Going the extra mile: Why Patrick Farmer is running around Australia for the voice 💯

It's amazing. If you concentrate on something enough, it just happens. It happens. It's like when you think about somebody you haven't seen for a long period of time, you'll be in the shopping center and lo and behold, you walk past them and you just can't believe it. You bump into them or they show up somewhere. It's almost like you're willing them into the moment through that. And you can do the same thing as far as being able to conquer distance, being able to conquer aches and pains. And all the rest of it, because your body will just keep on functioning so long as you keep it fueled, so long as you keep hydrated. And obviously we need to train and prepare ourselves for these things.

Welcome back to the Marketing Muscle Up Podcast Show. I'm your host, Richard Turtungi. And, you know, in this show, we talk about marketing. We talk about ensuring that you're targeting your audience. And of course, we're all in the health and fitness game to ensure that we have a healthier, happier community and society. And I wanted to, on this show, a really important one, I wanted to bring across somebody who I believe is making a huge difference in our community and not our community, in our voice, in our recognition in this country. And that is my good friend, Pat Farmer, ultramarathon runner, who literally has run around the world, I think a few times, around Australia and everywhere in between. Welcome to the show, Pat. How are you?

Hey, Richard. Yeah, really good. Thanks, mate. It's so good to be chatting with you again on the verge of another epic run. So, you know, it's nice to still be able to do this sort of stuff at my age. I just, I I'm on there. Well, I just tipped over 60 and a lot of people sort of say to me, well, aren't you getting a bit old for this sort of stuff now? And my answer to that is, well, I was inspired by Cliff Young who ran from Sydney to Melbourne at the age of 63 and won that race. Yeah. And so, you know, as an 18-year-old motor mechanic, I was inspired by that. So I think it's most important, like you said, to stay fit, happy, and healthy. All the way through your life. So no matter how young you are, no matter how old you are, that you get the most out of life through fitness.

Well, I think that is 100% true. And a lot of people, when we're talking to fitness professionals here running studios, running gyms, that's the message they want to get out to their community. And I think when you say you've got that inspiration from Cliff and you're still progressing through that point. And, you know, you've still got many years ahead because if he's 63 and you're 61, well, you'll wait. You're a bit younger than him, so you're good to go. Now, for those who don't know you, I just want to have a little bit of a bio and quick background. I probably met you a long time ago. We launched a book called Please Mum, Don't Super Size Me many years ago. You were a politician at the time. I think you were on the opposition. Maybe that's why you were able to launch my book. And I remember through that time, we lost a bit of contact, and then I found you again in India. And I was, I was able to run with you for 2 days through the length of India. Now, if, and before that, you've had a, you've got a great book. I think actually I've got a copy right behind me. Actually, I'll, I'll pull it up. And I read the book and I was just amazed what you had to go through to run from the North to the South Pole. As you know, if you're in our community, Pat's spoken to our community many times. And it's just phenomenal. And so when I joined Pat in India, he was running 2 marathons a day, and I, and I thought I was just gonna go for about 5 or 10 Ks, but Pat managed to convince me to run a marathon while he did 2. That's the least I could do to join Pat for a day if he's running. And Pat, ever since then, you know, you're consistently pushing yourself. Most people get to, you know, a massive milestone and they go, what's next? And you continue to push the boundaries. Now you're coming up to a new challenge called Run for the Voice, which I want to talk about today because you literally got your runners on. You're about to leave in a day or two, I believe. So Pat, take me through why the hell Are you going to run again?

Well, thanks, Richard. Ashley, I do recall when I first met you, of course, I was Parliamentary Secretary for Education, Science and Training back in those days, and I was part of the then government under John Howard. And because of the educational side of things, it made sense for you to reach out to me and for me to try and get that message of healthy nutrition and good lifestyle through the kids in schools. So that's where the natural synergy was. I mentioned that because those years of being in Parliament and those years of being in government and understanding the workings of government has actually brought me to this moment in time. So not only do I run, but also run for purpose. And then I run with an understanding of the workings of governments, and not just here in Australia, but indeed in other countries. And so With that experience and that knowledge, I'm able to get governments on side to allow me to run such places like the North Pole, the South Pole, the Darién Jungle, through some dangerous areas in Mexico and so many other places. But this particular run came about because my daughter Brooke said to me, Dad, you ran around Australia for the Centenary of Federation.

