone and hopefully it'll be sort of maybe the similar people going from race to race to. Although. Yeah, although I think a lot of people probably doing Ironman UK that next weekend and maybe using Outlaw this weekend as a. As a preparation for that.

Yeah, certainly. That's what. When I chatted to Foggy, that was his. That's his plan. So.

Yeah, and I know Tim doing that as well.

Yeah, that's Foggy's big race, isn't it?

That's his.

That's his local territory.

Yeah.

Which is interesting because they only announced last week that they'd actually got approval to let it go ahead, which I thought was pretty, pretty bold and last minute of them.

But anyway, yeah, I mean it is, it is so crap. I mean we're kind of still trying to work out the admin around what we do about Tallinn. You know, it was supposed to be all of a family going out and now it's probably just me. We were supposed to be going to Mallorca afterwards, but that looks, well, pretty much impossible now, so. But otherwise I was going to potentially have to fly from Tallinn direct to Mallorca, if that was even possible. I don't know.

So.

Yeah, I think we're all just accepting very fluid last minute planning at the moment, aren't we? For the. You guys that have to earn a living out of it.

Yeah, that's. Yeah, but I mean it's. Yeah, it's just cling on to those races that do happen and hope that. I mean the US seems to got its shit together, or maybe not, but they seem to be having races and fairly confident that they're happening. I think Europe and the UK still seems to be a little bit more all over the place and a bit more fluid. Or maybe not. Europe seems to be. Actually their races seem to be up and running. It's just the Europe and the UK relationship issue of whether people can go in and out because it's the same like Ironman UK didn't apply. Or doesn't. Didn't apply. That's the wrong word. Doesn't have competition exemption for athletes. So, you know, we had the WTS in Leeds a few weeks ago where you had athletes from all over the world coming in. Yes, they bubbled but they didn't have to quarantine for five, 10 days. They could get out training and then obviously you had A race where you've got 70, 80 odd pros, draft league also close proximity, you had 4,000 in the crowd, no social distance, no mask. Yet for Ironman UK there is no foreign athletes at allowed because you have to quarantine. Well you are allowed but you have to quarantine for the 5 or 10 days as per government regulations. And you're talking about an Ironman race. We took maybe 15 pros max. You'd probably get far more spread out, you're not going to get the same crowds and yet we can't and it's 100k prize purse and yet we can't allow foreign athletes to come and race in the uk so. So it's just a bizarre.

Would that be the case? What about the Holcombe half because that's a PTO event, would that still be same problem?

I would imagine so. I can't see well unless Holcombe have applied for this competition exemption as I understand it, which I can't imagine they have. I think it shows the difference between how WTS racing is perceived on the world stage in the Olympics and how long course racing is perceived. I mean the PTO racing are meant to be supporting like giving the athletes a chance to race and stuff. But it just seems crazy though to do it on the same day as another race in the uk. Like really, you know there's not that many athletes over there but they're getting, gosh the UK athletes are getting a lot of opportunity to earn money this year, let's put it that way with the races that have been supported by the pto. But it does seem a bit of an odd decision to put one on the same day as an Ironman UK race.

Yeah and actually I think my understanding is Estonia are saying the same thing. So you know if you're an athlete coming in or athletes family I think it's basically yeah you're exempt as long as you've had a test before you've arrived and things like that. So that's why I think getting to Estonia and racing is not an issue, it's getting back.

Yeah, I think that's, I think that's the case but most of it isn't it. It's not the leaving the uk, it's the getting back into the uk. Whether that is for a race to start with or returning after, after your race.

Well except for. So Italy at the weekend said that Brits can't come without a five day quarantine. Germany and France are pretty much, I think France is pretty much no go for Brits and Germany similar, I think so actually. It's. Yeah, it's all getting very protectionist, isn't it? And even. Even the Scots are not welcome. Are not allowed to go to Manchester now.

Oh, are they not?

Why is that.

Is that anything to do with.

Yeah, that's so Covid. Because of the. Because of the Delta variant. The Scotland have said no travel to Manchester. So actually any Scottish athletes that would. That probably wouldn't affect Bolton actually. But it's not a million miles away.

Not a million miles. It is true. Yeah. Wasn't Bolton where the. Isn't Bolton where the variant is Instead it's not Manchester, is it? Or is it moved to Manchester now?

Manchester and Salford are the ones I saw mentioned, but I don't know. I don't know. But yes, that's. I mean, so I don't know if there's any Scottish athletes planning on competing, but it is a total nightmare, isn't it? Anyway, how's your training going?

It's fine. Yeah, I'm just. Yeah, lots of training. So that. That's pretty much it at the moment. Trying to kind of just keep my head up and grab a coffee every now and again.

Do you find when you're. When you're in. You're obviously right in the thick of it at the moment, are you? And do you find that you're totally wiped out by the evening and. Or are you just now used to it and it's just crack on?

Yeah, I mean, some days, but not always. And some days kind of hit you, I guess, a bit harder than others, but. No, Well, I mean, I don't think about it. I don't think about whether I'm wiped out. I'm just thinking about the next. The next session. Because if you think about whether. If you think about it, it plays in your head too much. So I don't overthink how I'm feeling. I just focus on what I'm doing at that moment and the next session.

Yeah, yeah, no, it makes sense. Oh, and one thing I did.

Sorry. It's like why I hate the question, like, especially leading the race. Oh, how are you feeling? How are you going? And I'm like, you know, because it's just one of those such obscure, absurd. For me anyway. I know some people are fine with it, but it's just like I. The more you start thinking about how you feel, to me, it just spins more stories in your head of going, well, I'm meant to feel good, I'm meant to feel Bad I'm doing this session. Is that meant to be a good thing or not? And it's just like it is what it is. This is today, this is the next session in front of me. That's what I'm going to do. Do it to the best I can today and then we'll park that one and move on to the next.

When it comes back to what Chris Cook was saying about the story you tell yourself, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, very much so, yeah.

So actually just focusing on the now rather than worrying about. Yeah, yeah, it makes a lot of sense. One thing I was going to say is I obviously was playing around with the precision hydration stuff, the gels and the, and the tablets and I thought they were really well. I. And, and also the carb drink. I hadn't had the carb drink until, until the day before the race, then again on the race and yeah, I, I was really impressed with it.

So you used the carb drink on race day? Yeah, during the race I did use.

It, but I did try it the day before on my longer than should be ride. And yeah, because I don't normally have carb drinks, I'm not a massive fan of them, but actually, and I think it's a lot of the time it's because they're so overly sweet and whereas actually there's no taste of the pH1 and that works really well. In fact, to be honest, I couldn't tell whether I was, I couldn't have told whether I was having an electrolyte drink or a car.

So that's good.

I tried out their salt tablets at the weekend. So actually this is a funny. Well, maybe not a funny story. It might be a boring story. I had a long ride to do and I had to stop at Banyolis Lake, which is about an hour into the ride, to get some swim tickets so that we could open water swim the next day. And when I got there, my credit cards didn't work to buy the tickets. So in this I get like, I have like a cycling wallet which has 20, pretty much $20 in, in every currency kind of going. I've got like pounds, us New Zealand, Aussie euros and everything. So I used my emergency cash to buy these tickets which meant I had three euros to get round six hours or so of riding and then spent. And the good thing about Spain is there's actually places where they just have like open spring springs and stuff. So it's kind of then suddenly like racking my brain to work out like where the free water and fluid was that I could save my €3 of cash for emergency fund of food if I needed. I did have some. I had couple of bars, but I did have a PH gel and. But I took. I'd taken their salt tablets with me, so. Which actually worked quite well because then I could fill up with water from the taps and then take a salt tablet and. Yeah, I was kind of. Yeah, it felt. It was. It was good. Yeah, that was a useful thing to. Sorry. Yeah, useful thing to be able to try come like race days, because especially like maybe Lanzarote where the special needs. You have to kind of divert off the course and so I probably won't necessarily use it unless it's a real emergency. So being able to carry the salt tablets with me in my bedtime box and then use those as my electrolyte and salt and stuff for the latter half of the race is quite a good idea.

Yeah, I used salt tablets in Ironman Italy and. Yeah. And I was popping a few over the course of the race and yeah, it's just easier than. Particularly than faffing with trying to drop tablets into while you're on the move. So. Yeah, no, really good.

Cool.

