00:00
Hey everyone, it's Mikki here, you're listening to Mikkipedia, and this week on the podcast I speak to Beth McKenzie.

00:12
Beth McKenzie, if you don't already know, is a remarkable athlete and entrepreneur. She's known for her achievements as a former professional triathlete, the founder of Wynn Republic, which is a leading triathlon apparel brand, a company that she runs with her husband, Luke McKenzie. She is a mother of two amazing girls, Wynn and Marlow, and she is the UTA 100k champion, the race that just took place.

00:40
10 days ago if you're listening to this when this is published on Wednesday. So on this podcast, Beth and I really have a conversation about her training, her racing, her nutrition philosophy, the supplements that she takes. We talked about her approach for UTA and the lessons she learned in Tarawira and how they helped her enhance her race performance for UTA.

01:09
We talk about where to next in terms of her trail running or road running. Things sound pretty busy on the Win Republic side of things, of course. And we also talk a little bit about her background, how she got into the sport and her Olympic qualifying time marathon bids, which in themselves are amazing. Beth was just such a pleasure to chat to, so warm and so open about

01:38
how they live their life and the things that really mean a lot to her and I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation. As I mentioned, those of you unfamiliar with Beth, she is an athlete, an entrepreneur, she's a mother of two and she really is a tour de force as a female athlete in the sport of endurance and she's transitioned from being a pro triathlete in a career that arguably was cut short for all good reasons.

02:06
having two children will probably do that to you, to transitioning to road running and then of course to include now trail running in her repertoire of things that she does amazing at. In WinRepublic, which is the company she co-founded with her husband Luke, was launched just two weeks before the birth of their second child Marlo and it has grown into a thriving business and it supports over.

02:31
thousand age groupers and attracts top names in the sport such as Chelsea Sodaro, Ashley Gentle, Lionel Sanders, Josh Amberger and of course Rebecca Clark, New Zealand's own. And we talk a lot about the ethos behind Win Republic and how both Beth and Luke and their experience in endurance sport, how that's really informed the direction of their business as well. And what I will say about Beth is that she continues to inspire with her dedication, her mental toughness,

03:00
and her commitment to fostering a supportive community within the triathlon and wider endurance world. So I will pop links to both Beth McKenzie on Instagram and her husband Luke to win Republic and where you can go and find some of the most innovative triathlon and run apparel out on the market. And you only have to go as far as to look at Chelsea to see how amazing that stuff is. And of course, Beth.

03:28
and a link to the Greg Bennett podcast which I mentioned a couple of times which delves a lot more actually into the Winrepublic business and to Beth's earlier triathlon career. Before I hit start on this conversation I would just like to remind you that the best way to support this podcast is to hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast listening platform and for now though please sit back or jump on your elliptical.

03:56
and enjoy this conversation that I have with Beth McKenzie. Anyway, Beth, so great to chat to you. And I feel like there are so many things that I could ask you. And I would feel it would be remiss of me though to start anywhere else other than how you're feeling after the weekend.

04:17
Oh, you know, I am feeling today. So it's Thursday, I'm on Saturday, I raced the UTA Ultra Trail Australia 100k run. And so that was Saturday, I guess now it's almost five days ago. And today's the first day I actually feel amazing. Like I woke up and I did my first run, I just a little trail run 10k super easy but

04:41
nothing's broken, which you never really know until you do that first run after a big event. So you just hope that your body recovers okay. But I was like, okay, both sides feel okay, no apparent stress fractures or anything crazy. So I got through that and it was good. And then I have a hot Pilates class that I just love to go to. So I did that. And I've just been feeling great today. So I'm finally back, but the first few days was a bit...

05:10
It took a while. I can only imagine, in fact, because I was down to do 100K for two years in a row, but I got a fracture. I broke a bone actually on 2023. And then last year, oh no, this year, I just didn't want to do it, Beth. I'm just, I think you really have to want to do 100K. You do. Yeah. Because it's not like, I mean, a marathon is different in that.

05:38
you can go and run a marathon. It's not pleasant. You can't run it hard. If you haven't trained, it's never going to be easy. And if you're really, if you're not trained, it's just going to like hurt. But 100k is a long day if you only sort of half ass it really. Yeah. And it can go, like the time limit for UTA was 28 hours. So there were so many people that were walking or hiking or jogging, I'm not sure, but overnight. And that is a whole nother.

06:05
skill set that I wasn't prepared to have. So I was like, okay, I need to finish this within one day. But yeah, it's a big undertaking. And I thought that I did one in my first one in Tarahumara in February. And I thought I would be one and done. That was like, I was like, I'm going to tick this off the bucket list. I've run 100Ks. This is great. And then less than 24 hours later, I was like, okay, you know what, there's a few things I could do differently.

06:33
that just might make it a better, just, I don't know. And then I just was really into running at the time. So I just thought, okay, let's keep going. Yeah, nice one. And it's interesting you say that about the overnight running because of course the UTA, don't you get like an automatic entry to UTMB? Yeah. So the top three in all of the UTMB series races will get an entry to, well, I would

07:03
run of UTMB, but you can actually write to them. And my friend Heather Jackson, who's also a triathlete turned trail runner, she wrote to me, she said, Oh, you're allowed to just ask to go into the full one. So you should just do that. Like they'll they'll transfer you up or down one category if you ask them to, I believe, I don't know, I'm new to this. So I could do the full one or the CCC. And that would be for 2025. But as of now, I think, I think no, I really would love to do it. That would be

07:32
amazing, but it is it's mountain running at altitude and training for that in Nusa would be really, really difficult. We don't have a lot of elevation. Yeah. And I'm the type of person that wants to prepare as best I can for whatever it is. I try to tell myself I'll half ass things and only do some of the training or just get by. And I know myself now and I never do that. So I'm the type of person that would want to go and live in the Alps for six weeks before the race. And I

08:00
with our family and our life, but that's going to happen. But Luke says, he says we should do it. Oh, there you go. Well, do you know, like, so I appreciate what you said about the, you know, having to go overnight as part of 100K. And that is an entirely different skill set. That's the thing that's held me back from entering a miler is because I'm like, why don't want to miss a night's of sleep, you know, and not be absolutely terrible. And I'm.

