Epic 56km ‘Snow Marathon’ Challenge with Mitch Lorkin

This podcast is brought to you by Tribalo Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. I'm your host, Jordan Donnelly, and on my left is former Australian Ironman champion and head coach of Tribalo Coaching, Jared Donnelly. Mitch, welcome back to the podcast. And I think this is your third or fourth visit on the Get Fast podcast.

Third, but thanks for having me, mate.

Nah, pleasure, pleasure. So we've got a really exciting topic today. We're going to talk about your latest escapades and adventure, which is just so cool and it's a story worth sharing. But you are known on the podcast as the Shoe Dog. So I just want to start off by asking what's happening in the shoe world lately? Can you give our listeners a bit of an update into running shoes and anything they should be aware of?

Why is it anyone who's running at the moment would know there's also a lot of other new runners out there. Pretty much everything from spikes to daily trainers has some kind of super foam in it these days, which is, I guess, driving excitement. But also it's taken the mundane aspect of getting out the door when you're pretty beat up to, you know, those recovery runs and in longer days when you're just doing zone two sort of stuff, a lot more enjoyable. So we kind of noticed a little bit of a trend with people having sort of more daily shoes than they probably would have had historically. And at that super shoe. And there's a bigger spectrum of use for like one shoe to sort of do everything from a 5k park run right up to a marathon, which is cool. So we're seeing like a shrinking at that end and a broadening of shoe use in that daily sort of range. So people, yeah, getting a shoe specifically just for long runs, a shoe specifically just for recovery days, that sort of stuff. Yeah.

So education, going hedge education with the, with the, the athlete, the runner and getting to them to understand, because a lot of runners just want, give me the fastest shoe, Mitch, you know, what shoe, what shoe am I going to increase my kilometer by and going okay with that?

It's a hard, like, conversation to have, as you can imagine, because everyone wants performance, but we sort of have a, a pyramid of hierarchy that we use to guide the decision making. So most people will talk about performance straight away, but if we get sort of the foundations right for shoes, so say as a baseline, if we look at their biomechanical appropriateness for a bunch of shoes and we get that correct, and then we stack the next broad brick, which is like the anatomical part or the fit of the shoe. And we get that correct, and then we get a subjectively good feeling shoe for them, so it feels like, you know, it's disappearing on their foot. Then those three things are naturally going to entail performance or speed. So we've just got to keep bringing it back to being guided by this objective fundamentals as we can and remind them that, like, that's why a shoe make, you know, performs well for certain people. You can't. We can't just pull one shoe off the shelf for everyone and get it performing at a really high level. We've talked about it a heap of times, us three, but just the change, even in, like, the size of a foot can change how a shoe functions from a lever point of view at its very basic level.

Yeah, it's my favorite thing that you guys do is, is, yeah, you're just not brand focused and brand favored. You know, it's. You know, any person could fit in a whole bunch of brands, and they could definitely not fit in a certain type of brand. So last question on the shoe, you mentioned the kind of. The fact that even daily trainers have sort of have some sort of super foam in there. What's the difference between that kind of that foam performance enhancement or the carbon plate? Do all shoes have that a bit of carbon plate in them, or is it only, you know, super ratios that have a carbon plate plus the super foam? What?

It depends a little bit. Like, the carbon plate is really there as a stiffening property because a lot of those foams are so soft in their own. Right. From a compression point of view, if there was nothing to stiffen the shoe up, torsion lead, it'd feel like, you know, strapping a mattress to the bottom of your foot and not in a pleasant way. So even the daily ones, I don't necessarily have to go to carbon, but they'll have like a polyurethane or a plastic plate of some description in there, even sometimes sandwiched ABA to stiffen the shoe up. But it's really there just to give the shoe a little bit of integrity, like structural integrity. A lot of people historically thought that the performance was coming from the carbon, but the carbon plates, just one of the components in the, like in the whole package that adds to it, but the foam is much more important.

Great to know. All right, let's move into today's topic. You, about a month ago, completed what's called the Golden Winter Straight Jacket challenge. And it's basically from Mountain peak to mountain peak here in Victoria, from Mountain Creek to Mount Hotham. I'll get you to fill in the details, but basically to set the scene, you attempted this challenge last year. Was it where you did 12 hours 40 or was it two years ago?

12 hours 42. So, yeah, two years ago, yep.

Yeah, yeah. And your, your goal then was to attempt the record, which was stood at 11 hours 39 minutes and the conditions weren't favorable on the day that you found you, you, you felt like you really could have had a good crack at it and then things didn't quite pan out the way you wanted. You waited a couple of years and for the right conditions to really give it a good crack. And we want to go through that now. So can you explain some, some history behind the event and kind of the, the, just the aura a bit around the event. It's, it's such a cool challenge. It's so different. And explain what it means to go from mountain peak to mountain peak in the middle of winter?

