Sam, Mitch & Katie chat with Ralph Mathiessen. Ralph has run 50 marathons since he started running 11 years ago, having recently run the Berlin Marathon as his 50th, which was also the 50 year anniversary for Berlin. Ralph got into running to simplify his commutes to Tafe, though had a knack for cross country with his mates throughout high school. Since his dad had dragged him into doing marathons at the time. Ralph shares some funny marathon experiences with us including some stomach issues with the Gu Salted Caramels at the M7, getting caught for 3rd place just 100s of metres from the finish line. Ralph ran an impressive 2:50:53 at Melbourne Marathon in 2022 however. Ralph trains to Power recommendations set by his STRYD foot pods and he gives us a summary of how that works and why he finds that conducive to his training. Ralph is gearing up for Newcastle Marathon next year to secure a qualifier (sub 2:55) for Chicago 2025 and New York 2026.

Ralph runs us through a maintenance week before things ramp up in his marathon prep running around 65km for the week with some 1-minute harder efforts on session days. Mitch has another very impressive week progressing his 800 reps to as fast as 2:28 and running his threshold at 3:28s on Friday. Katie puts more bricks together and nails both of her sessions capping a 20 minute threshold at 3:46 mostly into the headwind. Sam runs 44km pain free but suffers another set back picking up Covid on Friday evening.