Well, shall we dive into the awesome and really fascinating interview with Sarah and Tara? Because. Yeah, yeah. And I said to you before, we've obviously already recorded this, but the book has just showed up for me from Tara, so I'm really looking forward to diving into that. So without further ado, let's dive into the interview with Sarah and Tara. Sarah Davies and Tara Lau are two ladies that are doing extraordinary, extraordinary things. So they recently cycled across Australia together, raising money for suicide awareness, a subject that Tara herself has written a book on, and which is a very successful book. It's called Standing on My Brother's Shoulders, Making Peace With Grief and Suicide. So whereas Sarah came at it from a very different angle, so she had not that long ago paddled the length of the nile, so that's 6,853km, as well as also paddling the length of the Murray river in Australia too. So in this absolutely fascinating conversation, Sid and I got the opportunity to chat to them about cycling great distances, unsupporting risk managing these sorts of expeditions, particularly as Sarah is a risk manager by day. So that was fascinating to understand more about that. But also I wanted to dive into the conversation around how we can better deal with and also prevent suicide, because it is a conversation that is often brushed under the carpet. So I know you're Going to really enjoy this. These two ladies are absolutely fantastic. There was, it was a great laugh interviewing them, but also there was so much valuable advice within there, so I hope you enjoy. So, Tara, Sarah, welcome to the Tribe Athlon podcast.

Sid, welcome back.

Thank you so much for joining us. I'm really excited about chatting with you guys, hearing about some of the crazy things that you've been up to.

But let's kick things off for people.

That don't know anything about both of you. Do you want to, let's, let's start with you, Sarah. Do you want to tell people a little bit about your story, a bit about where you've come from and what you do?

It's quite a big question to start with. Sort of what I go in and describe myself as, which I think sort of will summarize a bit about sort of who I am and some of the things why I've gone on to do. Some things I do is I describe myself as a professional risk manager with a passion for risk taking. And that's certainly something that has driven, I think, a lot of where my life has gone from. You know, I've started off professionally as being a risk manager and that's what I've done for longer than I care to probably share. But then I always had this passion for adventure and for going and trying different things and different sports and so on. And I think so much of that for me came from my mum. She got me trying loads of sports as a kid. So although, I mean, I was a really shy child and pretty fearful, but I know just going out and trying a lot of different sports just built that sort of bit of confidence and kind of fueled a curiosity. And I think for me, that curiosity has continued to be a compass that's kind of driven me to do things like move from the UK to Australia, to continue to get involved in different things and try different things and then go on adventures which have just sort of got kind of bigger and bigger. So, yeah, that's sort of a bit of a summary.

Fantastic. Well, that's a kind of very loose summary. I think we need to drill down into that some more, but we obviously will do. And Tara, what about you?

Yeah, well, I have a very mixed background, so I'm actually a professional firefighter. That's my full time job. But I'm also halfway through a PhD at the moment as well, or over halfway through. And I used to be a physiotherapist. And so it was very much my background was in physical health. But have moved much more recently into mental health in particular and suicide prevention, which is the area of my study of my PhD. And so I also started teaching mental health first aid. And I wrote a book about my own experiences of grief and trauma and loss and suicide. And I had my first kind of expedition when I was 18, after I'd left school. It was my first expedition to Zimbabwe with a charity called Operation rally back in 1989. And that was kind of my introduction into adventure. And I have, you know, I've sort of always still held that and loved, had a passion for the outdoors and adventure and sport and, you know, haven't really sort of lost a little bit of that and didn't get a chance to really pursue that, but did row. I rode surfboats competitively and that kind of gave me that little bit of passion for adventure and wildness and being out in nature. And that was, you know, that kept me very happy for probably about 12 to 13 years. I only retired fairly recently from active competition, so. So as my, as my niece said to me, she said, auntie Tara, how many different jobs do you have? She was a bit confused. And I thought, yes, I can see why it is very confusing because even for me, but for me, actually, all the dots kind of come together now as I've gotten older, I'm able to join all the dots of my experience and my passions and my professional and personal experiences.

Now, I've seen a video clip before. So you've just come back from an adventure together, both of you cycling across Australia, west to east. Right, I get that the right way around. But I saw in the video clip, before you started on that adventure, Tara, you actually called Sarah the more crazy one. And I know Sarah has done some crazy expeditions and adventures, but you row surf, light boat. So that to me, I've seen the pictures of the boats going over the waves backwards, they're vertical, there's people getting flung out. That to me, scares the shit out of me. Explain a little bit what that is like.

You know what, for me, it's just the essence of passion and flow and it's just everything that I love. So it is for people that don't know what a surfboat is, it comes through from or its background is in surf life saving. And we used to use the boats to actually rescue people before we had motorized inflatable boats. And now it's become a sport. So there's four people and what we call a sweep, who is almost like the cox and you go out through the surf around a buoy and come back again. But it does get quite hectic when the surf is big. You can sort of. The boats weigh about 200 kilos and obviously you're trying to navigate and pull an oar through very unpredictable, messy waters. But it's really the essence of teamwork, I think, as well, because you have to trust each other. And to be honest, there's a lot of similarities with rowing surfboats as there is with firefighting, in terms of that teamwork and a chaotic, unpredictable environment and quite a risky and potentially dangerous environment. And really it's about how you work together, which I think is just for me is part of what I absolutely love about it and what gives me so much and has taught me so much in terms of life skills as well, as well as giving me, you know, that bit of thrill and adrenaline and just following my passion really well.

Talking about together, I'm glad to see. Well, I don't know. We're sat on four separate zoom calls. Maybe you're not friends anymore, but I think you're still friends after the adventure. Talking about together.

We did have separate tents in order to maintain our friendship.

A quick question to start off to Sarah about your last event and then we'll talk a little bit more about what you've done. How are DEZ and Troy?

Des and Troy, they've recovered well, so probably need to give a bit of background to that one.

I think these two.

We have tired for this one. So we were going across another ball. So we're talking about being either close to 2000kms into the expedition, my legs still hadn't adapted. It just felt like we're just pushing harder and harder every day and the legs were suffering and it was just. We were having a bad day, more bike issues. And I was just. Just really. I do. It's just a bit emotional and struggling with it all. And Tara's very good at them being able to. To lift. Lift people. And certainly me up during this trip when I hit the lows and I was doing a vlog at the time, sort of just doing a despair of how I was struggling. And Tara comes in and goes, right, I'm gonna introduce you to dez and pointed to one leg and then she said, and this is Troy. And pointed other leg and she said, and together they destroy.

I found it funny as well.

This made me laugh when I needed it, really needed it the most. So, yes, Des and Troy are doing okay, but are quite happy to not be cycling every day.

So what made you guys Decide that you wanted to cycle across Australia.

Again. This sort of comes back to me. So I was doing, I did my. I did big expedition down Denial and that was 2018 into 2019. And that was the sort of the first real sort of expedition I'd done something, you know, from a self organized perspective. I'd gone on adventurous, you know, adventure holidays, but nothing like this and, you know, was.

And let's just say the first female to lead an expedition, lead an expedition down the Nile.

I think we need to come back to find out more about it.

We will.

So we'll come back.

Well, maybe tell us about it now, actually. Describe what it's like paddling down the Nile.

Yeah, that was pretty hectic. It was certainly, you know, someone who's a risk manager going in. There are a fair few risks to unpack with that. It was the goal of it was just to do the length of the Nile starting in Rwanda at I would say was the source. It's still debated, but the source that I chose and to then make my way through to Egypt, a mix of rafting and kayaking. So the First, I did 1100 KS in total of rafting. So it wasn't all white water, but there was a fair bit of. There was some white water through that initial section through Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. The choice of craft was also to be a tiny bit further away from some of the more aggressive wildlife that one encounters when going down the Nile in the form of hippos and crocodiles. And. And it was jolly good that we did sit in the raft because we did get attacked by a hippo who bit the back of the raft. So I was quite glad to have the space between me and this rather large set of jaws that was coming for us. And yeah, so they made that through. Sussan ended up having to miss Sudan for security reasons, but then got in the kayak for Sudan and Egypt and that was about 3000ks of kayaking. So yeah, it was a total of about six months on the water or in Africa rather. Not all of that was on the water because it was all self organized. So yes, there'd been two years of preparation and planning and even doing, you know, recce trips to Sudan and Egypt to start to build some networks on the ground and get support from. From locals, from local government and yeah, and then six months on the go. But there was times to sort of stop and plan and execute the next before executing the next section.

And.

And it was during that that, you know, I wasn't sure, you know how much I was going to enjoy this. I didn't expect to enjoy the start of it because there were so many dangers and the things that scared me the most like the crocs and the hippos and also the big water and all of those things. But for me it just, it really made me come alive and, and you know, when rereading my, my note, my diary, it was within the first four weeks that I started to think about what was next. Even though I still had thousands of kilometers to go. And that was when I came up with this idea of, of doing, to cycle across Australia. That was things that I wanted to do something back home. I'd always had a bucket list think it was like wanting to cross a continent and the idea of doing it self powered and a way of seeing more of Australia. And you know what I realized is doing the Nile trip, what was so good is the pace that you kind of go at, you still manage to cover a reasonable distance, but you're going at a pace where you are part of that environment and you are talking to more people and seeing it, smelling it, hearing it as you go. And it was just that idea that I came up with. There it went away. But then once we were in through Covid, obviously we weren't going to be traveling overseas and the idea sort of bubbled back up again that it's sort of been sitting there for some time.