Mm-hmm.

It was a long time ago and my children were only very, very little at the time and they came with me on that journey. But she said, you ran around for the Centenary Federation. That was a celebration. She said, why don't you run around Australia for the Voice? And it made me think to myself that this new younger generation, basically anyone under the age of 30, this is an absolute no-brainer that the indigenous people of Australia, the Torres Strait Islanders, the Aboriginal people of this country, the First Nations people of this country should have a voice directly to Parliament, and we, and we should be grateful that they're embracing British law, which is the law that we've adopted. That's why we have a House of Reps and we have a Senate, and that's why we still have a Governor-General, and we still have to put all our laws and legislation through to the Governor-General on behalf of the Queen before it gets signed off on. And so we should feel lucky that the First Nations people are prepared to dovetail in under those rules, regulations, and those laws that we have here in this country rather than saying, no, we were here first, so we're not going to put up with that. We want our own laws. We want our own situation. So for that reason, I feel bolstered by doing this run and very confident that One, it will get over the line that it will be a successful referendum. And number two, that it will be a good thing for this country. I mean, at the end of the day, we have a 60-million-year-old heritage, not a 200-year-old heritage, but a 60-million-year-old heritage. We have one of the oldest continuous races of people in this land, on this land, out of any country in the world. And just like New Zealand embraces the Kiwi lifestyle, the fact that the Kiwi heritage and every person in that country, whether they've come from South Africa to be there, whether they've come from Asia to be there, whether they've come from America to be there or Britain, or whether they were the the traditional people of that island, New Zealand, or those 2 islands, New Zealand, the Kiwis, they've all embraced that and they see themselves all as Kiwis now. And so that's their model that they use for tourism, for so many things out there to the world. And that's why on the world stage, everybody loves to watch the New Zealand rugby. They love to watch the haka. They love to see you know, that tradition. Yeah. They love to see that embracing of their culture. And all this is about is Australians embracing this culture, this heritage that is so old, and accepting it and saying, okay, this is who we are, this is our identity. Our identity goes beyond 200 years and we're going to embrace it. And in order to do that though, we need to make sure that the traditional owners of this land the First Nations people have a voice directly to Parliament in matters that concern them. So that will be things like infrastructure, it'll be things like housing, it'll be things like education and health in their communities. And Richard, I know that you've travelled extensively around Australia, and I have too, and we've seen communities where the poverty is something that you would see in a third world nation, not in Australia.

Totally.

And I find it hard to believe that we allow that to go on here in Australia. But unfortunately, because they're only basically 3% of the population, they don't get a large enough voice directly to the decision makers. And with this in place, with this Voice in place, it will mean that not only do they have a voice directly to government, But that voice needs to be answered. So what will happen is they might say, look, we need this road through this floodplain put through so that we can get our kids to school, so we can do this and we can do that. That happens in other communities. But the politicians might turn around and say, we'd love to build that road for you. It won't be built for 10 years because it's too expensive to do. Now that may be fine, but they have to give a reason why they're not supporting it. And it may be because we just don't have the money at this point in time, or because it's not on planned schedule, or because we're not able to. But they have to give a reason. At the moment, all of these concerns are put up for housing, for health, for education, but they can just be ignored. So that's the difference of getting the Voice through, and that's why it needs to be part of the Constitution so that the politicians actually have to attention to it and give a reason why they can or cannot support that.