08:26
okay at trail, but I'm much better on the road, you know, so I appreciate what you're saying there. But I mean, you did so amazing Beth, with UTA and Tarahueira as well. Like it was, I was there during the 50 and it was really exciting to see you race. And now if I say you were third, am I right about that at Tarahueira? I was second at Tarahueira. Second, okay. To Ruth Croft, who's like an absolute legend of the sport. So I was just.

08:55
like happy to breathe the air 15 minutes behind her. Totally. And then to see your result in the weekend, like that's like, it's something pretty special. So to have you at UTMB would be amazing, but Western States as well would be another one, which I don't know, would that more suit your running style because you're such a good runner? Yeah, I don't know. I'm not looking at any hundred milers now. So, yeah. Fair enough. Yeah, no, fair enough. And...

09:23
Did you, even though physically you felt obviously a little bit run down and tired, like you must have felt just amazing to have finished. And did you, have you been riding that high for this week? Yeah, after Tarawera, I knew, so Ruth Croft finished first, I was second, and I was somewhere between 15 and 20 minutes behind her. And it was my first 100K and she just did everything flawlessly.

09:51
And I ran pretty well for my first hundred, but there were things right away that I was like, oh, you know, I spent, I think like 15 or 16 minutes in the aid stations altogether, whereas Ruth probably spent five or six, or I'm not sure, I'll have to look it up. But I knew I spent too long in the aid stations, I messed up some of my nutrition and things like that. So I knew that there was just sort of time on the table, even without improving my fitness. And so I wanted to look at that when I was going into

10:20
the UTA 100K. And so, yeah, I just I was really motivated to like, not fix those mistakes, because they weren't mistakes, but see if I had learned anything and try to execute that. So then when I did get to the finish line, it was just like, wow, I like I did that I did exactly what I set out to do. And I my training block went really, really well. It was one of those times when I said to my coach and I

10:45
I think I put it on the internet. I said, going into it, I have no excuses. Everything has gone well. And I know how rare that is in a build, especially when you're 44 years old, to be able to even get through 10 weeks of like really good training. So I was just super happy with that. And then yet to have the result that matched what I felt I had put in was really special. A hundred percent, like the stars really aligned, right? Like, because, and it's almost,

11:13
It feels almost intimidating to have that be the case when you go into a run because then you've got no, there's no sort of get out of jail free card because everything went so well. And sometimes that's almost, I don't know, it's a little bit more frightening for some people than actually knowing that it really is on them and their expectations are all sort of built to that, you know, when the gun goes off. Yeah. So, Tareware was in February and going into that, I had had a hamstring and like a hamstring

11:43
in November, December. And so I built back from that really slowly and I was able to get in a decent amount of volume in January and February, but zero speed work. Like it was one of those builds where you had plenty of excuses. So I was like, you know what, I'll go out there and it'll be what it'll be and I wanna get to the finish. So to have the experience where I could really put in what I wanted to and then get.

12:09
like gain that fitness, the walk between Terraware and UTA was amazing because I did 10 weeks of like real training. You know, I was not only doing the volume, but I did a bit, a little bit of tempo and a lot of focused hill work and things like that, which I didn't do before Terraware. So it was cool to see the difference in that and it helped with my confidence as well. For sure. And with your hamstring, Beth, like, so you had a slight tear, like, what did you do for the...

12:38
injury sort of reparation, like, like obviously, rest was one thing, but anything specific that you and your coach were like, right, we're going to dial these things in to help ensure that we don't delay healing. Yeah, well, it was so it was a grade two, just a hamstring tear in the belly belly of the muscle, which is actually good. I think those are easier to heal than tendons sometimes. So they said like the MRI and the after that my physio and doctor said, okay, six to eight weeks.

13:07
you'll be back running. But I was able to get back running within three to four weeks and then just gradually built up from there. I did a lot of cross training. So as a former triathlete, I feel super lucky at any time I get injured because it's not a big deal to me. I'm just like, Oh, I'll ride my bike. I'm going to go swim. That'd be ridiculous. But I do a lot of riding my bike and I focus on strength work. I do a lot of Pilates and stuff that

13:35
I think really, really helps my core and just overall strength in these ultra endurance events. And so I just focused on that for a few weeks. And the elliptical, my coach is really into elliptical in general, which I'm not a fan of, but I will do anything to just keep going. So I did some of that. And also in New So we have this new recovery center called TH7. And they have like a hyperbaric oxygen chamber.

14:01
and red light therapy and saunas and cold plunge and all that stuff. And I did a lot of the hyperbaric chamber. Nice. I don't know if that actually worked. There is some research behind it. But everything together, I was able to get back running a lot more quickly than I thought I would. Yeah, sure. Just a flip on the radar. I know. Isn't that great? I have heard people talk about the hyperbaric chamber as being really helpful. And the infrared, actually.

14:29
like the screens and stuff I in fact, because I do things like this, I like bought myself like an infrared screen, which is sitting, oh, you're not a screen, like a panel that you can have at home. Well, actually I think it's just one that you can like put. Put anywhere. Yeah, put anywhere, yeah. Currently it's sitting in the cardboard box that it was bought in. Like about four months after I bought it, because I get, I'm like enthusiastic, I'm like, I'm so gonna buy that and gonna use it. And then it comes and then I'm like, we'll deal with that later. And then months later, my husband's like,

14:59
Hmm. What, what, what, what are we going to do with this? Yeah, you should use it. I love the, the, um, red light therapy because it's just, I don't know. It's also supposed to be really good for like your skin and collagen building. So I'm like, yes, you know, the anti-aging benefits along with the, um, you know, hopefully performance and recovery benefits. And I get to lay there for 20 minutes in the bed. So that's, it's a bonus. That's a boat. Well, particularly with what appears to be quite a busy schedule

15:28
One of the things that I love about following you is you're such a champion for women and women in sport and moms in sport. You appear to be balancing things. At least that's how it seems. Not just balancing motherhood and your business and your sport, but also actually having a social life and showing that you can have fun sort of along the way. So if you get...