Yeah, so it's really niche probably to a non backcountry skier. But in winter, if you're talking about skiing between these two places, it's pretty well known as far as geography. But basically there's a hut up it off Mount Lock called Derek's Hut, and it's a hut that we ski out from a lot when we launch sort of backcountry trips, because it's quite central and it's only about 6Ks from the Mount Lock car park at Mount Hotham. And we stayed there a lot over the years. And I know four or five years ago I was looking at who it was a memorial for. And then I looked into a little bit about the history at Wangaratta Ski Club and found out about Charles Derrick and the story about how he perished. And in 1966, he was skiing from Mountain Creek, which is at the base of Bogong, at the same time in winter, and attempting to ski from there up over Bogong, across the high plains, down across a river called Big river, up past Falls Creek, down to Cabrunga Headwaters and then up to Mount Hotham. And he got caught in unfavorable weather somewhere probably when he was coming through falls. And he ended up perishing very close to Mount Lock car park. And he had a bunch of friends and family waiting there for him. And they found him, I think a day later. And the. He died from cold injuries, from hypothermia, most likely. And the hut was set up as a memorial. And then when we Thought about like once I read about it, I was like, oh my God, that is actually quite a mission, especially in 1966, doing it on handmade wooden cross country skis and wearing just like woolen. He would have been in like a woolen footy jumper. There would have been zero sort of technical fabric around at that point. Like Gore Tex didn't exist. Um, he would have been on some kind of patent based cross country ski. But I know they were homemade and there's no garment in reach. Like there's really no layer of safety to it and definitely no modern forecast. So just to even try it back then, that's where it got the name the straight jacket. Because they said anyone who attempts it should be put in one. And I think the next person to try it and who actually first completed it was Danny Flynn. And he did that 10 years later in 1975 and he was also, also from the same ski club, Wangaratta. And then since then I think all up there's been 12 people that have got listed completion since 75. There is an important.

Oh, sorry. For non Australian or Victorian listeners. Can you give a reference of kind of distance and you know, how much downhill cross country skiing, how much uphill cross country skiing there is? Just elevations for reference.

Yeah. So it works out to be, I think it's 56km on the original route. Like that's without getting lost or anything, you know, because that sometimes does happen out there. And 3,800 meters of climbing, most of that happens in the first 30Ks, 28Ks because you go up over Bogong straight away and then drop back down and then climb straight away it crosses Victoria's highest peak, which is Bogong. And yeah, you go past Feathertop and you cross the Bogong high plains through the two biggest resorts in Victoria. But yeah, it's quite unforgiving sort of country, probably mainly because of the weather and also because of the lack of access to get in there if something happens. You really, your only chance to pull the pin is if you get to falls because once you get back out of there again, the next sort of access point is Mount Hotham. So yeah, you kind of have to be committed when you get halfway to keep going on. And it's pretty easy to pull the pin and go, oh, actually this looks pretty warm. I might just, you know, scoot out here.

How does that mindset when you're in between the bailout options? Are you during that period thinking, when I get to this next bailout, I'm done, I'm out of here or how are you? How are you contemplating? Because you've done it twice. Is that your second go at it or.

Yeah, yeah. The first time I did have a moment when I looked at the sky at Falls because it had gone from being a really beautiful morning to becoming quite warm and sunny and the snowpack really softened, which is what slowed me down a lot. And I was really battling with my feet. Felt like they were peeling off from the bottom, which it turned out later they were. And I don't think my fueling was as good as it could have been. And the sky was starting to really dark and it looked like there was a bit of a cell which wasn't forecasted. And I kind of had to decide, all right, if I go, it's. I have to keep going all the way now or I can pull out here because I had a friend who was on the radio at Falls. But the second time there was no chance I was gonna stop. I didn't have a, like even a flash of it because I was having such a good day. There was just no need to. It didn't even cross my mind.

It's so funny when you say that. 12. There's been kind of 12 people with recorded attempts since 66, 75. And this is just classic you where I go, of course you hear that and you go, oh, I'm gonna give it a crack. But I also laugh because someone else who. This is such a niche sport, you know, to go across country skiing and do kind of multi sport traversing across things. And, and the other person on this podcast that's done it is dad. You know, in the 80s. Yeah. You haven't done this course specifically but you know. Yeah, of course back in the, in the 80s, dad, you were doing the same sort of triathlons in, in crappy gear and, and freezing conditions and you were with mates getting hypothermia together. And, and so you, you and Mitchri bonded over this when you, when you first met.

I was just going to say that event that. What was it called again?

The.

That truck. The Winter Triath duathlon thing.