Well, that is excellent. And I think for anybody who wasn't aware or doesn't understand it, I think that was an excellent summary of why it's so important. And touching on that, Pat, I don't think you're in politics anymore in a normal sense, but I actually think what you're doing here, you're able to really get those decision makers and make some action through what you're doing with your running. And you've proven that over, I think, the last how many years, and you've done a great job of that. I mean, I, I just want to go back a little bit and take me through the previous runs that you've done. You know, what have you done them for? I know you've raised a lot, a lot of money through charity. What are some of the past runs that you've done? And who are they done for?

Well, thanks, mate. Well, I raced across America from California to New York, not once but twice. That was 4,719 kilometers, 64 days, um, 80 kilometers a day every single day across America against 30 of the best runners in the world. I've run from the northernmost point of Vietnam to the southernmost point, so up near the Chinese border right down to the southernmost point of Vietnam, so close to, um, around 4,000 kilometers in that journey. And that run was for clean water projects and for clean sanitary conditions in Vietnam, working with the Red Cross there on the ground. I ran from the North Pole through to the South Pole, down through the Americas, and that helped various Red Cross projects in each of those countries. So for instance— Excuse me. In Canada, The Red Cross help the homeless. They specialize in that. In America, it's once again for helps enormously with the homeless, but they also help a lot with refugees in in that in in the United States. Then as you get down to Central America into Mexico, it's the Red Cross that actually educate and train the doctors and the nurses, etc., etc. So. So we were supporting that, raising funds for all the way through, right down to Argentina and beyond and back here in Australia for many of the Red Cross projects. I've run for Lifeline Australia. I've run for mental health issues. Excuse me. Numerous mental health programs and charitable works. Salvation Army. I've run up and down Sydney Centrepoint Tower, covered more than 100,000 stairs running vertically.

I think you still hold the record for that, Pat. Is that right?

Yeah, that's true. In 24 hours. And that was for the Autism Association. And I did it again another time with Tony Abbott. The two of us did it together and we raised funds for ovarian cancer. ovarian cancer sufferers and ovarian cancer research into that to try and alleviate that problem. I've run for the Cancer Council on many different occasions and so many other different runs. I ran the Middle East, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and Palestine to bring a message of peace through to the people in those countries and to get the message through to them that even though Australia was so far away, we care about peace in the Middle East. And there are many people from the Middle East that live in Australia who needed who needed to know that that message was sent, and also for Australians to know and understand that not everyone from the Middle East is a terrorist. And it was around the same time that we had the the lint the lint siege at Martin Place. It was around the same time when there was a lot of hysteria around what was happening overseas with terrorists and terrorists and. So I needed to get that message through that I'd grown up with many kids from various parts, from Egypt, from Jordan, from Israel, and from Lebanon, and that these kids were just the same as anybody else. They were great kids and they just wanted— their parents wanted them and they wanted to have a great opportunity of life. So I suppose what I do more than anything, Richard, is I just bring awareness around Through my running around needy causes and raise funds for those causes.

So humble, Pat Farmer. So humble. You really are. Truly, truly, truly. And I, you know, whenever I bring your name up and, you know, I, I think, I personally think you're one of the greatest athletes that has stepped on this planet purely for the fact, Pat, that you're not just running, you're doing a whole lot more than that. You're doing press interviews, you're doing awareness, you're doing awareness, you're doing everything in between the run that most athletes don't even do. They'll do the running. Now, I just wanna— the other big question that I get asked all the time is like, okay, how is that humanly possible? First of all, and, and I think this is gonna be very interesting what people want, but what you just said previously, you said you're doing 2 marathons per day. So that's 80 kilometers for those who do not run. That's 80+ kilometers. as a minimum without any days off, right? So first of all, just on those 2 things, how do you physically back up every day? And, and maybe you can sort of share with us a couple tips for the runners out there or the people that are trying to get their clients to run 5, 10 Ks. How do you back up your body and how do you do that every single day for— I know that the North to the South Pole was 10 months. I know in India, I believe it was 60 to 80 days. How is that possible, Pat?

Well, I ask myself the same question, to be quite honest with you. In a nutshell, I just take it one step at a time. But in planning, I suppose to answer your first question, I'm an event planner. That's really what I do. I set up events and then because nobody else will do them, I do those events myself. And so that's the way, that's the way I look at it,

right?