15:54
to have like a 20 minute sort of lie down in the middle of your day. Like, that sounds like a treat actually for someone like you. I know people are like, do you actually work? And the thing is I do, I work a lot, but I'm really good at like the pockets of the day where I can do things for myself, which are the training or recovery. So, um, often at CH7, I'll go there during my lunch break that I give myself. So like say from 12 to one, or 12 to one 30, I'm there and I'll do.

16:22
20 minutes in the red light, and then I go in the hyperbaric chamber for an hour. But in that hour in the hyperbaric chamber, I do an hour of deep work. It's like the best work I get done all week. So there's a lot of things I'm able to sort of double up on. And I am very lucky in that since we created our business, which is Winter Public, I do get to choose my own hours and how I work that. So I'm sure I work more.

16:48
in an entire week than most people do, but it's often in funny pockets. Like sometimes it's 4.30 a.m. because I've woken up and I have an hour before I'm meeting a friend for a run. So I just like to use all parts of the day, but also it would be really remiss of me and anyone else to not talk about the help that we get as well because I think so many times we're tempted to say, oh, look at me, I'm doing it all. And really nobody does it all. I have a lot of help.

17:18
we part of the reason but by design, like part of the reason we moved to new size because in Australia is because Luke's parents live here and they're retired and their life goal and is to hang out with our children like they love it. So, you know, this afternoon, the kids are getting out of school in an hour, but grandma is going to pick them up and they're going to go to swim lessons and then I'll go pick them up from swim lessons. So

17:44
We have a lot of help. Back when we were racing triathlon, that was also a priority for us because we wanted to invest in our careers. And, you know, I was a mom, and we had started the business. But, you know, I wasn't going to, I wanted to treat both of my jobs, so triathlon and winner public as real jobs. So we had childcare for when Luke and I would go training and we had an au pair that lived with us.

18:11
And we stopped that in the past couple of years just because we didn't feel like we needed as much when we were not training 30 hours a week. But a sign from above two weeks ago, one of our old au pairs, well, a month ago, she had contacted me, she said, Hey, can I move back in with you guys for six months? I just want to, she's from Finland, and she wanted to come for six months. And I said, Heck yeah. And now I have like this help I didn't even think I was going to have. So

18:37
I'm truly very lucky and blessed in that Luke also, who's my husband, he does a lot from the very beginning because we've both been so focused on our business and career. He has also been somebody who does lots of the housework, does just as much with the kids as I do. So it's really a partnership with us. And yeah, I definitely don't do it alone. And I think that's where people, I think a lot of women take on.

19:04
too much themselves and they think that they have to do everything. And the truth is that nobody can and I hope I don't make it look like I'm doing everything because I'm the first person to tell you that I'm not. And for what it's worth, I never got the impression that you did everything yourself, you know, so it certainly doesn't come across in social media. I feel like there's just a really nice balance and that it's not, I don't know, that you're not sort of extreme in any one particular way, which

19:33
Sometimes with former triathletes, I don't know why I say triathlon. I think it's because triathlon is such a, there are so many moving parts. You almost have to be very sort of like dialed into it all. So I guess it sort of by design will attract people who are very details oriented and can be very extreme. Never got that from you. Yeah, no. And that's part of my personality too, actually. I've always been a very...

19:57
I'm a very big picture person. I'm not a details person. I'm a very type B person. And my husband's very type A. And I don't really fit into that triathlon mold. But there are parts of me where I somehow just make the holistic big picture happen. But the details are often, you don't want to look inside my closet. It's very neat. Well, Beth, I found it really interesting when I listened to your interview with Greig Bennett, which was a fabulous.

20:26
podcast. I mean, because I'm ignorant, unbeknownst to me that you had like, next to no, appeared next to no interest in endurance sport growing up when all of your triathlete buddies who you ended up would be racing them and say, I don't know, 15 years later, they would have been in the pool at 6am in the morning. Sounds to me like triathlon was an endurance sport was like the furtherest thing from your mind growing up. Yeah, I didn't grow up in an area where

20:55
I had even heard of Triathlon or anything. Even going through university, I majored in partying and no, we did do a lot of partying and stuff, but Triathlon never crossed my mind. I never learned to ride a bike. I actually never clipped into a bicycle until I was 28 years old. So anyone who thinks that maybe it's too late to start or something like that, it really is never too late. Even just now the trail running. I mean,

21:23
I wouldn't be where I am in trail running without the 10 years I've had. 15 years in triathlon and endurance sports, I fully understand that. But trying something new can always give you something that you never knew was possible. And that's sort of what triathlon was for me in my late 20s, because I had spent my entire life just focusing on my career at the time, which was in, I was a school psychologist, a child psychologist. And-

21:50
um, education and just having fun. And then at 28, I just sort of found this new thing and dove straight into it. And it's absolutely changed my life for the better. And I'm so grateful I found endurance sports, but I never, it was never part of my life growing up. I played team sports and stuff, but that was about it. Yeah. And at the time, Beth, were your friends, were your friends surprised at the sudden sort of like love of endurance sport? Cause I always wonder that because no endurance sport.

22:20
it attracts a certain type of person. And that's sort of, I don't know how you feel. And obviously, we've got friends in all walks of our lives, just collectively, but so many of my best girlfriends are runners because we have run forever. And that's a real connection. And then you just had that connecting thing. And it's the same with triathlon, the same with all endurance sports. So was there a shift in your lifestyle when you took up triathlon? Yeah, there was a huge shift.

22:49
Um, you know, now I look around and all of my friends are fit runners and stuff. And I'm really lucky that we do have that community. But back then, yeah, none of my friends were into endurance sports. And I still keep in touch with several of my friends from there. My best friend from university actually saw her last weekend and she's always the one that jokes around and tells people about what I used to be like, because it was not like this. And she, at first she thought it was all a big joke because I, I never exercised throughout university. I would.

23:18
actually like not make fun of but if my friends said to me on Saturday or Sunday, Oh, I'm going to the gym right now to the arc. I was like, Why would you do that? That sounds so stupid. I'm just going to be here hung over on the couch. And that was, you know how it was. But I think a lot of people, a lot of my friends too, they've always been very smart and driven. And so like me, I think they did find some sports or other outlets, other hobbies in there later.