The Winter Wild. Winter Wild Trek Classic.

Yeah, that sounded a lot more, that sounded more high risk than what I was doing for hypothermia.

Well, I think the difference. And the listeners would probably like to know this. In that event we had um, we had, you know, lots and lots of entrance and it was a really well safety checked event. Whereas what you're doing is, you know, no one will find you for, for weeks because you're not telling anybody except for one or two people what you're doing. You don't have, you don't have any backup really. Someone's going to have to go out and search for you. So the risk factor that you're doing is. I want to get the listener to understand how difficult an event this is that you did compared to something. It's an organized thing where there's safety first and, and there's lots of people if something happens, like in our situation, we were doing it in pairs and we had to cross the middle, middle river and this is July and it's the snow, it's just, you know, in Australia in July, that is the peak snow season and we're crossing the middle, middle river four times. And you know, one of the guys I was running with, who's in shorts and T shirt and, and in the end he ended up in a, in an ambulance on his way to hospital with hypothermia. And you know, it's seriously dangerous, but we had help straight away. So the point I'm making is you, you don't have this access if something goes wrong, you know, the risk is huge for you because there's no bailout really, as you said, except for those key couple of points. And you know, does that cross your mind at all? You know that people, one guy did it, has actually died doing it. So is that what does that do to your mental approach to it?

I think what I've learned doing these kind of remote sort of projects where you by yourself is that a big component of what makes them successful is learning how to be adaptable and problem solve on the fly so you can plan as well as you want for those, these kind of things in terms of weather and equipment. But you have to be willing to accept that a lot of it's not going to go to plan on the day. And so you have to have contingency on contingency on contingency. And some of them you might not have even come up with yet. But you'll have to, you know, on the go decide, okay, this is not going to work or my binding has broken at this point. So I'm going to need to figure out whether it's going on foot the rest of the way or try and stop now, lose some time and reattach it. You know, things like that. And staying calm and relaxed in those sort of situations not only allows you to use better decision making, but also you don't burn as much energy mentally and physically because you've got a clear sort of path through it. The first time I did it, I was definitely a little bit more on edge in terms of have I made a big mistake? And my mum certainly thought so as well when I told her what I was doing. But I couldn't have had a worse day in terms of how bad it went. And once I got to the other end, you know, starting it for the second time, I was far more confident in my ability to get through something like that. Just, you know, trusting my instincts and problem solving on the fly.

So you're doing a mixture of if you're going downhill, downhill skiing, if you're on uphill cross country skiing, and then you're getting out of the skis at certain points to traverse on foot and explain that process to us.

Yeah. So I probably should, for listeners sake, clarify exactly the discipline that this is sort of classified as. So because of the history of this event, let's call it, there's been quite a progress in the technology involved with this kind of scheme. And what would have initially been your traditional sort of Nordic style cross country skiing has evolved into modern skate skiing, where people have attempted it with a slightly different technique, which is the skate skiing that you'd know today, but they're still using cross country ski. What we were doing it on and the distinction with the record that I hold is using modern alpine touring ski. So it's basically a lightweight downhill ski with a technical binding that allows the toes to pivot forward and slide. And we attach a skin to the bottom of that ski when we're going uphill and we rip it off when we're going downhill or when we want to skate fast. And it also allows you to have both your toes clipped in with the heel free or with both the toe and the heel clipped in. So it allows you to ski a much more technical downhill with with ease. And it allows you to skate across areas when you need to, and it allows you to ascend much steeper aspects. Safer on monitoring skis. But the downfall of it is that there's a lot more transitions because you're moving from skiing uphill to skiing downhill. Skins on, skins off. So you've really got to think about when you're deciding to being a certain mode of skiing and whether it's quicker on foot or, you know, periods where you might be better with your skis on your back running, which is how I got up bogong this year because the snow was so firm. And then other times if you get to a high point, you Want to spend as much time as possible as skiing downhill. So you'll look for a route that allows you to ski as far as you can to the dirt almost. If you're dropping down before you swap back again to running shoes, obviously you need to be in running shoes when you're not on the sport.

What percentage, Mitch? Yeah. What percentage of time would you break it down for the listener as the uphill skiing part? Yeah. Was it 20% uphill or was it skating? You did 60, 70% skating. Can you break, break it down so we can get an understanding of how much time you're actually cross country skiing uphill and downhill skiing and skating across the flat.