And, and, and so, um, then obviously I train, I train like everybody else. I

train,

you know, I've had influences from the Institute of Sport down there in Canberra and some of the great sports scientists down there. Great nutritionists have helped me over the years. Right. I've picked up a lot of knowledge from them, physiotherapists and chiropractors and all sorts of people in, in the fields of health, various fields of health. So I try and pay attention and learn as much as I possibly can from fitness trainers and various other people about new techniques. In fact, I've been doing a lot of gym work for this latest run at 98 Riley Street Gym in Sydney.

Yes.

And the reason why I've been doing training there is because I've been working on the specifics of the origins of my muscles rather than the muscle bellies. And, and same with the tendons. I've been working on the origins, trying to strengthen up those areas, because I found from past experience that, um, it's the origin tears that really slow me down and cause me a lot of problems. The various muscles in my legs and around my groin and my hips, uh, um, even my shoulders from the constant movement. So it's most important that I was able to strengthen those areas through specific exercises. So Not your usual mainstream stuff where you go in there and you're lifting heavy weights and you're looking good and you're looking buff and they're nice big round muscles, but you're trying to get the length and, and the strength out of every single fiber in my body. So the gym work has played an enormous role in all of that, and I have my nephew, um, Wade Farmer, to thank for that. He's a great personal trainer. Um, but then on top of that, the running training— I, I do approximately 30 to 40 kilometers training a day in running. Yep. Okay, so that will consist of a morning run, sometimes a 38K run, but more often than not it's 20Ks in the morning and 20Ks in the afternoon, or it'll be, uh, 15 and a 10 or something like that. Um, it's funny that you asked that question because I still get scared by the distances myself. In fact, I was talking with my crew just before I came on here to speak with you.

Yep.

And the reality hit me when I was explaining to them about my 4 AM and 5:00 AM starts that we're going to have to do on the road.

Yes.

Just to try and beat some of the heat up there in the top part of Australia and also to try and get the distances done within the day so that I can still speak at public functions every evening. And so consequently, to knock over 80 Ks, I've broken the day into 3 areas. So the first morning session, I have to do a minimum of 30 kilometers.

Yep.

So that will be between 5:00 AM and 10:00 AM. So you would imagine it's 5 hours, 30 Ks. That's not very fast. That's achievable. But what I've got to allow into that is that when I've already been on the road for 3 months or even 4 months and I'm sore and aching and tired and trying to get going from after a night's sleep to try and get warmed up and to get that 30 Ks done. So that's why I need that buffer in that morning session.

Right.

Then I will do 20 kilometers between then and say 12:30, 1 o'clock. Yep. And, and in between each one of these, I'll have like a bowl of porridge as I walk along the road, uh, or something, something substantial to eat. And then every, every 10 kilometers, I'll have consumed 500 mL worth of fluid, and that fluid will have, um, some isotonic base in it that will allow me prevent me from cramping up. One of my go-tos is coconut water. I absolutely love coconut water. I find that it's a great, you know, great fluid to be able to stop me from cramping up. That together with bananas, so high in potassium and magnesium, especially the bananas. So I'll have that sort of thing and then another 30 Ks off into the afternoon. So when I break it up into those segments, And then it gets—it starts to sound achievable. But then what I do is try and break that up even more, so into each hour's run, you know what kilometers I'm doing per hour, etc., etc. And everybody will be able to track every every section of this. So I'll have a Suunto watch; it'll have all of my vitals on there. So people will be able to see my blood oxygen levels. They'll be able to see my heart rate. They'll be able to see. When I'm on the road, how long I'm running for, what speed I'm running at, etc., etc., what elevation I'm running at, etc., etc. So it will be great to have all that data downloaded on my website that anybody can track at any time.