Brilliant. And Tara, how were you dragged in on this mission?

That's a very, very good question. There were many points on the expedition.

When I looked at Sarah and said.

It'S all your fault that I'm here. As I was just very quietly looking.

Forward to our first time.

We could go out for breakfast after Covid when we were coming out of lockdown and it was like, oh, we're going to have. So I was having, enjoying a lovely plate of tea, chili, scrambled eggs and Sarah said, oh, I'm going to want.

To cycle across Australia.

And I said, oh, I'd love to come with you. And she was like, well, why don't you? And I was like oh no I can't, I can't, I've got too much on. And then I was like. And by the end of the conversation somehow it was like, yes I can. And somehow by the end of the conversation I was going with her.

Amazing. And so how much cycling experience. I have a feeling that I remember listening to a podcast last night. You weren't a big fan of cycling, Sarah, were you?

No, no, I did my, my cycling Experience is I used to cycle to work in London. I started doing a bit of triathlon. I gave up triathlon because I hated cycling. And then I had my ex boyfriend used to really enjoy mountain biking and biking with him and. And it would scare the bejesus out of me. So as a result of all of those things, I. I hadn't actually really sat on a bicycle for 15 years before deciding to do this, which is probably good things. I think if I had, I probably wouldn't have done it.

That was like the perfect preparation. And what about you, Tara, were you an avid cyclist at this point?

No, I certainly wasn't an avid cyclist. But I mean the only time I cycle really is when I want to go on holiday. So I have done because I find it a nice pace. It's a beautiful pace and a way to see a country. So the only cycle trips I've really done have been fully supported and what I would call a holiday. I mean I cycled, I did a couple of weeks trip around Myanmar and I cycled from Peru to Bolivia which took a few weeks but that was fully supported. And then in between I don't cycle at all. So I hadn't been on a bike for. I have done some adventure racing in the past as well, but really recently I haven't really done any cycling.

So how so? I know, Sarah, when you did the Nile, obviously you've got a strong history with your paddling and actually I know, I remember listening to things and saying when you were preparing for the Nile, you actually didn't do as much training in paddling because you knew you'd sort of build the fitness on the way and actually didn't want to get to the start line sort of injured and stuff. How much then for you guys did you do cycling or was it just let's get to the start line and hope that we'll build, build and Des and Troy will adapt kind of thing.

I probably did do, definitely did do some cycling because I didn't have that base. The good thing about having been a kayaker for such a long time, long distance running, half marathons was my thing and then I blew my meniscus and I've got osteoarthritis and that's what got me into the kayaking. And so then I spent 10 years as a kayaker. So very upper body conditions, not lower body conditions. So I knew I needed to get on the bike and also to build up some strength. So I was working with my physio befit physio who was helping me build the program to actually build the strength in my legs. You know, one of the things I think and a lot of people.

You.

Know, when I've researched a great, you know, so much building that strength that you've got the muscle to then hopefully prevent the injuries and the overuse. But well, I did do some cycling, you know, because it's keen on it. I didn't really do a huge amount so I definitely didn't go into the expedition over trained. I was working on the theory of adaptation to get me through it and mindset.

I'm finding amazing how people do this. I remember reading Sean Conway's book where he swam from Land's End to John o' Groats and he had hardly done any swimming in the lead up to that and it was. Yeah. So does the body adapt quite quickly or does it kind of. Does it want to give up after about four days and then eventually you battle through?

Well, for me, I mean on the ex. The kayaking ones I've done, so I did the Murray river here in Australia. It adapted, you know, about 10 days to two weeks. Adapted to doing those long days on this trip it took about four weeks. It was just you. It sort of went to running on empty to then most days feeling like I was getting on the bike after leg day. So yeah, I did. It did take longer than, than I'd hoped to adapt. But I think we both had different, you know, it was. Affected us different. I think Tara, from your perspective was probably different.

Yeah, I mean I think, you know, I was lucky because I had, you know, probably 15 years worth of rowing in me and so rowing the. From crossing over, from rowing to bike is a much smoother crossover and very similar muscles. So I had a lot of leg power and already. So in that sense that was easier for me I think. But I'm not really an endurance athlete. I'm very much a power athlete naturally. So for me it was very much about adapting to just physically being in that position for that length of time and that really there's no substitute than doing it, you know. So we did, I did train, but we didn't do. You know, it's also difficult because of the amount of time you need to spend on a bike to prepare your body for that. And I just didn't have that much time. So you know, I might go for two hour rides and you know, we did a couple of, we did do one overnight or in preparation but we really didn't do any super long rides. So the only way to adapt to that side of things, in terms of being in that position and on the bike for that many hours a day, is just to do it. And, you know, I think I probably from a leg perspective, I found it okay. You know, that wasn't the hard bit for me. It was more just the discomfort of everything else. And, you know, your neck and your hand. Both of our hands went numb from the pressure on the nerves and we kind of lost. We had quite interesting matching set. Well, like between us, we had one functional set of hands, but yeah, so that was quite interesting. There's different things. I think, as Sarah said, it was different for me. Probably the issues that I found challenging physically were probably slightly different to Sarah's.

Because it's also different. I mean, Sarah's all right going out and training and doing some cycling on a bike, but then once the bike's fully loaded and kitted up, I mean, I saw some pictures. I mean, how much were the bikes weighing in total, or did you not think?

We didn't. I think we sort of. We looked at. To begin with, it was more focusing on what we could fit in there and kind of thinking that that would be the limiting factor, which it sort of was, but. And we did weigh them, the bags, sort of before we went, didn't we? But it was really only when we got to these people that we stayed with in Kalgoorlie and the guy who we stayed with as a couple, Robin Carey, and Rob's a former elite cyclist and he was really interested to see how much the bikes weighed. So he took our panniers and took the bikes and weighed it all and worked out that with a full load of food and with full water. So the water we were carrying, the maximum would be 17 and a half liters, which is 17 and a half kilos. Came in at sort of between 65 to 69 kilos. Bike and gear. It was about right, wasn't it, Tara? 65 to 69 kilos.

Yeah, they were. That was what they. Because we had at that point, because it was going to be 1200 kilometers to the next supermarket. So we had a lot of food on board as well. So we had. Yeah, yeah. We wanted to make absolutely sure that we didn't run out of food and we didn't. But we did mean we had very, very heavy bikes. And I'm sure that obviously contributed to a lot of the bike issues that we ended up having.

So what were you eating? And is there anything as a result of the exhibition that you cannot look at again or want to taste ever again.

Do never see another packet of tuna in my life. And maybe a protein bar as well. I don't want to see a protein bar. We did have. We had sent some dehydrated food to Kalgoorlie to pick up and we took some with us from Perth as well. So we had some of that for the nights when we. In between roadhouses and where there was no access to anything. And we had packet tuna, hence for lunches. So hence that neither of us probably or I certainly don't want to see any packet tuna for quite some time. And we had a lot of sort of protein bars and muesli bars and those sorts of things. And we had oats generally for breakfast and then whatever. Any time that we were able to pick up fresh food, we did. Although we really didn't have hardly any fresh food for certainly for the first six weeks, I would say, I think. What do you think, Sarah? I don't think from what.

Yeah, there wasn't a huge amount. Unless I mean chicken Parma and stuff like that. I don't know if that really counts in chips because I never thought I'd be over hot chips, but I was like a lot of hot chips. And then I needed quite a lot. I needed sugar. I more than I think I needed it, but I certainly consumed quite a lot of sugar. So the lollies or I think sort of sweets, so snakes, the all natural confectionery. And I just went through so many packets of that. Even towards the end I was like, I just can't eat that anymore. And I never thought I would be over that. But also, yet the tuna don't want to do Pikachu again. I used all of that down in Mari too. And I'm just like, I'm so done with that.

It was brilliant.

And I just don't know if anyone has any ideas for alternatives for expeditions and things like that you can have on the go for lunches, which was like crazy expensive. It just. It works really well. But yeah, even with four flavors, I'm done. Done.

You might both potentially come down with mercury poisoning as well.

Yeah, that is the thing as well. I've had a friend, a triathlete friend who's had that from eating too much tuna.

Now what the podcast I was listening to last night was pre you cycling across Australia and one of the things you said was you'd got a saddle that people had recommended. But you then said, but I'm also thinking about using the Gel padded saddle cover. And I cringed at hearing that. So how did that go? Was the saddle right? Was the gel cover right? Did either work?