So I've ran nine. I look. So I've ran about 26 kilometers, most of which was like straight up or straight down, with the lowest gradient being 7% in either direction and the highest being 27. So quite steep in parts. And I'm using ski poles too, to help spread the low, particularly going downhill because it's like having another two limbs. It really stops you getting beat up over the day, like, because you're basically pumping the brakes with everything that you're carrying and trying to move quickly. So 26Ks running and 13 skiing downhill. And the rest was skiing on skins or skating, I can't tell. But a lot of the high planes on the flat area was skating and there's almost another 16Ks there. It depend on the day as well. Like, I had, as I told you guys, really good conditions where it allowed me to skate, ski for a really long time on really firm snow. And that's what added to the efficiency.

So one of the reasons we love this is because of your preparation. And you made a point before saying you can prepare all you want, but the day can just throw a lot at you. But you, you are a really good example of being just super well prepared, super well researched, and into a pretty unknown thing. And there's just not a lot of people to get guidance off for this. But you did a great job of, of being really well paired, prepared yourself. So can you talk us through that and we'll talk about the unplanned stuff of the actual. In preparation. What did you do to. To give yourself the best confidence, the best chance of having a successful day? I know you were assessing the conditions frequently to, to pick a really good day, but you, you packed as light as possible. You were super efficient in, in what you chose to take with you because every gram counts. You're super efficient in your nutrition. Talk us through yeah, the mindset around.

All your preparation, I might separate these just so I can be concise with different components of it. But the nutrition for example. One of the things that I changed this year compared to the original attempt was I decided to take on 80 plus grams an hour for the entire time starting at 4am which seems like a lot for a day that's predominantly going to be, you know, I have a look here at my data and I was within, you know, average hr for both Attempts is within two beats average. So 144 and 146, which for me is kind of smack bang in the middle of zone two. So not that intense. The highest it gets is you're a 177 on the first and 180 on the second and that's getting towards threshold for me. But I was kind of happy to sit for periods at that heart rate, especially on the ascent because there's so much time to be made up. And I knew I had a big recovery on the other side skiing back down. When I spoke to Jared about what I was taking, I think I said to him I've got 30 gels in my bag and 2 liter coconut water. And he said, surely not, surely there's a better way to do it. And I said, well you know, it's either that or drink mix. And the weight of taking on that much glycogen in a, in a bag was really an issue and I don't have multiple points to refuel so I had to carry it all. So my bag really had crampons. A Garmin inreach Explorer just for safety and so people could track me. A lot of gels, a spare set of skins, a spare set of socks, spare set of gloves, a bladder with 2 liters of coconut water that was kind of a mixture of salts and a little bit more sugar. And I, I try as often as I can to drink from the free flowing water sources like big river and creeks just to top up for the training. I mean I had. It is a really hard thing to be specific for. Even in culture where this sport is, is popular because it's so seasonal, so we don't have snow all year. It's really hard to spend time doing sports specific training. And I learned a little bit about it when I was over in Italy a few years ago where Schema is a really big sport. Schema's sort of a shorthand for ski mountaineering and they would do much in the same way that we would train for say triathlon where we do a base building period. You would incorporate like cycling, running, swimming, you know, hiking, anything to sort of build a big aerobic base. And then as you move closer towards the event, that move into a phase of sort of strength endurance and sprinkle some sort of sports specific high intensity stuff on top. They would use like a roller ski. I didn't have access to that, but I did things like, you know, a lot of cycling. I generally get my intensity on the bike. And then I would do weekends where I would do, you know, cross country skiing in the morning and then running in the afternoon or vice versa, just to really try and reflect how my legs are going to feel going out for a long period on it during the day, lots of elevation, and I generally do that for a couple of days in a row. So I could go out on fatigued legs and then stress fatigued legs to try and build that sort of fatigue resistant muscle tissue that you need to sort of keep moving in that sort of terrain. And more like creative stuff was like using a treadmill with a backpack on and putting it on sort of 12% or whatever it would go to, and then finding a sweet spot if you like it, heart rate at like, you know, middle of zone two or upper end of zone two, and just doing, you know, an hour straight of uphill power walking. And then every now and then you would speed it up so you could stumble into a sort of a run and then back to a power hike, then back to a run. Just sort of mimicking what it's like when you're ascending steeper stuff on foot.

Yeah, I don't want, I don't want to listen there. To take Mitch's calmness or almost nonchalant attitude about it to, to mean that to, to diminish this, this challenge at all. The, the reason we have Mitch on the podcast is because the first time you did it, we were baffled. But then when you went again to get the record, you just go, this challenge is crazy. And, and I think you are. It's in your personality to be pretty calm about these things. But I do think it comes from a place of you. You do the research you need and you do the planning you need to feel confident in it. But it's a, it's a crazy challenge. Like, it's, it's insane that you're doing this thing solo and, and to get through it. And it's, it's a, it's a 10 to 12 hour endurance of it, you know, and, and you said you're smack Band in the middle of zone, too. But anyone that does half Iron man or Iron man knows how much that wears you down over the course of a day. And. And so 80, 90 grams an hour is definitely necessary. So my question is, you've done a lot of endurance events. You've done a lot of, you know, long gravel events, long adventure races. How does the challenge of the event and the intensity compare to, you know, endurance running, ultra running, ultra cycling? What's the told on the body?