23:48
20s and stuff. So I think it's a normal progression, but yeah, my old friends, this was not a part of our life. Yeah, it's so interesting. And obviously, for people who want a bit more detail on that sort of earlier years and in your early triathlon years, they can absolutely listen to Greg Bennett's podcast with you. And I'll pop that in the show notes. I do have to say that it was lovely to hear of your relationship with Luke and just how very quickly

24:18
You guys just got into being a couple and doing things together and just being each other's number one sort of supporter like. And that totally comes through, obviously, on social media as well. It seems like you guys have just been such a tight unit from the get go. That must have been really lovely. Yeah, when we met, everything did happen very quickly. But I was an age group triathlete who had just turned pro. So like in 20...

24:45
I turned pro and I raced while I was working as a school psychologist and I was fine, but I wasn't great. And I met Luke in 2013 and we started hanging out and he said, look like you're all right, but you could be really good. Why don't you just give it a real shot and it's not going to happen with your current career. And I had invested so much, like I went to eight years of university to be a psychologist. So I was like, well, I can't just give it up.

25:15
However, I was in a position where I was able to take a year leave of absence and up to two years of leave of absence. So I said, oh, look, OK, let's give it a shot for a year. And he really encouraged me to do that. And this is all right away when we started dating. And then we just moved in together in training camps and things. But then real quickly, I got pregnant by accident, which was a great surprise. But it wasn't what I had planned for my year of leave of absence from.

25:44
from my job. So I just, I kept training through it, but not very seriously. At the time, there weren't many women who had had kids and gone back to professional triathlon. The one that I knew that you would know would be Gina Crawford. And she was not, I mean, I've always been quite a, not an outspoken person, but I've shared a lot of my life on the internet. And I think that's, you know,

26:08
helped and helped other women see that like you can do it, you can have kids. And Gina did it all very quietly though. So I would email her in the background, okay, what did you do while you were pregnant? How did you come back? Things like that. But yes, it wasn't how I envisioned my leave of absence, but our life just sort of evolved from there. That's the year that Luke also got second in Kona. So his career was really taking off. But then at the same time, he felt maybe not guilty or responsible, but

26:37
I think he really wanted me to come back to race professionally because he knew that, you know, the pregnancy was both of our responsibility. And so he wanted me to be able to still have that career. So it was nice that he supported me through that. And then coming back from having Wynn, I was also training for the first time full time without having a job. So that really helped me as well. Yeah. And Beth, do you think looking back?

27:06
that you, because I, as I understand it, you had some of your best performances post pregnancy. I mean, you can never know, right? But let's say that things did actually just were different. Like, do you feel like your career would have been prolonged and that you had stuff left in the tank that you weren't able to, I don't know, like, you didn't really reach your full potential? I don't know. Like, or do you actually think that, I mean, because you got some amazing results.

27:36
It's like, you know, I think for me looking back, because I didn't I found triathlon so late and then very quickly had a baby and everything. The one I don't have any regrets, but the one thing I would have loved to have experienced is like that. Like training with a squad type of group like, you know, not necessarily Brett Sutton, because I know there's

27:59
issues around Brett Sutton, but that seto squad type of thing where you go and you live and that is your 24-7, that's your job. I think I would have really thrived in that type of environment. I love that. I love group environments. I'm very competitive on the race course, but in training, I'm a very collaborative type of person and I just feed off of other people's success as well. So I would have loved to experience that. But other than that, I think I got

28:28
as much out of myself as I could have. Yeah, totally. COVID kind of derailed that eventually because we were going to, I really wanted to do like sub nine in Roth and I had always raced harder courses that weren't typically sub nine courses back when I was racing. Now almost every race is like a sub nine course because everyone's so fast. But I wanted to go and do a sub nine at Roth in 2020 when COVID happened and it just, it wasn't meant to be. So.

28:58
You know, our business was really taking off with Win Republic. We had two kids then. They were going, starting school. And it was just time to move on to the next chapter. But for me, that included running, which takes a lot less time. But I've found just as much joy through and probably more, actually, because it is something I'm able to balance with the rest of my life, where with Triathlon, I really wasn't at the level that we were racing.

29:26
Yeah. And I guess that's the thing with triathlon. Like they often say that in order to be the best that you can be in a sport like triathlon, it must be all, it's hard to be balanced in other areas of your life. Like there's almost no such thing in that sort of competitive sort of season or whatever of your life. Running though, I mean, how amazing are you Beth to then go and do an Olympic bit and get

29:52
so close to the qualifying times, three times in a row. It's only a couple of years ago, isn't it? It wasn't even that long ago. Yeah. So in 2021, that's when I thought, okay, I'll do some marathons. And I'm trying to figure out, no, maybe 2022. I'm not sure. 2022. Yeah.

30:18
So, 2021, I wanted to do the Gold Coast Marathon. And my goal was, which is in Australia, a sub 240. And I thought that that would be just amazing if I could do that. And that was the only thing on my radar was just sub 240, sub 240. But I did get, I got a stress fracture training for that one and wasn't able to do it. And that was a long recovery. So, 2021, I didn't.

30:42
really do anything until the end of the year. I just dipped my toes into my first 50k. But it was... It's called the GC50. And it's more of like a road 50k. There is some trail but it's very flat. So it's like, on that day, the girl that I ran with, she won by about a minute but she set the Australian record in the 50k. So we did like 317 or 318, I think, which was good.

31:09
But then, so that was the only race I really did in 21. And then 22, I was training for the Gold Coast Marathon. And one of my friends from triathlon, her name was Sarah Pampiano, she said, oh, well, you should try to do the USA Olympic qualifications standard. So that's to go to the Olympic trials. It doesn't mean you're going to get on the Olympic team. There's like 100 or 150 women that qualify and that get to run the Olympic trials, which is this epic event. So.

31:36
in the US, it's a big deal just to be in that event. I'm not going to be going to the Olympics. I knew that. The women are much faster. But it would have been a cool thing to achieve. So she said, let's try to do it. And I was like, OK, let's try. And actually, that was anyway. Sorry, mixing it up. But anyway, I did a 238 at Gold Coast. That was before I knew about the time, I think. And then my friend Sarah said, oh, you should try to make this time. It's going to be.