Unbelievable. I do want to talk about the mental strain of this too, because Pat, I'll go back to when I was able to join you in India, and I clearly remember I had some work over there and I was able to join you for a day or two. I, I literally had the intent to run 5Ks. I wasn't run ready at that time. Um, that's all I had. I thought I'd just, I'd just get on there, take a, take a quick pic and, uh, get back in the support vehicle. And there was something I noticed that you do, and, and I wanna know if this is done in on, on purpose, that I noticed that every kind of 5Ks, I, I said, hey, Pat, let's go back in the car now. And every 5Ks, you, you kind of like started a conversation that was Really probably random, but you either tricked your mind or tricked me to stay running with you. I don't know what it was, but, you know, what do you do in those times that you literally cannot go on? Is it running with people? Is it thinking about something? Is it getting your mind off things? Because I think that's us in every day in our business, in marketing, and, you know, you're pushing through something that you have to push through. What's your sort of secret sauce for that, Pat?

Well, on that particular occasion, yeah, I was trying to help you to realize the best within yourself because I knew that you were capable of, of being able to run a lot further than what you did. And so it's amazing how when you concentrate on something else— in that case, it was a conversation, and it was, um, out of your respect for me that you didn't leave the conversation, so you hung around a little bit longer. And, and each time you did that, you were running further and further. And as you quite rightly said, ended up running a marathon with me, which is no mean feat for anybody, especially when they're not prepared. But it shows you what the human body is capable of doing if you can trick your mind, or your mind can trick your body into, into surviving that distance. And that's what I do every single moment on the road. I'm continuously tricking my body, uh, with— and using my mind to block out pain, to block out aches, to block out distance fatigue, boredom, you name it. And so the best way to do that is to actually put something else there in place. So a wonderful memory of something that you did. I said earlier on, I'm an event planner. That's basically what I do. And then I end up running the events. So I think back about all the planning that I put in to get me to that moment in time. And I think I remember speaking to you specifically, Richard, about that India run, I was saying to you, don't you think this is amazing? Like, here we are out in Gujarat and the northern part of India, and here we were. And yet it wasn't that long ago I was sitting in my kitchen. In those days, it was at Maroubra. In my kitchen, I had this map out on my kitchen bench and I was looking at the names of towns that I couldn't even pronounce. like Kanyakumari, for instance, the southernmost point of India. And I was trying to figure out how to pronounce these places and I was breaking them down into syllables and I was writing them down and I was measuring the distance between that town and the next town and the next town. And then to actually be there and be executing that journey that you actually dreamed up, that's the power of the mind and that's the power of these events. And it's It's the old saying, what you believe and conceive, what the mind believes and conceives, the body achieves. And I've said this numerous times, and I've heard many other great speakers say this, and I love it because it's amazing. If you concentrate on something enough, it just happens. It happens. It's like when you think about somebody you haven't seen for a long period of time, you'll be in a shopping center and lo and behold, you walk past them and you just can't believe it. You bump into them or they show up somewhere. It's almost like you're willing them into the moment through that. And you can do the same thing as far as being able to conquer distance, being able to conquer aches and pains and all the rest of it, because your body will just keep on functioning so long as you keep it fueled, so long as you keep hydrated. And obviously we need to train and prepare ourselves for these things and get ourselves to a state. But with these multi-day events, You're actually training while you're on the road, and you're becoming stronger as time goes on. A lot of people think that you get weaker with the multi-day events, but you actually you actually do get stronger. You get stiffer and and and you're losing that movement.

Yep.

But that's why it's important to do the stretches and a bit of yoga as often as possible.