Well, we had different approaches, so I ended up, I just got this gel cover from Decathlon and that worked for me. It fitted the seat perfectly. Obviously, cheap as chips. And for me that just that tiny bit of extra padding worked. But Tara, I mean, you were happy without. You didn't. In fact, that made it worse for you, didn't it?

Yeah, I did. After you got it, I thought, I'll try one. So I went and I did one ride and went nah. And took that away and went back to just the seat. But the seat itself was absolutely brilliant. And that was something that Sarah had done a lot of research, which, I mean, thankfully, I'm so grateful to have had Sarah because she did all of the research. And then I just went, is that one good? Okay, I'll get that.

So what, so what saddle was that for people that are thinking about embarking on a, on a trip?

Was it. It was the specialized power mimic.

Power mimic? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

So it wasn't. I was envisaging one of these kind of leather, these old school leather looking saddles.

They were on decent bikes, I have to say. It wasn't like.

No, no, the leather saddles are really expensive. But a lot of the endurance, a lot of the expedition cyclists use them. So that's kind of what I had in mind. Not a really old, like 1960s, although they do look like it. They are new. And anyway, so. No, that's, that's really good. Thank you.

Tara, you mentioned just then about like, Sarah did all. Sarah was good at doing the research and you just went, right, what, what have you done? Let me know. Coming together as a pair then for the expert. And also Sarah, you mentioned earlier about how Tara is really good at making you laugh and that's the thing. So what sort of skills did you each bring to the, to the cycle and how did you complement each other with that?

I mean, I think we, I think we, that was where we, we had a really fantastic sort of complementary skill set. And I think that really shone through and allowed us to get through and to still be friends at the end and to work with each other. And I think that was something that was just one of the best things or certainly for me. And I mean, I would never have even got to the start had it not been for Sarah because she, you know, she is so good and amazing at. And obviously having planned the Nile expedition She. And being a risk manager. So she had spreadsheeted the entire thing and had done a whole risk management plan and she actually designed and set up the website herself and she understands social media. I have absolutely no idea about any of that. So I did it at the beginning. Think. I'm not quite sure what I bring to the party, but I. Yeah, I think, you know, I. Obviously I was a. I have a physio background, although I don't know whether I particularly helped there. I did treat you once, I think, on the trip. But anyway. But I think also I. I guess I had a lot of contacts through a lot of the work that I've done. So in terms of getting sponsorship, that was kind of what I was able to. To get some sponsors on board. But beyond that, I'm not quite sure what else did I bring.

Sam, you're being really harsh on yourself. Well, Tara was very much. We had. I mean, once we got on the ride, you know, we had some regular roles. One, Tara was up front. So Tara was doing the work up front and I'd sit on the back head of comms. Like, you know, when we went into it, she was head of comms. I was IT support. I had no IT help desk. And so when it came to things like everything from the newsletter to talking to people, as we went to having. And I'm sure we'll get into it also some very challenging conversations. Tara is just so good at.

Getting.

Our messaging across and her messaging across and having impactful conversations that it was so much more than just we're riding across the country. Obviously, you know, we were raising money for mental health and suicide prevention. And so there was so much on that side and there was a lot of logistical. Then just organizing stuff because Tara had telstra. I was on Vodafone, so I didn't have any coverage until I got to pretty much Byron Bay. And so there was a lot of, you know, fielding calls and everything and that stuff. It just. When you're tired at the end of the day, you just don't want to be doing that. And then the network that, you know, Tara brought to it, so, you know, it was three friends as we're on the Nullarbor trying to work out what the hell we do with our bikes because we've got more flat tires and do we go back to Kalgoorlie? Do we change tyre setups? You know, and just organizing, like getting all that information and just so much info from. To bring in a network, a huge network that Tara's got from everything from people with the bike experience through to the forest through to the deputy police commissioner. It was just extraordinary. As well as keeping me going, motivating, making me laugh, and occasionally giving Des and Troy a bit of. A bit of love as well.

Because, well, two things. How long have you got it down to for changing a tire? Come on, ladies, 21 minutes. What?

Are we done?

Yes, 41 minutes. How long did it take you the first time? Is it like three and four hours or something? Ashamed to admit.

You know, that did involve about three phone calls from the middle of the Nullarbor as well.

I think you did have, I seem to remember a lot of tire issues, but let's not go into that bit. But you touched on it there about some of the challenges and the difficult situations you had to go through. And I know there was one involving a gentleman that you met called Leif. Is that Leith? Is that right? His name? If I. If I give him the right respect there and tell us a little bit about what happened there and how that then subsequently went to affect whether you carried on or not.

Yeah, I mean, I think that was without a doubt the most challenging time in the whole trip, really. And I think that was the. Really, the big thing of, you know, and we had set this mission was that, you know, how can we empower people to struggle well with life's challenges and, you know, not knowing what would happen and thinking that we would encounter all sorts of other challenges, but. But not this. And we met. We were in the middle of nowhere. We hadn't really seen any cyclists at all. It was quite incredible. And then we saw this little figure coming towards us and it's like, oh, wow, it's another cyclist. And so this young man sort of crossed over to the other side of the road and we had a lovely chat. And he was giving us tips because he had a very. He was like, oh, I like your setup. And. And he had a very light setup. It was like, wow, how do you do it? And he was only carrying a few liters of water. And he was giving us tips of things like having a sign to hold out for water and saying, the gray Nomads are great. They often stop to help and they'll give you water and all sorts of things. And just saying it was a bit harder for him to get off the road. Cause he had slicks on and he had a road bike. And we just, you know, just as we were about to leave, I sort of called out, what's your name? And Sarah said, oh, what's your Instagram? And he carried on going. And we went to the next roadhouse and we had actually arranged to meet some other cyclists that we knew and had been in contact with. And we were sitting, just having a bite to eat, and the manager of the roadhouse came up and said, have you got any friends out there? There's just been a cyclist killed 40km outside of OR from where we were by a road train. And both Sarah and I. I mean, it was just like. I just remember feeling sick. And because we knew instantly who it was, it couldn't have been anybody else. And that really just. We were the last people to speak to him. We were able to. We had stopped in at the police before, the police station at Norseman on the way as we were about to start on the Nullarbor. So they knew we were out there and just to pass on some resources through some of the work that I do. And so we were able to help ID him. And we'd done some publicity stuff in Kalgoorlie, so we. A lot of the newspaper and radio channels sort of rang to say, are you okay? They'd obviously heard what happened and they were able to put us in contact with the family and to speak with the family and try and lessen some of the impact of their grief and trauma. But also, obviously, it made us really think about what we were doing and why. And, you know, if part of what we were doing was to set. Try and save people's lives, how much do we risk our own and really, to wrestle and struggle with some of those really difficult questions and, you know, not to react and respond? I think, you know, certainly my temptation always is to just keep pushing through and, you know, and going, you know, actually, no, we need to stop. We need to stop and we need to just really ground ourselves and think about what we're doing. And we had to keep going. We had another 64km to do that day. It was boiling hot. It was like over 40 degrees. We had another flat tyre. And I think both of us were like, come on, just give us a break. Like, we just need to get to this next roadhouse so we can stop and just let ourselves rest and think. And we kind of. I mean, what was amazing was that both Sarah and I were really on the same page for the entire time, really. We didn't have any kind of real disagreements at all. And we both agreed that we needed to slow down and have a rest day and let things settle, and we did. And the couple that we Met bought us new tyres and we pushed on for another few days to reach the South Australian border. And then it was there that we had to give a police statement. And we met the police officer there and he said, every time I see a cyclist, I shudder. There was another cyclist killed a couple of weeks ago. You know, if you want to have an adventure, go somewhere else. It's so dangerous. We spoke to some of the truckees who said, you know, we just can't maneuver around you. It's really difficult for us. And it was like everything was saying to us, you know, don't do it, don't keep, carry on. And we had a GPS tracker on us. So, you know, it made us really think about, I guess, you know, you want, you have this goal that you want to get to, you know, from A to B. And this is your, this is your goal that you've been focused on for so long and being able to kind of let go of that to a certain extent and make good decisions. And we, so we stopped and we both went individually and spoke to people, friends to try and mull over our options and spoke about whether we should just stop where we were altogether, whether we complete the whole of the rest of the 5,000 km around Centennial park or whether we change routes and we ended up. That was the decision that we decided in the end that we would change routes. And the way that things played out after that, I think we both absolutely know that that was the right decision. And sort of also promoting the messaging that we were trying to promote around struggling with difficult and challenging life experiences and that goals, it's great to have goals, but we should be able to hold them gently and we should be able to adapt and change and make good decisions and allow ourselves to be grounded and not react from emotion and to wrestle with the options and give ourselves options and then to be able to come to a decision that's thought out and a grounded decision. And I think we really did that. And that certainly played out in that we went down the Eyre Peninsula instead and we skipped about 350 km of the Nullarbor and we took this tiny little road off. Nobody knew where we were going and no one had our route. But we thought we were going to go through the air peninsula because Leif had said, you must go there, it's beautiful. And it just felt right. So we did that and we were on this tiny little road and this car pulled up and a man got out and he said, are you the cyclists? And we sort of said, yes. He said, you met my nephew Leif, who was killed. And it was this. He was on his way to the crash site to be where Leif had been killed. And there was no reason that he should have come across us. And it was just. It was like the universe saying there was some synchronicity in that. And we spoke to him and we had a little laugh about, you know, that Leif would have said, oh, you know, what a great setup, and he would have admired it.