32:03
anything under 237. So you could run like a 236.59. I was like, okay, I can do that. So I signed up for California International Marathon, which is a big one in the US that people go to, to try to get a trials time. Because it's super flat, super fast. It's quite hilly. It does have a little bit of net downhill, but it's just for some reason, it's a fast course. It's a point to point course. I don't really know why. I think the weather is usually pretty good for it. But I found

32:32
There were so many more hills than I thought there were going to be anyway. But I went there with Sarah, and I ran like a 2.37, 47. So I missed the time by like 48 seconds. And I'd run within two minutes of the time before. And I did it. I did another marathon again the next year and just missed it again. But I don't know. For me, it was a little bit more about the journey. I knew I didn't really want to go. I didn't need to go to the Olympic trials.

33:00
it was more like, can I hit this time? And that was fun. But by the end of 2023, I knew that I had milked everything out of my speed. And if I wasn't going to go to the Olympic trials, was it really worth continuing to run marathons to try to do a 236, 48? Nobody cares. I don't care. I've done better than I thought I was going to do. So I was like, you know what? Let's try something new. And that's where the whole 100k just knew.

33:30
new thing came in. Yeah. And who was your coach or who is your coach, Beth? So when I was racing marathons the past couple years, Melindi Elmore, who's a Canadian, she was ninth at the Olympics and she also was a professional triathlete who did a sub-nine debut. She was an amazing professional triathlete, but again, very under the radar. Nobody really knows her, but she's gone to, I think this is going to be her fifth Olympics in the marathon.

33:58
Oh, amazing. Amazing. And I picked her right away because she was an inspiration to me. She is exactly my age. So she's 43 and she has two kids. And I just thought this is the woman to coach me. And she was amazing. I just love Malindi and everything that she does. And I knew that what she was going to give me for training was as good as anything else. And then when I moved to trail, as Malindi doesn't specialize in trail.

34:26
this woman, Meg Roach, who's like super, she's very well known with her husband, David. They had Swap in the US and they coach almost all of the top trail runners in the US. It's insane the stable of athletes they have. And I'm pretty sure they were full when I asked them if they would coach me, but I've known Megan and especially David for the past 15 years, because we used to have blogs together back in like 2008.

34:54
When we were both running and I was starting triathlon. And anyway, we were sort of internet friends for a really long time and have just kept up since then. So I think they let me in because we've just like known each other for so long. So Megan's been amazing. Some of the stuff they do, it's nothing like mind blowing and no crazy case or anything like that, but just some really smart training. And I just love their mindset and positivity. Nice one, Beth. And will you carry on?

35:23
in trail now after this? I mean, I know it's only been five days, but... What's next, right? I know. I've been asking myself that too, because this was like the... I was training for this and then I said, oh, I'm not going to do anything else the rest of the year because we have... Because of WinRepublic, now triathlon season is really picking up. And then we have the whole world championship season coming up. So in the next six months, we're going to...

35:52
to Kansas, Australia, and then to the US and then to Roth, Germany, and then back to the US, then back to Australia, then to Nice for the Ironman World Championships, then back to Australia, then to Hawaii for the next Ironman World Championships, then back to Australia, then to Dubai for, there's like a T100 race there, but we're also going to be starting some distribution in Dubai.

36:18
So it's a really busy year travel wise. So I just didn't think I could fit in any more races, but now I'm like, maybe like a 50K. If anyone has any ideas, let me know. Yeah, no, that's totally. And I know what you mean. Like it's nice to, sometimes it's, when you're so goal focused, sometimes it is really nice just to sort of take the pressure off having something to do, even though you will always get up and do something. But I do find, I don't know if you're the same, that

36:45
after a couple of weeks of just sort of like, oh, this is so great. Then it's sort of like, huh, what could I focus on now? Because I sort of need something to, I don't know. What are you training for? Sunshine Coast Marathon. Oh, fun. I did that last year. Ah, so apparently it's quite a, I mean, what is fast, but is it a good course? So it's a really good course. It's

37:08
Fairly fast, I think. It was a bit warm the day that we did it, but it just depends the day. It does get pretty crowded because it's a lapped course. Oh, yes. But it's a beautiful course. I loved it. Nice one. So we were headed to do Boston this year, but we had a bit of a family thing. We had to cancel that last minute and then go to the UK. So Hubster needs to qualify again.

37:37
do say, I do think that the qualifying standards for men appear to be a lot tougher than they are for women. Like, if there is anywhere in sport where the, it's a bit of a role reversal in terms of who gets it easier, it's got to be women for qualifying times. What's the men's time that he has to do? He has to do three, I think it's 325 is the cutoff. He's 51.

38:06
51 or something. Yeah. That's pretty quick for 55. Yeah, it seems it right. And then of course, you do need a buffer. So he's like, well, I've got to run about 315. And his best is 250. I don't know, I think 258. It's slightly slower than my best time. Although my best time was like, seriously, like decades ago. You know, you have good times that you can dine out on. And that's totally me.

38:35
Yeah. Well, that's okay. You still have the fastest time in the household, which is important. I totally agree. We actually at the Sunshine Coast Marathon last year, both Luke and I ran and he said he was going to pace me or whatever. And I did so much more training than him. And I executed all my training perfectly. And he did about one third of it. Yeah. And then on the day, it was very hot. I was winning the race.

39:04
But there was just like a lot of lap traffic. I knew my goal there was to, I just wanted to go under the old course record, which was 241. So I wasn't still trying to make an Olympic trials time. I knew it wouldn't be a course for that, but halfway through it, I could tell he was like sort of inching away and I was like, just go, just go. And I thought for sure he'd die in the last 5K because he always does.

39:30
He didn't, and he ran like a 237.17 or something. I ran a 239, so I did get the course record. However, he got the family record now for marathon because mine's like 30 seconds slower. That would be my main motivation for a little more. Far more than the Olympic trials standard would be to get that marathon record back for the family.

39:56
100% Beth, so surely you can bust out some sort of fast marathon that you've got time for that in all yours. That's 237.07, that's all I need. Exactly. And I guess this is the thing with you Beth is because, I mean, obviously you're an amazing runner and you work really hard at it and you've got that natural ability. So when you bring these things together, like, you know, it's amazing. Do you ever think, gosh, if I just sort of like focused on running earlier in my career, I could have really like.