It's. It's more acute in a muscular sense. So I'm definitely much more like there's a. There's soreness already sort of starting to set in, you know, halfway through the day. And I guess a lot of that happens during the downhill component. And running in ski boots, definitely not something I would recommend doing unless you have to. It's very rigid, very harsh, and it shifts a lot of load from sort of the foot to the knee and hip. Compared to, say, I'd say it's really. It is pretty equivalent to, say, probably running in terms of that aerobic load, but I haven't ran too many. I don't think there'd be too many things that I've done that are 12 hours maybe outside of cycling that I'd pull up this well from. And I think a huge part of that is the variety of movement patterns. Given that you're going from running to skiing to skiing downhill, it's really breaking up that repetitive stress that becomes a big risk. With running at, say, 12Ks an hour for 12 hours, I think that'd definitely beat me up more. In fact, it's a pretty popular mountain run in summer, Bogong to Hotham, and it carries a pretty similar prestige in terms of, like, the course record and who's turned up and ran it. And there's been some really good races there over the year. Years. Sorry. But yeah, it. It's similar. It's just obviously that it's more diverse in terms of the movement patterns. The bike doesn't have that four times your body weight going through your foot every time you hit the ground, so you pull up a little bit better. But I've honestly been more. More beat up and more cooked after long bike rides than I have doing that I remember. I think I've even referenced this before on the podcast. But almost the worst I think I've ever felt after an event was the first time I went on the bunch ride the Trivalo bunch Rod and I did jump off the deep end a little bit with. With the intensity on that ride, I think. But I fell asleep sitting upright. And anyone that knows me reasonably well will know that I have probably napped three or four times in my entire life and that was one of them. And I fell asleep for a couple of hours in the afternoon and then I felt like I needed a neck break after it my like hanging on. I was like, oh my God. And the mental attacks of that, it's crazy. I'll never forget it.

Yeah, that's hilarious.

But I guess that again that's, that goes that that was something so new and so fresh for me. And I was getting so many cues the entire time from Jared, like trying to absorb information. And when I got back I was just mentally exhausted as well as physically exhausted. Whereas with what I was doing in the golden straight jacket, I feel a lot more comfortable about what I'm doing. I know the route, I knew the weather was going to be good and I feel really comfortable in those situations. I'm not worried about anyone else bumping into me. I'm not worried about touching someone's wheel. You know, it's just me out in the middle of nowhere problem solving for myself. So it actually, despite how crazy it sounds, is a lot less load mentally.

Do you find, Mitch, when you did the 12 hours 40 and you came back the second time to do 10 hours 13, was it the conditions that contributed? Was it your condition as an athlete? Was it your knowledge from the first experience or was it a combination of all those things? Just explain how you could possibly be going 2 hours 30 quicker the second time around.

It's definitely all of the above. I learned a lot obviously on the first one about what I could change and also what conditions I need, which is why it skipped a year. I just didn't find any moment in 2023 where I was going to have the right kind of conditions to allow it to happen quicker. So I wasn't going to go out there for 12 hours 30 again or 40. I, I was only going out there if I knew there was a possibility to ski faster. The obviously the big thing was the nutrition change. I took on way more glycogen, like at least double. And I think in the last few years we've all sort of learned a little bit more or maybe not. We've all sort of learned more, but it's become more well founded that even, you know, for me, even these days, if I go out and ride for two hours and I do zone two, I'll take 80 grams an hour, I'd never change you know, I don't care what it is. It'll be around that or more. Um, and so I train like that, and then I do the same thing when I'm trying to execute for an event. And that just means there's less chance for error with nutrition. Things like, I know I can deal with a hundred to one hundred twenty grams if I need to, and it doesn't upset my gut, but it just removes one of those things from. I guess that can go wrong is like knowing that I can have all. All of those gels back to back to back with no solid food and have no gut issues. And then, yeah, the conditioning component, like, I definitely added in a few things this year that allowed me to probably be in better condition, like more of a specific strength and conditioning block. Definitely. I think actually I'm a little lighter than I was back then, too. Probably three or four kilos lighter. And that doesn't sound like much, but it matters a lot when you're going up 20% and you're trying to save every gram in terms of weight on your back as well. And it definitely helps with, like, a skinning technique uphill being a little bit lighter. So, yeah, definitely. All the above.