And.

Yeah, exactly. He did do that. And we had shared a tear and that moment and that moment of connection and sort of just really reinforced and validated that we had made the right decision in doing what we did and that we could connect with him, with Leif's uncle, and with the family and hopefully be able to answer some questions for them and just reduce some of their grief, even in the tiniest little bit, if we could do that just a tiny bit. And I hope that we did through that meeting. And it just reinforced the choices that we made and the decisions that we made and also, I guess, our reason for cycling in the first place.

So let's. Let's come on to the. I want to come on to the reason. You know, that's an incredible story and brilliant that you able to adapt the.

Goals.

But also to sort of get back to the purpose. I want to come on to the purpose of doing this and raising money for suicide prevention. Before I do, I can't help but ask, Sarah, when you're going through that process as a risk manager, you know what, how do you. How do you bring your work into making the decisions as to whether you should carry on or whether you should stop? And I dare say you brought that in long before you even started. So how does your risk management work play into these sorts of events?

Yeah, and it really does for me. I start putting it into the way we sort of talk about it through work and the things that we do instinctively. But I wrap the. The wording that you get in risk management and sort of suddenly the risk appetite, the risk appetite to continue didn't match the goal. Like the risk appetite that was going to need to meet our objective. It wasn't there because it just felt I was getting outside of the risk that I was comfortable taking. And with all this messaging coming into us, where every bit of messaging was continue, and there was nothing there that was saying to continue. And, you know, you start, we look at all the things that we've done as we've gone along of like, how can we Reduce the risk. So there was very much, you know, and looking at the options and what we can do. And we'd already done everything we could. We were getting off the roads whenever a road train approached. So the way we were set up was, you know, was again, very much trying to minimize the risk. I had both had mirrors on our bikes, on their handlebars. I was, as I said, sitting behind T Tara, recording out what was coming up ahead. I'd be calling out what I could see in the mirror and then making calls as to whether we needed to get off the road or not. We had lights. We were just doing everything we could. And it was still feeling like it's not enough to keep us safe and. And that we, you know, I certainly felt, you know, it was risking our lives too much. And it was just. It. Yeah, it wasn't worth continuing feeling like that. And there was just. There was no joy on the bikes through that, on that road, on the Nullarbor, particularly after everything had happened. And obviously, you know, you come into it knowing the risks are there. It's very different when you're confronted with them, with the reality of it and your positivity bias and all those things just gets knocked out of you and your perspective changes. So, yeah, we had to adapt the goal. There was nothing else we could do to bring it down to a point that we were comfortable with, and we were moving away. One of the big things as far as saying is that messaging around, struggling well and having conversations. And what we realized, particularly across this area, there were no conversations really to have. You know, you're not going through any of the local communities that we had been previously through WA and hearing about the impact of suicide and the challenges with mental health through these rural and remote communities. And we weren't doing any of that. So you suddenly start looking at what I said, you come back to the why, and they just weren't good enough reasons to continue.

Yeah, that makes.

It makes a lot of sense.

Just. No, I just. Just for those people that might be listening and aren't familiar, explain what a road train is. Just to give it context, like on what size we are talking about when you're on that road.

So, I mean, this is the ones that we're dealing with. On that road, you've got your. Your truck and it's pulling up to three semi trailers. So those ones were up to 42 meters long. So it's like having, you know, a truck almost the length of an Olympic swimming pool coming past you. So. So one that Means they're not maneuverable. If it suddenly pulls out, the back end of that is going to whip out. They can't maneuver quickly, obviously, with the amount of weight. They're going at 100 kilometers an hour. I can't translate that. I can't remember what the miles per hour would be.

Kilometers is fine. That's all right.

Two miles.

They can't suddenly stop. The visibility obviously is they can't see. And then you've got the suck of those going past, which it sort of depends partly on the wind conditions and the shape of the truck. But, you know, people have been killed or, you know, been seriously injured as that goes past. If there isn't a big enough gap that the suck will potentially pull you into or under that truck. So, yeah, is there?

I remember when I interviewed Mark Beaumont, who cycled across Australia twice, once unsupported and then once supported as part of his around the world in 80 days. Is that for those people that think I love the idea of cycling across Australia, as I certainly did when I was listening to him talk about it, except for the wind, he seemed to have a headwind the whole way across. Is there a particular route that you would suggest people take, knowing what you know now? Or is it really you kind of stuck on certain stretches where the only option is these types of roads? With the road trains.

I mean, you.

Haven'T got a lot of options. You know, if you go, there are potentially quieter roads, but then you get to the point that you've got far, far bigger gaps between areas that you can refill for water or food. So suddenly, logistically it becomes a lot harder, particularly if you're doing it unsupported. You know, it has been done, but then you also, you know, more remote. It brings in different risks. You know, yes, you move away from the busy roads, but then if you have bike issues, physical issues, you know, it's that much harder. So it's. Yeah, there isn't really a huge amount of choice.

Yeah, okay. I think funnily enough, I asked Mark, I remember asking Mark what was his. The best place he'd cycled. And it. And as much as I think he had a love hate relationship with cycling across Australia, but cycling Africa was his. The length of Africa was his favorite. Given that you've got the experience of paddling through a lot of Africa, is there any temptation to go back and to cycle Africa?

No, I guess that might be the answer. I'm sticking with.

Paddle bike is pretty much off the cliff already.

It's gone I was going to say have. I was going to ask, have you actually been on the bike since you got back at all? Or is it just like.

Well, we did because we. Part of what we decided in rerouting, because we missed a few about three or four hundred kilometers along the Nullarbor, we decided we would make that distance up in Centennial Park. So we did that when we got. So we did. We did complete those 100 km in Centennial park when we got back, going round and round. It's only a 4 kilometer or less than a 3.8 kilometer loop, so that was quite a few laps. But other than that, I have not been on the bike.

There's no passion for cycling.

I actually have, surprisingly. I have been on the bike a few times, but it's really only because I couldn't get out for a paddle and I needed to do something. So I can't see myself rushing to do a cycling trip.

Yeah. And so we can safely say that then the next adventure for either both of you, together or separately, is probably not going to be on a bike.

Definitely not.

No, I don't think so.

So I really want to come on to you, Tara, and talk about the reason why you were doing this and the raising, you know, awareness for suicide prevention. It's a charity, you know, it's an area that's very close to my heart. My wife lost her brother to taking his own life. And it's actually. So our chosen charity for my business this year is a suicide prevention charity. So it's something that I'm. But why. Why do you support that particular charity so much? And why are you building your. Doing your PhD on it as well?

Yeah, I mean, it really stems back to having my own experiences. So. I lost my brother to suicide when I was 17, so back in 1988. And that absolutely changed my world. It changed the whole trajectory of my life. And it does impact, you know, it's impacted me in every possible way. It kind of changes your whole. It fractures your whole relationship with yourself. I think my whole world was obliterated. I had lost my mother four years before she had died from cancer. And my father struggled very much with quite significant mental health issues throughout his life, for which she was hospitalized at various times. So mental illness and obviously suicide has really impacted my life in. In every way possible. And I sort of turned away from that for many, many years. Probably 15 years. I just couldn't, you know, it was. I wasn't able to. I moved to Australia. I just tried to block anything to do with that out. And then I attended the scene of a suicide as a firefighter. And it brought it sort of. I had a sort of traumatic critical incident, sort of stress reaction to that. And I had a visceral sort of feeling that I was going to vomit. And I had a friend who attempted suicide. And that really led me to. And I had a relationship breakdown. All those things kind of led me to start to turn towards what was happening inside me that I tried to kind of run away from. And I then went through a very long struggle to make sense of what had happened and to try to heal myself, I guess. And that then led me to. Part of that was writing my own life story. Dan. And I then led me to writing a book about my experiences. And that then also got me into work in the peer support team with firefighters, supporting firefighters who've been impacted by some of the traumatic incidents we attend. I became a mental health first aid instructor. And then I kind of. And then I started doing my PhD because I spoke to so many people who had been hugely impacted by suicide as well, and realized the damage through silencing and never being able to speak about it and how damaging that is, and the secondary damage that that cause causes to people. And I guess that led me into my PhD and looking at the impact of suicide on firefighters, and it became something that really was, I guess, my meaning and purpose in life, and very much so. And the ride really enabled me to integrate all of my passions because I love adventure, I love being outside. But to be able to, you know, the why for doing it for me in terms of raising money, but also creating really safe and valuable conversations for people about suicide, which is really confronting. And how do we kind of change that public narrative? Because that's my passion. And as Sarah said, you know, to be able to just have those face to face meaningful conversations where people are able to share their stories was part of what really drove me as well as obviously raising money for Lifeline, which is the suicide sort of predominant suicide prevention charity in. In Australia. And that why for doing it. And my passion for that, I guess, and wanting to make a difference in the world in that space was really what drove me throughout the whole ride and to actually complete it as well and to start it in the first place.