40:26
nailed in something quicker or? Yeah, I never used to think that way because I thought I would get really bored if I just ran. Yeah. But the truth is I'm not really getting bored of just running. I really love it. And I do sort of think, I wonder, I bet I could have been pretty good at the marathon. But like you know, you just didn't do so you got to be in it to win it and I was not. So I have no idea. But it would have been cool to try to.

40:55
Yeah, really go for it and running a bit younger because obviously now I mean, I'm 44. Ship has sailed, but as far as being an elite. No, totally, totally. So, well, for what it's worth, the Kepler over here in New Zealand in early December is an amazingly runnable course. I have heard that's what I actually am considering. I'm not sure if I can get in, but because I know it's very hard to get into like sells out really quickly.

41:24
But it's like the week before we need to be there for Taupo. So I'm trying to work that out. I've already put it on the radar, but I'm not sure if it's gonna happen. Well, I really hope it does. And I couldn't imagine that if you didn't, not that you needed backdoor entry, but I'm sure that they would love to have you on their start line. And it is- I don't know if it's really like a competitive, like isn't it like an experience race, not so much a like.

41:53
So who's there to win it? Well, you could do both. I mean, you would go and have an amazing experience and win it. Like you'd have both. Yeah, I mean, that's great. But I feel like it's an experience race. Yeah. But yeah, Ruth Croft, she actually mentioned that to me after Terwear because she said, oh, you would love the Kepler. And I looked at it. I was like, oh, I want to do it. But I feel like there's a reason why my kids might have a dance competition. That's very important. So I don't know. Yeah.

42:20
Well, hey, that's not going anywhere either. Yeah, that sounds like perfect to me, because it's like 60, 70 days or something, like I like that distance, looks beautiful. It's definitely on the radar. Yeah, nice one. Beth, with your stress fracture that you mentioned that you got a couple of years ago, did you have any, what was that put down to? It's hard to say. In my triathlon career as well, I've had three total femoral neck stress fractures.

42:47
and two in one leg one in the other, I'm convinced it's something with my biomechanics that predisposes me to it because like my bone density is very good. I constantly getting that checked. My you know, energy levels and energy intake are really good. So I think it's just sometimes when I overdo it with the intensity, which is probably what I was doing at that point. That's just Yeah, that one was this. I think it was a stress reaction. The last one.

43:15
my very first one was a stress fracture. Yeah, I don't know. It's just been the thing that that and my hamstrings are the things that always get me. Yeah. And from a supplement perspective, people are always wanting to know about diet, training, and supplements and sort of general sort of not life philosophy, but you know, how does someone, you know, how do they go about their life? And people like to pick up tips from, you know, the people who are at the top of their game. So

43:44
Supplement wise, is there anything that you would absolutely never leave the house without or you just don't even really bother? Yeah, I am very, very minimal on the supplement front. Just there's a lot of reasons that we can go into in another podcast, but the risks of contamination with supplements are really high. So I only take what I feel like I absolutely need, which is I...

44:12
take true protein whey protein, WPI because it's has to certified which is, you know, a body that tests it for banned substances. And they've been really great, like they don't sponsor me or anything. I've always bought all my true protein, but they have one range that's all has to certified some of its not so you have to go and pay a little bit extra for that peace of mind. But they've even sent me before the certificates

44:42
the batch certificates and then I always will buy two or three bags at a time and keep one unsealed in case I'm drug tested or something like that because we can go into it later. But there's lots of reasons. And so I take that. I also have been taking AG1, which is like, pretty much like a full like multivitamin supplement. And that's NSF for sport certified. But even that I stopped taking like a month before a race because I just...

45:11
I like to take as little as possible. Yeah. And other than that, that's it. I do take melatonin to sleep, which is also a supplement and that's it. Yeah. Nice one. There are so many things that people could take. You know, I'm a fan of creatine. Yeah, I've been really curious about creatine and True Protein does have a certified creatine and I tried to buy it a few months ago and it was sold out at the time. So I'm just waiting till that.

45:38
line comes back in stock, but I would like to try it. Do you take five milligrams a day or? Yeah, I take about three grams. Three. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And then it's about a teaspoon's worth. Okay. And it's interesting actually with women. I mean, you probably know, but it's, you know, you can get that water retention. The bloating, yeah. Yeah, but it typically settles after a couple of weeks. So you sort of got to give it time. But the other thing, Beth, is that in some clients, they experience like, really, like if they have PMS symptoms,

46:08
they're exacerbated when they're on creatine actually. Yeah, so that's just another, and that hasn't actually been born out of literature either. And I think it's just because they haven't done enough studies to, I don't know, see that this sort of happens, but I've heard it enough times from clients to just chat about it, just so people know that that could occur.

46:30
And then if it does, you just come off it in your luteal phase and then go back on it. Yeah, I am very, I would like to try creatine and just see how I reacted to it. I think it sounds like one of those ones that's sort of different for everybody. And I think if I was doing like an explosive power type like sprinting or something like that, I'd be like, this is a must. But with the longer endurance events, I don't know. I don't know. But I guess I should try and then we'll see. Yeah, I totally agree. And

46:58
Diet-wise, Beth, we'll have to say, because I enjoy a beer and I enjoy a wine. It's just something that fills my cup, literally, and I do notice that on your... You just seem to have a really nice balanced approach to your nutrition. Not that you've ever really highlighted this. This is what I do in a day, but it certainly just seems like you enjoy life in addition to taking your training seriously, I guess, when it comes to your nutrition.

47:28
Do you have like a philosophy that you live by? Yeah, for me, I'm very much an everything in moderation type of person. There are no foods that I think are bad foods that I exclude from my diet. I don't have any allergies. I actually function best energy wise when I get a good amount of everything. But I'm very lucky in that my favorite foods are fruits and vegetables.

47:55
and then really good healthy things with lots of protein in them like Greek yogurt and eggs and good fats like avocado. So those are all the things I love. I have the same smoothie with true protein in it every single morning. And when I'm traveling, I hate that I can't have that smoothie. And then lunch most days is eggs and avocado on toast with some feta. And yeah, so I have a lot of...