For reference, the first time you did it, you tell a hilarious story where you. You ended up getting to Mount Hotham, which is, as you said, one of the biggest ski resorts in Victoria. Right. As the ski. The mountain was shutting down or the lifts were closing or they'd already closed, and you came down to the bottom lift and the. The ski patrol guys were pretty furious why you were still on the mountain because they thought you'd just been messing around at the top and getting some extra ski runs in, and you had to explain to them that you'd come from Mountain Creek and they're going, bull crap. Like, come on, mate. Like, you. Yeah, you're going, no, no, no, I've. I've just skipped for 12 hours. And they're going, no, you haven't. That. That's not possible.

I actually didn't have the energy at that moment to even bother correcting him either. When he said, no, you haven't. I just looked at him and I was going to ask him for water, actually, because I was so thirsty. And I just decided it's not worth it. I'm just going to keep skiing because I could see the car park in the distance.

Yeah. And so, yeah, in knowing that kind of information, and plus, I think you can tell us how many other people attempted it this year. But I know someone Else attempted it and they did it in 17 hours this year. So you've done it in 10 hours, 13 or about that range.

Yeah, he's actually a mate of mine.

Too.

And he's a good mountain athlete. He's done a lot of. He's done like quite a lot of hundred mile events and yeah, sort of longer. He doesn't do as much cycling orientated stuff, but yeah, ultra runner, let's call him. And definitely more in that trail mountain scene. But the big mistakes he made was how much he took. Like he took far too much gear and it really slowed him down and he realized that, you know, way too far in, like, why have I got goggles? Why have I got a helmet on? Like, you know, why have I got a shovel and a probe? I'm not going to be able to dig myself out of an avalanche. Like things like that. And yeah, he didn't. We would have been great if we had spoken before it because I could have said to him, you know, don't worry about any of these things because they're not necessary. Or here's what I took and here's what I found was really useful and here's what I found was really useless. But you have to discover that stuff yourself sometimes too.

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, take us, take us to the day. The conditions felt right. You were, you were pretty confident and all and you go, yep, I'm going for it this day. And how did it pan out?

Yeah, I had an amazing night's sleep the night before, which is really rare before things like this because it generally runs through your head a hundred times over. And yeah, woke up before my alarm, which I always take is a good sign, means my body's rested. And I had this delicious banana bread and just started, got my head torch on and started moving and generally started off pretty slow and sort of build into it just. To.

What time did you start, Mitch?

3:50.

In the morning. Yep.

And. And part of the reason for that is to get as much daylight as possible but also maximize the cold weather, I guess, like the snowpack before the sun gets on it. And that's just traditionally what time people started when they did it. So I wanted to kind of keep that as well. And yeah, it was amazing. So because the. I had such good conditions, instead of getting my skis on at all, I ran all the way up Bogong this time just in shoes with my skis and boots in the bindings on my back. And yeah, the snow was so firm, I got all the way to the Highest point before I even made the first transition. And I did it far quicker than I thought I was going to. So I was still dark when I went onto my skis for the first time and started skiing downhill. I had this amazing big full moon and a really clear sky. So I kind of skied part of it with a head torch and then switched it off as the moon and the sun sort of swapped and took over. And I got down to the edge of the first snow line in the dark, crossed big river, which is. We generally, the quickest thing to do is just to go nude and strip everything off your back and either hold your bag above your head and there's a chain there in case the water's moving, because it can fill up quite a lot if the snow's melted. But it was only waist deep, which is. You can cross it at waist deep pretty safely. And the first time I did this, I went.

It.

It was cold, but it's not probably as cold as you're imagining, you know, like, it's. It's probably like 5 or 6 degrees.

That's as cold as I was. Yeah.

And then to kind of. Instead of stopping immediately, coming out of water like that, one of the things I did the first time that I thought, okay, that worked well, was I would put my shoes on straight away and just keep moving and to try and let my body temperature warm up. And funnily enough, this time, this is the most remote part of the course, so you'd least likely to see people here. So being naked and running around is safe, but it's also hilarious because I just always thought, like, how good would it be if I just, you know, bumped into people and I was running around with skis on my back, naked out here? They would just be like, what is this lunatic doing? Anyway, I got further up the other side on the second attempt, and I had changed fully into ski gear and was on my skis. And of all the places that I was going to bump into anyone, I saw a group of people, and I knew them. They were coming down the other side, and they said to me, oh, you.

You.