The stats around suicide are frightening. I think, I think I'm right in saying that it's the. The single largest killer of men aged between 20 and 40 in the UK. And I think I heard you say on a podcast that it was, you know, it Kills way more people than road deaths in Australia. Have you got any, you know, is there any advice? Because the ripple effect is something that you talk about, isn't it? Maybe you can explain the ripple effect, but also, have you got any advice for people that are, you know, to help people get over the death of the suicide of somebody they cared about?

Yeah, thank you for asking that question. I think it's really important. So we know from research that about 135 people are directly impacted by every single suicide death. And that's really the ripple effect. And I guess there's a ripple effect throughout somebody's life, as it is for me. And one of my PhD participants I spoke to who had lost his father said it affects every single day of your life. And he had lost his father over 30 years ago. And that's not uncommon. I hear that all the time. And also speaking to first responders, so firefighters who don't even know the person and have had a significant traumatic reaction to that. So that ripple effect plays out in so many ways. And we know that people who have been impacted by suicide are much more likely to experience suicidal behavior, but also their own mental illness, whether that's depression or anxiety or post traumatic stress, and also social isolation, because people don't know what to say, so they tend to leave you alone. And I've had people kind of cross over the road to avoid actually speaking to me because you know that. And many people have shared their experiences of the same thing because it's like, well, I don't know what to say, so I'll just avoid you. And so people become even more isolated as well. And that can be so damaging. And we know that social connection is so important in terms of people's wellbeing. So I think in terms of helping people, there's so much. And in Australia, and I'm less aware of resources in the uk, but there are so many. So there's suicide Bereavement UK is a huge. Has some fantastic resources here. Standby support after suicide. And I think it is about finding people and access to support that have a lot of knowledge and experience in that specific area. Because a lot of mental health professionals are necessarily experienced in suicide and looking at it as a traumatic death because it is a traumatic death and therefore it plays out differently. It's not just a grief response that you're dealing with. And I think there's lots of evidence for expressive writing in the healing of trauma. So I've certainly found that writing my life story and writing down as if no one was ever going to read it, it did turn into a book, but I wrote it as if it was never going to be read by anybody. And that is incredibly healing because you can rescript that narrative. And it gave me self compassion and self understanding that I couldn't possibly have had had I not done that. And I did that at the same time as seeking professional help and support. So I really encourage people to seek professional help and support to help them through what is an incredibly long and difficult journey of grief and trauma after you have been impacted by suicide. So for me, those things were really fundamental and transformational in allowing me to actually turn my life around, be the person that I wanted to be, rather than being kind of locked in this complex grief, which kind of had aspects of anxiety in there as well, and all sorts of things. So definitely turning to the support services that are out there. And there's more and more good support services coming that are available for people now.

I think that sounds like incredibly good advice from the stuff I've witnessed that my wife has been through. One more question on this, if you don't mind. I don't really want to take up too much of your time on this one, but I was listening to a podcast where you were talking about suicide and you were talking about. Or the question was, what advice would you give to somebody that finds somebody else that's contemplating suicide? Because it really, it brought back. I remember going and speaking to somebody that was sat on a cliff edge and I asked the question, are you okay? And he said yes. And having listened to your conversation, I know now that that wasn't the right question to ask. So what advice would you give around somebody else you know, is aware of or find somebody that is maybe contemplating suicide?

Yeah, I mean, it's really difficult. And there's no, you know, categorical right or wrong. I mean, I think certainly just equipping yourself with as much knowledge as you can. So there's fantastic courses available now to learn more from just short online ones. So there's a great organization called Living Works that provide courses for people to. Of all different length courses to start a conversation with someone who they might be concerned about. So certainly that is absolutely the best place to start. But if you just come across somebody, it is just about making that connection and showing that you care and saying, you know, I care, I'm here. How are you traveling? Because you seem, it looks like you're struggling, you know, can it. How are you? And opening up a safe space for somebody to tell you their story, really, and to reconnect them. So what you want to do is to make someone feel cared for, because people often feel alone and they can tell straight away if you're genuine in saying that you care and trying to connect them to their meaning in life. And that's different for people, but trying to find a way to reconnect them with something that has meaning for them, and whether that's a pet or a person or even a plant or something that they care about that has meaning for them, that's ultimately what you really want to be able to do to keep someone safe. And there is fantastic resources, downloadable resources around suicide safety planning so that you can take people through to build their own safety plan. So if you have recurrent suicidal thoughts, you can actually build a plan and build a plan with somebody that you might be concerned about to help keep them safe. Because we know that it's just that suicidal crisis. And if we can get people through that moment of crisis and then to seek professional help and to keep them safe for now by. By linking them to some meaning and staying with them, if we can, and linking them to professional help, then they can recover. You know, most people can and do recover, but it is just getting through that moment of crisis and the different ways that we can do that. But certainly equipping ourselves with knowledge and just showing that we care and creating a safe space can be so invaluable in saving somebody's life.

I think it is such a difficult subject to talk about. I'm not quite sure why it is such a difficult subject to talk about, but I know that the. In the podcast that you. I was listening to, it was just the direct question of, you know, are you contemplating suicide? That meant it was very easy for when I asked, are you okay? It's a. It's a closed question, isn't it? It's a yes or a no answer, really. Whereas I, contemplating suicide is getting to the point and it'd be very easy to say no. No, I'm actually just really enjoying the view. But we are quite. It's very awkward to talk about it, isn't it? And I don't know quite. How did you find it, Sarah? Not coming into this, I take it. Was this the first time you were raising money for this particular subject?

Yeah, it was. But, you know, my background in sort of the mental health side of things, I have a history of dealing with depression that has taken me to some very, very dark places. And knowing the value of all those things that Tara has talked about, but learning the ways of managing my mental health. And the charity I was raising money for was a local organization called Mead Active. And they bring exercise to people dealing with mild to moderate mental health challenges and people where it wouldn't naturally be part of that toolkit like it is for me, as I'm sure it is for all of us here, but it's not for everyone. And it's then helping people sort of get back on their feet with using exercise. So we were kind of at both ends of the spectrum as far as sort of mental health support and intervention, from that sort of early preventative to crisis support, which Tara pointed out. And I just, I thought that was really, really nice to have that balance through that. And then, you know, the conversations we were having, we're having it with people who have dealt with suicide through to people who had then their own sort of mental health challenges. So it was, you know, and I learned a lot, you know, by, you know, listening to Tara, you know, the conversations we had in the interviews, you know, I learned every single time. And I think you can see why she was head of comms, you know, it was incredibly valuable for me. And yeah, I learned a hell of a lot.

So during the ride, I mean, cycling across Australia, and you've said it before, that there's sections where you're not seeing anybody and having contact with anyone, but you've also said part of that experience was the people you met. And that's sort of some of those greatest memories were you having. So was it you having the bringing these conversations up as you went along across Australia with the communities you stopped with or the people you met along the way, was it sort of of explaining or bringing up those difficult conversations, Was that kind of the plan?

Well, I mean, the thing we had gear on which had the logos and it had Mood act and it had Lifeline on it. And Lifeline is obviously such a recognized charity across Australia. It instantly created, it's very naturally created the space for those conversations to happen without. It was never forced, it just came about. I think you'd agree with that, Tara.