48:22
I eat a lot of sourdough and I do eat probably more carbs than you do, but I also have, I think, a very protein forward diet. We actually eat a lot of red meat because Luke likes red meat. So we eat a lot of steak, but lean cuts, organic mostly when we can find it. If not, definitely grass-fed beef. And then just, I cook for kids. So we have things like tacos and spaghetti bolognese, but made by me.

48:51
and healthy and their favorite foods. It's funny, I make this green soup that is so healthy and my kids love it. It's like their favorite thing. So we have a really well-rounded diet. I think occasionally I have maybe too many drinks in a week. People think that as a really serious athlete, you can't drink. And we'll have a glass or two of wine a few nights a week. I will say I've noticed in the past couple years how much it does impact sleep.

49:20
just from tracking sleep. So I do try to cut back on the alcohol only for the sleep really, because I feel fine if I have one or two glasses of wine the next day. It's not that it's more just like I'll look at my sleep score and it's lower and I'm like, why is that? So actually I'm guilty of this is pretty funny. Having like, I'll have a drink like a glass of wine at like four or 430 while I'm starting to get dinner ready, but then I won't have another one for the rest of the night.

49:48
Not every day, of course, but occasionally because that won't impact my sleep, but it's still a nice thing for myself. And you know, you've got those antioxidants and whatever else is in there. 100%. Yeah. And so I'm absolutely with you, Beth, on the alcohol front in that I also like, I love a glass of wine or two. And it is the only thing that puts me off is the sleep thing as well, which, and it's a real bummer actually that the older you get, the more it impacts on that.

50:16
The good thing is, and I'm sure I've mentioned this before, not to you, because this is the first time we're talking, is that having that glass of wine before dinner is absolutely my favorite time to have it. And then it's just a really easy cut off. Because after dinner, all I really want is a cup of tea, if anything, you know? A piece of chocolate. Yeah, yeah, yeah, with a piece of chocolate, right? But the other thing I was actually going to ask you was, what's your favorite beer? I mean, Australia has amazing...

50:44
craft breweries and particularly around Brisbane and the Gold Coast. There are just littered with amazing places that you could go and enjoy like a pedal. Yeah, up in Noosa, we actually have a lot of great microbreweries and stuff. And one thing that's really big up here is this alcoholic ginger beer. And there's a really spicy one here called El Diablo. So it's like spicy ginger beer. So it's not very sweet. And that is delicious. But I also love a good

51:14
Hazy IPA. So Balter makes a good one. That's a pretty local one from the Gold Coast. So yeah, those are sort of my go-tos. Or I'm a very much a when in Rome person, too. So if I'm at a Mexican restaurant, I order a Dos Equis or a Corona. If I'm at a Japanese restaurant, I'll have an Asahi. So there's a beer for every occasion.

51:39
No, I totally agree. And of course you are, you know, you're American. So, you know, in fact, I was speaking to a person who is a brewer the other day for a large, for little creatures. It's just down the road from where we live. I love little creatures. Yeah. So there is one, because there is one in, I think it started in Australia. In July. Yes. And there's one in Hobsonville.

52:03
Yeah, yeah, in Auckland. So the white rabbit little creatures I love. Yeah, that's lovely, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Although I will say, unfortunately for me and my head, I'm much more partial to like a hazy and we have this joke that I don't get out of bed for anything less than 7%, which is probably true, actually. But apparently America is the place to go, really, for microbreweries. Yeah.

52:31
San Diego too, that's where I'm from, is like the home of all the micro breweries. So you can go on brewery tours all day long there. Oh, that is amazing. I've got a conference in San Diego, like this year. Yeah. So I'll have to get a match. For runs and brewery tours and I'll be a woman. Amazing. Um, so Beth, with regards to, I suppose, I mean, obviously when Republic is just like exploding right now and, and also what I notice about, um, a lot of the

53:01
What I see on social media is actually just you and Luke and the company's passion for really getting behind women in sport and mothers in sport. And I just absolutely loved the footage of you post-race talking about how great and how much it meant for you to show your daughters that you can do hard things. Was this something that you grew up?

53:30
with or is it something that just sort of, I suppose, you know, was it something role modeled in your family? Is it something that you've just sort of grown into feel really strongly about just because of your lifestyle and the people around you? Yeah. I mean, my mom was never in sport, but she always did. She definitely did hard things. But I think that for me, it's more just having been immersed in endurance sports over the past 15 years and seeing the way that

53:57
women and their presence have evolved in sport in general and then specifically as mothers, even in the time since I've started the sport has been really great to see. And you just sort of see the chain reaction impact where it's actually, you know, now there may be five or six female triathletes that are pregnant and 10 or 12 that have kids. And that's normal. And eight to 10 years ago, it wasn't normal. And there wasn't the support.

54:24
And I was talking to Holly Lawrence, who's, she's a 70.3 world champion. She's pregnant right now. And she just said, Oh, it's been so amazing. All the PTO has been amazing. And the sponsors and whatever. And she has a sponsor that when I got pregnant was my sponsor as well. And they dropped me when I got pregnant. That's right. You know, it's, and because they just, you know, it wasn't worth anything to them. And then they saw afterwards how

54:50
I sort of turned that around and was probably more valuable after I had the baby than before because we started talking about something that was important to a lot of women. So, things have really changed. But I think because of that, that's why I'm so just passionate about it. And I see little things in my daughters every day that just like, they're not really into sports that much, but little grit and determination in what they love to do. So weather through that.

55:17
through dancing or yeah, Wyn does do some running, that kind of thing. I just, I don't know, I'm very inspired by women around me. Like when Chelsea Sidara won the Ironman World Championships and her daughter was 15 months old, I just was like, that's like, I was in tears. And I won Ironman Switzerland when Wyn was 13 months old, but I wasn't at the level that Chelsea was. And I didn't have the support and things to get there. I probably never would have been because I was a terrible swimmer.