Unbelievable. Well, Pat, just talking specifically about the race now. If you haven't yet Googled Pat Farmer, please do patfarmer.com and also the other website. You can go run for the voice. So that's patfarmer.com, easier spelling than my name, and then runforthevoice.com. And when you go to Run for the Voice, what I just, you know, went through and checked out, Pat, you've got an itinerary so people can actually run with you and they can choose where they want to run, which is quite phenomenal. I'd recommend everybody to do this and get your studios and your gyms aboard as well, because I think this is phenomenal. And I'm just looking at the itinerary here, Pat. You've got 3 pages to 4 pages, sorry, 4 pages. And it's really small writing. And basically, you know, you've got starting from Hobart, from the steps in Hobart, I think the Prime Minister's gonna start you from there. And then you're going from Perth, you're coming up. I've got, I'm just looking at my locations here and You've got Brisbane here. You've got Sunshine Coast. You've got literally Townsville. You've got Wannamum, Halls Creek, Roadstop. I, I, I, half these towns I haven't even heard of. And you literally could find your town on this map wherever you are in Australia. And I think that is just absolutely phenomenal, especially, you know, we talk to, you know, this show is all about talking to gym owners and fitness studios and so forth. So I think this is actually Such a phenomenal concept to get your local community and town involved. Pat, probably the question everybody's asking is, do I need to run a marathon like Crazy Richard or could I just run a 5K? What could we do to get involved?

Mate, I'm encouraging people just to run 1 kilometer with me. If they could run 1 kilometer with me, that would be absolutely fantastic. So yeah, as you quite rightly say, I'll be coming down through Bundaberg and through so many parts of northern New South Wales, northern Queensland. Basically what happens is I run around Tasmania from Hobart. So from Hobart, I'll head out across to Queenstown and Strahan, and then from there up to Burnie, and from Burnie across to Launceston, and from Launceston, I'll head on back down to Hobart. So anywhere in Tasmania, people should be able to find me to come out and spend a kilometer with me on the road, just a kilometer would be incredible. And then to tweet about it and talk about it and let us know what you think about everything, that will be phenomenal. But then from Hobart, I fly across with my crew to Perth, and that's where we start on the mainland. So we've got something very big organized over there in Perth with the Dockers, with a number of the football teams, a number of the hockey teams, and basketball teams and all sorts of different athletes are going to run with us from Optus Stadium there over in Perth. And then from there, I head on up to Broome, and from Broome across to Halls Creek and on up into Darwin. And from Darwin, there's a chance that I may be going across to Bathurst Island, which is part of the Tiwi Islands. And then I may be doing Thursday Island when I get over across to near Townsville or up there in Queensland as well. But that basically from Darwin, I come back down through Katherine, then across to Townsville. From Townsville, head down through Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and then I head on up into the interior of the country and I finish at Uluru, the spiritual heart of this nation. And I finished there to try and send that very strong message home to everybody. And I think it would be a wonderful place to finish 4 or 5 days before the referendum is called. And I want as many people as possible to come join me. I know that the runners from Alice Springs are going to come join me for those last few days on into Uluru.

I'm looking at Uluru, Pat, and I'm seeing 44 kilometers and I'm seeing other days 163 and 83. So I think If I can join you, I might join you that 44K day.

It

might be the easiest, but I also see you running through here too. So I think I'll definitely see you throughout the run at a town where I'm probably doing some events or seminars, and I'll definitely come out for a run with you. It's going to be outstanding. So just to repeat, you're running from the 17th of April all the way to the—

Midway through October.

Midway through October. Outstanding, Pat. Like always, this is just absolutely phenomenal. I'm amazed every time I speak to you with your dedication and your commitment. Not just, you know, this is not just, and, you know, not just about you. You're not sort of that kind of person. You're all about the bigger picture and really helping messages to be seen. And you are just a function to, for that to happen, which I think is just actually phenomenal. when compared to any kind of athlete in this arena, multi-day ultra distances is just phenomenal. Pat, I'm going to ask you a quick couple questions before we go. Tell me, what's your favorite sports drink ever, Pat?

It's still— well, the old days of Staminade. I'm still a bit old-fashioned, but of course, I just love coconut water, to be honest with you. Coconut water.

Great. And favorite pair of shoes? I don't know if you probably got a sponsor at the moment. So what is your favorite pair of shoes at the moment,

Pat? Well, it's a tough one. I just tried on a pair of New Balance. In fact, let me show you these. Look at these pretty yellow ones. Look at it. Check these out.

Love it.