Yeah, I mean, I think the Lifeline is probably the most well known charity. It's like Samaritan's in the uk. It's the national crisis line and best known, probably charity, I think, in the whole of the country. So to have that logo on our gear, I think really invited people to have those conversations. And so I think that was really, really helpful in retrospect, to have that because it opens up the space Immediately, because otherwise, you said it's very. You can't. You don't sort of go in and go, oh, so, you know, how do we start a conversation about suicide? You know, because there are so many barriers to that. And what I've learned is that actually when you open up a space, you know, we know that about 50% of people will have some exposure to suicide in their lifetime. So it's a fairly universal experience in some ways. And yet we never talk about it, you know, So I think, you know, and we talk so often about resilience, which is fantastic, and we so keenly talk about resilience, but we never talk about suicide. And yet all the skills of resilience, and so many of the skills of resilience are also the things that, when they're lacking, you know, can contribute to people taking their own life. So I think they should actually all be part of that same conversation. And as Sarah said, I think that was what was really important to us both, was that we. The messaging around how do you grow through those life's challenges and that kind of proactive kind of stuff, but also with mood, active, sitting in that kind of early intervention space, and how do we. And having those conversations in itself can stop people from getting to the crisis point. So that we. It felt like we were kind of looking at that whole spectrum from growth and resilience through to early intervention and then to crisis support. So there was a nice kind of symmetry to that. I think I was just going to.

Say you've talked about conversations with people that you bumped into along the journey and you've mentioned your experience with a hippo in Africa. Did you have any interesting wildlife encounters on the cycling trip together? Any snakes or anything?

We saw and smelt a lot of roadkill, unfortunately.

I'm sure that was really pleasant at 45 degrees.

You could just. You just smell it from such a long way away and. Yeah, because it's really wet, you know, New South Wales, they come away and they take the roadkill away in the middle of the Nullar and places like that, it doesn't happen. I think the biggest challenge we had with the wildlife was the bloody flies. And I think Tara will definitely agree with this. That was the one thing that nearly sent her over the edge. Right. They were just.

And people.

You know, I think if you haven't been to Australia and experience the enthusiasm behind Australian flies and just the quantity of them, you just don't get it. Like, they're just. We'd be riding and they'd Be all over our back. And then as soon as you stop, they're kind of getting in your eyes and in your ears and in your mouth. I. We ate, you know, inadvertently ate so many of them as we were cycling along. And you're trying to eat and they're just everywhere and it's. Yeah, they were just horrendous. And then when they, you know, at sunset or whatever, they go away and then they're taken over by the mozzies. So it's like a tag team of just torture.

Remember the resilience and the persistence of the flies around the red center. They just. They just, you know. Yeah, they are permanent, aren't they?

Quite amazing. Oh, and then we had the end. Then the other thing we did have to deal with was the mice plague.

That.

I don't know, I think you might probably heard about that in the uk that's through the sort of western part of New South Wales, dealing with this mouse plague. Like, it's just horrific. And it had died down a little bit by the time we got to the areas that were stricken by it. But the road was just. It was like a steamroller come through. Big party of mice. They were just flattened everywhere we'd be. So there was one time we were cycling along and this mouse comes darting across the road underneath Tara's bike. She tried to, like, get out of the way by lifting her feet up, but obviously they were cleated in, so couldn't. The only good thing. Well, the one thing it did sort of drive us to, it was a very good excuse as to why we weren't going to camp for at least a few days, because it's like, I'm not. Not waking up with. With a bunch of mice coming out of my tent or anything like that. So we did stay in a few motels, and even in that, we weren't safe. Like, there was one time we were in one motel and sitting on the bed and I suddenly saw something and I'm like, what was that? And then this mouse, it had come in, it went back out. It came in, it went back out. I just quickly grabbed one of the blankets and just shoved it under the door and it was like, that thing is not coming back again. So. Yeah, and what about.

What about when you did the Nile? How were there any interesting wildlife experiences there?

Apart from the hippo?

Apart from the hippo. I just remember hearing a story about the snake somewhere. Or was that in the Murray River?

That was the Murray. That was the lowest Christmas day I'd ever Had. So I was on the Murray. It was at the end of the drought when we were going through the bushfires, terrible bushfires here. So I was just about managing to stay ahead of those. And because there was no water in the Murray, I had to keep. And I was sort of above the reservoirs and the dams. I just ended having to keep dragging the. Get out, drag the kayak, get back in, paddle 100 meters, get out. And then there'd be some quite tricky areas where there might be a little bit of fast flowing water, but you would have trees in the way. So that made it quite dangerous. I'd had this horrendous day, Christmas Day, I had no mobile reception whatsoever, so I couldn't message anyone. It's all I had was like the satellite phone and that's going back to the ye oldie style of texting, which just. You lose the will to live when you're doing that. Right. And so I'd had a swim and I said, oh, it's nice, and had dinner and was sitting outside my tent. As I'm sitting there, this brown snake, which obviously being Australian is deadly, comes around the corner. We were both equally as surprised to see each other and I think both moved equally as fast. I was quite impressed with myself that as I did leap up in the opposite direction, that I managed to pick up the GPS which I could message on and had my SOS button as darted Usain Bolt style very, very quickly in the opposite direction. So, yes, I was happy to say we didn't. The only snakes we saw on this trip were. Not that I want to see dead wildlife, but the only snakes we saw were dead ones, but one of them was quite large. So I was quite pleased that we hadn't met it before it met its end.

Wow. And so to wind things up, what are you both looking forward? What are you both excited about in the year or so ahead? Maybe you can. Maybe you can take that one first, Tara.

I'm not sure what excited about is that. I mean, I am trying to complete my PhD, so I will be working on that. Although it is quite exciting, to be honest, because I'm at the point of my PhD where it's. There's so much meaning to it and I can see it evolving. So I actually find that quite. When I get into it, it was really kind of nice to come back and get back into it and go, wow, there's just some incredible information in here. So really, it does really focus on. Although I am planning to do a rowing race, a surfboat rowing race that goes down the coast from. Goes for seven days over New Year from Bateman's Bay to Bega. So that's. I'm not sure how far it is, but it goes for seven days. So individually, no. So we do it as a, as a crew. So in a surfboat and they do it every two years and we were actually doing it two years ago and we got two days in and the bushfires hit. So it was, yeah, we had to abandon. So I didn't get to do it then. So now hopefully I'll be able to do it this year. So that's my little bit of adventure that will fulfill that part of me, I think in a month of PhD. But. And then apart from that, I don't think what I did say were both Sarah and I did manage to write a book about our trip in our heads as we were going. So whether that actually happened, I was.

Going to bring this up because I'm still waiting for Sarah's book from the Nile. And I was going to ask you about that because I like. Well, Tara's already written a book which I have actually just started reading Tara, so I'm quite looking forward to that.

And I will be reading now after the praise that Sid was giving it after just two or three chapters.

But yeah, so I was going to ask you both, I was going to say, Tara, are you going to write another book about your experience or about whatever? Because I think you write amazingly well and you have an incredible. And I've only just started, but an incredible ability to tell that story and really I'm sucked in already. But then my question to Sarah was like, when is your book coming out?

Well, that's what also leads into my answer for what's exciting in the next year. It's like finishing my book on Pedal the Nile. So it's kind of, you know, done a good draft. I've then been working with the manuscript editor. I've got her feedback. It's getting it now to a point that I got my really polished the first few chapters to get out to some publishers. So and that's, you know, how it's piece of string. It just depends whether it gets in front of the right person at the right time. It is, you know, the kind of book that they're looking for. So I really hope within the next year that I do get that published. And what's the.

Do we know what the title is going to be?

Paddle of the Nile and what the sort of.

The.

Sort of the secondary pointer I'm not. I haven't completely landed on that yet, but I do want to keep it as Paddle the Nile because I've got the website set up and still there for that. So that would be quite easy to do that. So we'll see. But yeah, Tara and I, we did talk about, you know, there is a. There's definitely a book in the. In the Cycling Cycling Oz. Whether it's one that we do together, I don't know. But I think we both. Tara wants to finish a PhD. I need to finish the first book and then we might think about what's. What the Cycling Oz book might look like.

Well, if you did, I don't know how many vlog recordings you did for it, but one of the things that Mark Beaumont did with his book on the 80 days around the World is he just used the audio for the audiobook anyway. He just. And I assume on the written book it was just transcribed, just used the audio from his vlogs where he's describing the days had on the side of the road or the day he's about to have. So if you've got that content, you've probably got 50% of it written already.

That kind of leads on to my. Another question I had for you was how's your dancing going? Because I've seen some.

You go and have a look at on Instagram, Sarah pedals. If you scroll down, you'll see the art moves. Yes, that was very funny.

I did give a talk last night and I said, thankfully I'm a bit better at cycling than I am at dance dancing. After I showed the video of us dancing. Yes, I think I'll be adding that to my list of career choices somehow.

Adventurer, you know, mental health speaker, advocate, dancer.

So if listeners want to find out a bit more, more about you both, obviously we can put this information in the show notes, but where are they best to go to find out more about each of you and also the book that is already in existence?