55:47
Besides the point, I think that there's little things that we can relate to in women who are doing amazing, strong things. Whether or not it's, you know, the little takeaways of whether or not you should take more time for yourself, or you never know who you're inspiring, or you never know who's watching like little girls, or just, you know, having friends that like to do hard things as well in that sort of community is important. So yeah, I'm just really into it. And I think because

56:16
I'm one of the founders of WinRepublic as a byproduct. Win seems to embody that, but we like to get behind any good cause we can find. I think it's just, you know, once you start to have a little bit of a voice in a platform, it's nice to be able to use it to things for things that are important to you or do good in some way. Yeah, I love it. And I also know that, you know, you, you support athletes, you, you don't just support like top athletes.

56:44
you support like a range of athletes and you really show that you're, I don't know, you're there for every athlete is how I sort of look at it. Yeah, it's, you know, because Luke and I were professional triathletes, having that part of our marketing spend is very important to us. So I know, I know a few, several brands that don't focus on supporting pro athletes at all. Whereas for us, I think we do it because we know it can impact sales.

57:12
But also it's more of like a passion project. We just do love to support athletes, especially when we know how hard they're working and what they're accomplishing. But yeah, we'll see. And I think at the end of the day, just that the authenticity is what moves the bottom line. I don't know, we'll see. No, I 100% agree. Like it's relationships, right? And you guys just really- It's got a great community. Yeah.

57:39
Like we love our community so much, but they love us back as much or more. And that's, it's really cool to see whether or not it's the pros or the age groupers, whoever, is it feels much more like a community than someone selling Lycra. Yeah, a hundred percent. And speaking of community, aren't you like taking people for a run this weekend as part of a run festival? Is it, which run festival is this weekend? Okay, so in Noosa is the,

58:08
The Runaway Noosa Marathon, which is a huge marathon, half marathon, 10K in town here. And I run it every single year, the half usually, the half. I think that's the only one I've done. Yeah, I do the half every year. I did it last year. And then this year they emailed me. They said, hey, would you like an entry? And I said, you know what? Is it worse? I said, I'm doing 100K the week before. Is it worse to accept the entry and pull out the week of, or to not get an entry and then maybe ask for a late minute, a last minute entry?

58:38
on Friday and they're like, just don't enter. But actually, I hadn't even thought of that. I feel like I could do it. I should do it on Saturday, except they've asked me to be a commentator. So I'm commentating the race. Nice one. So I won't be able to run. But now I kind of want to run. I think I could do it. Well, actually, it's quite good now you don't have to decide. But tomorrow I'm leading a ShakeOut run just at the TH7 at the...

59:06
local recovery center that I work with. So we're just doing a ShakeOut run and a Q&A with myself and then my running partner, Ella, who she just won the Ballarat Marathon. She's a great runner as well. So she is a very good runner. Yeah. Awesome, Beth. It's been so great to chat to you about, and it was pretty much all over the place just because there's so, like, there's so much that I could have asked you because I had a whole bunch of questions I didn't even bother getting to. Can you let people know?

59:33
where they can, I mean, you're pretty easy to find it on the internet. I know. So much content this week has come out of the UTA, which has been great, but it's almost like I stopped reposting stuff because I'm like, people have got to be sick of it by now, but then, I don't know. No, people are not sick of it. They do such a fabulous job of really capturing the feeling and the emotion. They did such a great job at the event. The coverage was really good. And that's how...

01:00:03
That's how I had been inspired to run 100K, because I had watched a friend do the teraware the year before. And I watched all the Instagram stories online, and I was just like, wow, this scenery, wow, this suffering, wow, this grit, wow, look at this, this, this. And I was like, I should do that. I need to do that. So I hope that like the, and I know there are because I've gotten them all in my inbox, but I think there's a few people that are going to be on that start line next year because of what they, not me, but just what they saw in general in the coverage. And I think that's pretty cool.

01:00:30
I completely agree. So your Instagram handle? It's at Beth G. McKenzie. Amazing. And of course, I don't think your husband's particularly active all the time on social, but if he is, it's reposting something that you've posted, which is great. He does a great job. No, he does that. He's I am Luke McKenzie because he actually used to have a really big Instagram, which was just at Luke McKenzie. And then it got hacked.

01:00:58
or five years ago, which was really sad because he had like 60,000 followers or something. I was so upset, not only for the memories because family memories, we lost all of those, but also because we were in a business for marketing. I'm like, that is a big marketing avenue and we lost it. God. But he doesn't care. He actually is happier now because he feels like he just can post whatever he wants and doesn't have to think about it. That's really nice. I think I don't know what I would do if I had a glitch on my Instagram

01:01:28
It is worrying how worrying it is actually. Like, yeah, email list, that's where it's at. So true. Yeah. Then our brand I have to plug because they're my sponsor. Yes. Just kidding. I sponsor myself is WinRepublic. So that's win with a Y and an at WinRepublic on Instagram or winrepublic.com.au. Amazing. And for what it's worth, I was on your website yesterday.

01:01:57
And you guys are actually doing quite a good sale, which might be over by the time this comes out, which is next week. But I was very excited to see because you do ship to New Zealand, which is amazing. We do, yeah. And shipping to New Zealand is pretty easy. I mean, it costs like, I think $15 or something, but it's pretty easy and quick. Yeah. One last question before you go. How tall are you, Beth? Oh, in feet or in centimeters? I'm 162.5 centimeters, I think. Okay. We're roughly the same height. What?

01:02:26
What length shorts do you wear? I wear all of them for all different reasons. But when I'm racing, I usually wear the PR shorts, which are the shortest ones. When I'm just training, I wear the little bit longer, it's a lot. And now we have a new stride shorts. There's all different options, but we can talk about that offline. Awesome, Beth. Great to chat. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks, Nikki.

01:03:00
All right, team, hopefully you enjoyed that. I really had a great time asking her about her beer selection. I think that if Beth and I had a beer together, I think that we would, that would go down great, actually. I think we'd probably enjoy a lot of the same microbreweries. And I'm really excited to see what Beth does tick off next, even if it is just taking Luke on and getting that family record back. Next week on the podcast, I'm delighted to bring with to you a discussion I have with Lara Brydon, who it's only been moments since she's been

01:03:30
on the podcast but this time around we chat about metabolism and women's health. Obviously that's one not to be missed. Until then though you can catch me over on threads, twitter and instagram @mikkiwilliden, facebook @mikkiwillidennutrition, head to my website mikkiwilliden.com send an inquiry through there. Alright team you have the best week see you later.