I normally wear Brooks and I tried on these New Balance. They're 880s, New Balance 880s. Not only are they nice and bright, but they feel fantastic. So I'm going to give those a run during the course of this event. So we'll see how we go with all that.

I hope New Balance is going to throw you a lot of pairs there. How long can you run in a pair of shoes, Pat, before you have to change things up?

Look, I usually get about 1,000 Ks out of a pair of shoes. And I know your listeners have heard me talk about this before. After you've done 1,000 Ks, you start to get some wrinkles in the EVA or the material at the, at the base of the shoe, and that's when you know that you're not getting the same recovery, not same rebound that you would normally get, not same shock absorption. So it's time to change them over if you're continuing to do some pretty hard work in them, which I am. So I'll go through about 14, 15 pairs on this journey.

Um, do you like, um, listening to music or just the serenity of the surrounds?

I love the serenity of the surrounds most of the time. Most of the time. That's why I'm encouraging people to come along and run along with me, have a chat with me. But every now and then I'll listen to just a little bit of music, and that music just takes me away from the moment. But they are rare moments.

Outstanding. And, um, your favorite athlete of all time?

Yeah, well, that's, that's a, that's, that's a tough one. You know, I, I keep hopping back to, to Giannis Christos. one of the greatest, the Greek, the Greek god they used to call him. You know, Ioannis was the only man up until only recently who'd ever run more than 300 kilometers in 24 hours. He ran 305 kilometers in 24 hours. Absolutely phenomenal athlete. Won the Greek Spartathlon so many times it's not funny. Won the Sydney to Melbourne by more than 24 hours in front of the rest of the field, myself included. So I mean, that guy was just— Phenomenal.

Outstanding. Last question, um, your favorite run of all time that you've done, Pat?

I still— heart back— I still love the Race Across America that I did. 30 of the best runners in the world from California to New York. I finished second in that race. 60 Minutes covered the story. In fact, uh, Channel 9 are covering this one extensively, and, uh, so are a number of other channels. But, uh, I caught up with the same guy that filmed me when I did the 60 Minutes story, and he's going to send me out a copy of that. So if you can find it anywhere in the archives, anyone can find that. The footage was phenomenal from that, especially when we were running down there not far from Eagle Canyon, and of course through that area. It was just amazing. But yeah, I loved America back in those days. It was Unbroken and amazing.

Unbelievable. I just reached out to get the book, uh, Pole to Pole. I've read that cover to cover, and, um, it's just an outstanding read. So if you wanna go and find that, Pole to Pole, and, uh, definitely go onto Pat's website, patpharma.com. And, uh, most importantly, get involved somehow. Um, I'm sure Pat is open for sponsors, and I'm also sure Pat also would love you to run with him as well. And, um, I do believe you've got a donation page too on your Run for the Voice website as well.

Yes, because it's a bit of a contentious issue and it'll be a vote later on. It's been very difficult to get sponsorship for this run. So I thought, blow it. Let's have a GoFundMe page and get people to keep us on the road. So if you want to keep us on the road, help us with fuel or food or support vehicles and pay for those sorts of things, Anything would be appreciated, but we're going to make this thing happen.

You always do, Pat. You always do. Well, guys, thank you so much, Pat, for your time. I know you've got to probably get to bed and get those Ks on in the morning. So I look forward to talking to you over the next few months. We'll get you back on here while you're running, and I definitely will see you throughout the trip. I'm going to take my 2 boys, and I might get them to do— I think they've done a a 2K race. They're, they're like 4 and 6, so I'm definitely gonna get them to, to do a couple Ks with you. I think that'll be a great experience for them.

That'll be a great experience for me too.

Thanks, Pat. And guys, if you want to watch this episode, you can go to YouTube and you can check it out there on our website, ComMarketing. And look forward to catching up with you next time on the Marketing Muscle-Up Podcast Show. I hope you've enjoyed this episode. And realize that you can do a lot more than you probably think you can. Thanks, team, and thank you so much, Pat.