So my website is tarajlal.com and then obviously we have the Cycling Oz website, which is still up there at the moment, although the blogs are extremely out of date because I haven't actually managed it. We haven't managed to finish doing the newsletters yet. So we're currently stuck somewhere in the middle of the now of the Nullarbor, according to that. But that is is Cyclingoz. So cyclingoz.com and the donation portals are still open if anybody wants to donate to our charities as well. And Sarah has her own website and.

Your book title, Tara, Just so that people can track that down.

It's Standing on my brother's shoulders, Making Peace with Grief and suicide. And that was actually went into second edition last year, so it's got a new cover now to what it had any initially in 2015.

Brilliant. And we'll put a link in the show notes to that.

Thank you.

And Sarah, where. Where can people track you down?

Yep. So my website is Sarah Davis co. So that's Sarah with an H. Davis D A V I S. Like I said, my Instagram is Sarah pedals, which I didn't change during the ride.

I know.

It's like, are we gonna make it? Sarah pedals. And I'm like, no, because Sarah's gonna stop pedaling and going back to pedaling.

I was never seeing the bike again. Yeah.

If anyone's looking for a nice gravel bike with full panniers, I have one that came for a very good price. Yeah. So those are probably the two best places to sort of follow or get in touch.

Brilliant. Well, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting to you both. It's a fantastic story. I love the idea of cycling across Australia, although you have put some dampeners on that for me. But it does, it does sound like an amazing trip you're paddling also sounds like an amazing trip, but also, more importantly, what an amazing cause you've raised money for. So congratulations and thank you so much for being part of the Tribathlon podcast.

Thank you so much. It's been great. It's been a pleasure.

So, Sid, what did you make of that chat with Sarah and Tom?

Oh, I mean, just again, as always, like, so lucky to have the opportunity to talk to amazing people. Like, I obviously, I lived in Sydney for a few years and know Sarah and have been a massive fan of following her adventures from. From the Nile, which I think I was probably more worried about it than she was by the sounds of it or something, I don't know. And then the Murray and then obviously the cycling and I didn't know Tara, but I mean, it was absolutely amazing to talk to Tara and I think just so it was interesting she said about people crossing the road to avoid talking to you because they don't know what to say. And I just sat there. I mean, I knew asked the questions, but I think I probably would have maybe kind of asked a question, but probably skirted around because again, I. I just wouldn't know how to bring up the topic. So the questions and then the conversation and what she went on to say about mental health and suicide and what you can do to help and just. Yeah. Raising that conversation I just found really, really, really fascinating and useful I think.

Yeah, I thought there was some amazing advice in that. I think from, from the kind of cycling stuff, you know, their complementary skills and the importance of how those kind of sat together was really interesting. But also Tara's advice on, you know, people dealing with that ripple effect of suicide I thought was really, really good.

Yeah. 135 people are affected by one person's suicide. But do the ripple effect. That blew me away. I hadn't. I mean I knew there was that ripple effect effect but I don't think I'd kind of quite, quite kind of connected or realized it. Was that, that big?

Yeah, I agree. I thought, yeah, that is a frightening number, isn't it? And, but getting that, getting, you know, for those people that are affected, getting that story out and through expressive writing I thought was really good advice because that's something that Carol's been doing more recently and has. Has been finding that really has helped her. And then the advice around, you know, finding somebody that might be contemplating suicide I thought was, was really good around making them feel cared for. So yeah, loads of load. Loads of really good advice in there as well as a good feeling of what it would have been like cycling across Oz.

Yeah. And I think as well like you just again like their experiences and it's really sad that they had to go through that with, with Leif but almost that for him they were the last two people and they're such amazing, generous, big hearted people out there doing what they're doing. And I think the other thing, like I've just been. I'm just fascinated by people that do these sort of challenges in their backgrounds. Like, like Tara, you know, both of them from the uk but her background, history. But then as a. She's a firefighter which in itself is just fricking awesome. And so much respect for. But then the book she's written and the PhD she's doing and the rowing, like the number of accolades she has for like in the rotary world for surf life saving is just incredible. And then like Sarah as well, she's had her own accomplishments in rowing and, and then the desire to sort of. Because I know she's talked about the reasons or one of the initial reasons, it might not have been the why at the end of it but like for the Nile and stuff was this to be a first, to be a first to do something and where that drive comes from. And. And stuff like that. I just. Yeah, I just find it fascinating. I love it, talking to people who've got those stories to tell. And for me, it's about getting those stories out to more people. And if, you know Sarah again, like, sort of Sarah was inspired by seeing, you know, it's like when we talk. When we talked to Chris Cook, he saw Adrian Morehouse swimming and winning medals. And Sarah saw or researched and found other people that inspired her to be that first person to swim. To swim. To paddle down, paddle the Nile. And then almost it's like, well, Tara was inspired by Sarah sort of saying, I want to cycle across Australia. Do you want to come with me? Sort of thing. And it's. I think it's just getting those messages out to more and more people that you can a little bit. Again, like Chris says, go out. Chris Cook said, you know, go out and create your own world. Go and go and make those opportunities.

Create it, don't try and find it. So, yeah, I thought it was brilliant. And yeah, there was a lot of complimentary messages to Chris Cook episode, which was our last one. But I also love chatting to people like that. Whether it was, you know, Laura Penhall being the first female crew paddling the, rowing across the Pacific, or whether it was, well, Sean Conway had a first to fastest and the furthest, so first to swim from Land's End to John o'. Groats. So I think they're totally brilliant to listen to. And it definitely wants. Every time I interview somebody that's like, right, I need to get back to my bucket list. Where can I fit this stuff in? Like, I really want to cycle the length of Africa.

We just need the world to get its shit together a little bit more and make those things a little bit more feasible when you can actually do them. Not that that should stop us planning and dreaming and setting those goals. I think that's really key and important as well. But, yeah, makes it a little bit challenging at the moment, but maybe there's lots of things to do at home.

It does. But equally, you know, these people are now doing their. They're being more innovative about doing it closer to home. So, like Sean Conway, I think, as we speak, is doing 15 marathons in 15 days in 15 different national parks. And Mark Beaumont has just cycled Lands End to Jollo Groats nonstop, but in a relay with somebody. So hour on, hour off, and I think they've set a new record. But I don't know, actually, I meant to look that up. So, yeah, People are being more innovative about doing it a bit closer to home. And obviously Damien hall and Beth Pascal going off and doing some incredible running. Ultra running.

Yeah. And I was on a. A podcast a couple of weeks ago when this one is released with a guy called Chris Halls and he's a sort of adventure cyclist and he just cycled the. So not quite Elands and John o', Groats because that's north to south, but he'd done west to east in the uk, like the. As you know, all in one go, pretty much. I think it was. Took him less than 30 hours and over and still a lot of climbing. But, yeah, there's all sorts of things that can be done. Done. Yeah. Very, very close home. But like, I mean, we're saying that that sounds sort of to maybe the listeners going, oh, that's. But these people are different. They're, you know, it's these crazy ideas. It's these big adventures and they're not, though, They're. They are ordinary people. And I would say to listeners, it doesn't. You don't have to do anything like that. It can be really small goal, you know, like literally setting yourself a 5K.

To run, setting yourself like Captain Tom.

Walking around the garden 100 times.

Yeah, totally.

It's all relative, isn't it? It's just setting yourself challenges or goals because it's something to look forward to and something. Something to motivate you, isn't it?

Yeah.

And I mean, I know it's very easy for us to say it because we both believe in the power of sport, but. And again, Tara sort of touched on it about, you know, know, it's easy for us because we see how beneficial sport is for, again, obviously physical, but not just physical for mental health and the number of organizations that are using now, sport or not sport, but physical activity or just get. And it's. And again, it's not that you have to go and run a marathon. It's not that you're going to be like the next world champion. It's literally get out and walk a block around your house kind of thing. Get out, you know, know, just get out and be active and use your environment to soak up the right endorphins that will help you get through that. That dark patch.

Yeah, well, Matt Pritchard said it as well, didn't he? Said, you know, instead of giving people pills, they should send them out on. Go for a run every day for the next 14 days and.

Totally agree. Yeah.

Have the similar effect. So, yeah, brilliant. Well, let's wrap this one up. But that's been a really interesting episode. Something touching on a topic that's very close to my heart. Remember, there is a precision hydration Discount code of Tribathlon 15 if you want to use that. And in the meantime, until the next episode, keep on training. If you've enjoyed this Tribathlon podcast, please do go to Apple Podcasts and rate it and review it. It massively helps us to deliver a better podcast. It helps people find it as well. So, yeah, go to Apple Podcasts, give us some feedback, give us a rating and a review, and please share it with your friends. Because ultimately, that's what allows us to keep delivering more and more of these podcasts. App for more amazing podcasts, but also to help you train, compete, and to build your tribe.