I can't remember how they knew about it. Oh, I'd spoken to one of their partners in one of the backcountry huts a few weeks ago and told her I was going to try it if I had a good weather window. And it was her husband, and he was with two friends, and they'd been skiing this route over four days the other way. So, like, skiing for a chunk of it and Then spending the night and doing the rest. So the average person takes four or five days, I think in summer. And they were doing it pretty quick for winter ski touring too, for doing it multi day. But yeah, I saw him just in time. Like I'd just gotten changed because I would have been naked and they would have ran straight into me. So yeah, after that that's. You're in falls, I guess you start to see the cross country trails and that's a fast part of the course because they're well groomed. I saw a couple of faces I knew going through there and then got out of the resort. And then it's kind of, I call it, for lack of a better word, just a white desert that's very unfeatured geographically. There's not a whole lot of like landmarks and it's a kind of the period where you start to like not lose it a little bit mentally, but your mind can really start to wander because you just got nothing really happening outside of moving in a line. And I'm just checking a, you know, compass bearing every now and then. So that's, that's always the hardest part of the course for me because when I get to the next area I start to think, oh, it's only this climb left or it's only this, you know, pole line that I have to follow and I'm back at Hotham. But both times I did it, I found the White Desert. The hardest part, to stay focused because it's just so. It feels like it just keeps going and going and going and you really see no reference point for where you are outside of. I've done another couple of Ks. I've done another couple Ks. But yeah, after that it was pretty straightforward. Just one more river crossing. This one was dry. I didn't even have to take boots off because I found a snow bridge. And then up the back of the Australian Alps walking track and onto the machinery spur, which is at the back of Hotham, and then past the hut that this was all spurred from Derek's hut and said hi to a group of people that were setting up there. And I would have also looked strange at that point because I was like kind of running on the skis at that part, that part of the trip because I knew I only had 5Ks left and I could kind of bank a bunch of time. And normally it's very. It's not normal to ski past people when you're in the backcountry without stopping and having a chat with them. This is just, you know, you know, everyone out there and it's, it's just, it's so rare that you always stop and say, oh, what would you get up to today? What's the plan for the night? I skied straight past them, so I apologize to whoever that was. And then, yeah, saw my mate at the car park and then summited and was, yeah, surprised by the time. But everything went, you know, really well. And actually straight away was thinking, oh, I know how I could bank more time to go faster.

How. How is the emotion, Mitch, when you're going. Especially when you know you're going past the hut there where know the reason why you're doing this? Were you thinking about that as you went past that, that, that last landmark and knowing you only had 5k to go? And did you know at that point how far ahead of the record you were?

Yeah, I have a. I have a little ghost on my watch because I use this pace planning feature and so I can kind of see where we're racing each other all day. Me in this ghost. And it's just set to the. I think I said it to 10 hours, 30, and I was in front of it at this point and that was what was spurring me running on the skis past Derek's. But it's definitely like you, you get. Whenever I get, like, find a hard part out on the course, I was just constantly thinking, like, guys were doing this in 1975 in wool, like on handmade skis. It's really not that bad. And if it, like, if it seems crazy that I'm doing it, imagine what type of athletes these guys were. And girls like the. The person that I took the record off, Jamila, she no first go set, took it off a ski patroller. And it took me two guys to beat her record. And, like, hers was super impressive too. She's a really good athlete.

Yeah.

But, yeah, I just keep thinking about all the other people that have had a crack, and that kind of motivates me too. But the. Yeah, I think doing something like that is only really understandable when you get out there. But I'd encourage anyone to, like, those kind of isolated solo projects are really rewarding because they teach a heap about your resolve when you get into situations like that. And should you get to the other end, it definitely lights a fire for you to kind of go, if I can do that, then maybe I could have a crack at this. And it constantly allows you to sort of build more and more confidence. And even if it doesn't Go to plan. You still can come back like with a huge learning for the next sort of undertaking that comes up.

It's incredible achievement and it's such a unique thing that you've done and it's definitely part of your personality. But that's kind of how I wanted to finish was that that last bit of advice is just so good and it just really applies to the whole endurance world and, and anyone that does any sort of endurance sport resonate with the feelings you have of the preparation and the reward for effort because it's just such an extre. But I wanted, I know you don't love talking about yourself in this way but, but your personality is quite unique in this regard. So what, what kind of lessons would you like to pass on to the endurance world endurance athletes about, about these challenges that you do and stuff that you think, you know, ironman athletes and half ironman athletes can take from, from the world of schema and, and this kind of unique side of things that you, you love to challenge yourself with.

I think like I'm always about a fun factor as you both know. So there's plenty of people that I've seen in extraordinary shape that I've trained with and had or got got to race with and have seen them have both success and failures at their, their chosen sport. But something that I noticed always with people performing their best is if they're enjoying what they're doing, they're generally their body's going to be much more ready for training load and also on race day performing at their best. So I've kind of always listened like acutely to how I'm feeling both physically and mentally and what, what that's going to allow me to do both in the training and racing arena. And I never sort of push myself too far down or force something to happen because I've decided to do it. I'm always willing to sort of make adjustments and move things around and set, you know, reasonable goals because at the end of the day I kind of, I'm only doing it because I enjoy it or I have fun. And that was certainly the case with the Golden Straight Jacket. It could have been a really miserable day had I said I've only got two weeks left of winter, this needs to happen. I'm going today and you know, the conditions aren't right and I could have just spent 12 hours trudging through the snow. So sometimes you kind of have to be willing to let it go and sometimes you have to be, yeah, rolling the dice. But I think it's really important to listen both physically and mentally, and you'll know when you're getting things right and when you're forcing it to happen.

One of the things I'd like to you to just touch on a bit is. And this. This is applying to all endurance athletes out there, listening. How important do you think, like, you spent some time in Italy and I actually, Jordan and I went to the village where you stayed in recently, and you were there for quite a. Quite an extended period. How important does that.

That.

That time you've spent as an athlete in the snow. And this could, could apply to, you know, triathletes who are just attempting an ironman for the first time. The difference between your first go at something and, and you're having multiple experiences of four or five years in the sport. Do you, do you think that counts for anything or. Yeah, just give us a. Give the listener your thoughts on how much impact that plays in the. The outcome of. Of your challenge.

I think experience always matters. Like, I would. I definitely would never have even probably thought about undertaken this had I not ended up in Italy because I wouldn't have had the unique skill set in the first place to do something like that. And in terms of, like, being in shape for events like this, like, every year that I spend in the sport or in endurance sports, I get a little bit better at some things and I learn a little bit more. And that sort of helps you constantly move in that direction of, you know, achieving bigger goals. And I've certainly noticed for myself, like, I don't have to do anything too crazy outside of staying consistent and getting the really, you know, essential things right. You know, eating well, sleeping well, ticking boxes every week in terms of training and then going out and challenging myself the right amount at the right times and just keep building on that, like, that's, that's how you continue to grow as a athlete and as a person. I think it's absolutely brilliant.

Thank you so much, Mitch, for, for sharing the story and we're so pumped to, to hear all the details. And it's such a. Yeah, I keep saying it's such a unique thing, which I. Why I thought it was so worth sharing to the listener. And yeah, when you told me about the preparation for it again earlier this year and, and the ambition behind it and, and yeah, just seeing you go through it all was. Was super inspiring. So 10 hours, 13. You ended up with beating the record by, yeah, an hour, hour 26. And then will you go for a third time? Will you try and break 10 hours or are you done with it?

No, I'm definitely going to go back and try and go faster.

Cool. What's driving that?

The same thing that drives anything, I guess, an adventurous spirit.

And.

I mean, it's just it outside of the record, like, that's a number thing. It is really just a fun day in the mountains and it's a great way to. I test myself physically. And the record's obviously backstory now, but the. Yeah, I just love a big, long day in the mountains. And it might be skiing one day, it could be cycling the next, but definitely going to go back.

Just before we finish up, there's one more question I reckon listeners are actually dying for us to ask is how did you work out the navigation? And, you know, you're. You're in snow. And most of us have been in events where we need arrows telling us to go left, right, and, and we still stuff up the course directions. Here you are in the wilderness with a compass. How are you navigating this? Did you, did you. Both times, did you almost follow the same path or did you deviate? Tell us a little bit about that before we finish.

No, both times, same path. First time I took one, I did get turned around a little bit with low visibility. But I, I kind of memorize major geographical points and then that, you know, like, I've got mountains to look at, so they're very good landmarks. And there's. It's funny because underneath the snow, a lot of the animals will follow the path that the humans walk in summer because they can smell humans and associate it with food. So you've almost got this animal pad, if you like, where the dogs, the zalpine dogs up there and other, like, small marsupials that are following these pads, and it creates this indentation and so you can see in the snow where everything's moving. And also every now and then you'll see a pole. And then I also used compass bearings as well. So if I was a little bit like, say, through that white desert, I would take compass bearing at a known landmark and then skiing that direction. And then every 500 meters, I just check that I'm on course. And then I'd hit another landmark and I'd go, okay, I'm at. I'm at that point. And then when I'd get to known features and drop off the snow, there's a fairly well defined track that a lot of people hike in summer. So, yeah, it wasn't too hard once I was off to snow, but that's part of the fun, too.

Yeah, yeah, you keep saying that. That's awesome. That's brilliant. That's. That's probably. We'll leave the story there. Thank you so much for coming on, Mitch, and sharing that. Really appreciate it. And yeah, I'm sure we'll have you back on the podcast soon either to talk about your shoe dog antics or the next adventure.

Thanks, mate. Thanks, guys.

Thanks, everyone, for listening and we'll see you on the next episode. Sam.