S3E36 · Campbell McIver: Why I Love Mountain Bike Riding

- We're back. - We're on. - Welcome back to the Virtus Performance Podcast, season four, episode 10 or 11, unconfirmed release date. Again, we're very lucky to have the guest today who, former intern, two times over, we're gonna get into that. But we have a thing here at Virtus, and when we finish up our internship, we take him out for dinner, we wine and dine him, normally as a group or a cohort, and they always say, hey, end of the night, nice to see you, I'll definitely visit. Campbell, welcome to the podcast. When's the last time you were here?

(laughing) - Oh, I knew this was coming. The last time I was here. That would have to be... - Pre-COVID and some. - Lockie and KP's engaged. No, I don't know, what was in the car park with all the ferry lights? - The open day. - No, it was a nighttime gig. - Oh, Lockie's wedding. (laughing) That I wasn't told about, actually. - Was that the wedding? - That was the wedding. - That was the wedding. Yeah, I think that was the last time I was here. - Fucking hell. So, as I said at the start-- - That's embarrassing, that's actually really bad.

- Yeah, that is. They'll tell us, they'll visit, but they never do. Why haven't you visited, Campbell? I've visited your work, actually. - You have visited our work, my work, a lot of times. A lot of times, actually. - That makes me feel really bad. I'm a repeat offender for saying I'll come visit and I never do. (laughing) - Yeah, they all do. They all do. - Oh, that makes me feel better, then. I'm not the only one, that's good. - One on the ground, yeah. - That's good. - What about you, Campbell? - I've been up to a lot of things.

- Yes, so-- - A lot of things. - A lot of people-- - Since the internship, do you mean? - Well, just in life, you know? Just the, "Hey, how you going?" You know? - Huh? - But before you've forgotten that path, not many people know you anymore, so you're gonna have to introduce yourself. - Anymore. - Nah, you just haven't been here for so long and we have such a new influx of people that-- - That's true. - Some of the OGs have moved away, moved on. Some are still here. - That's true. - So, Campbell, who are you?

What do you do? Give me a quick notes to Campbell. - A quick notes to me. I am a personal trainer/gym manager/-- - Delft attender? - Oh, no longer a Delft attender. (laughing) Definitely a past life now. Amateur, mountain biking enthusiast. - You're a pro enthusiast. - Pro enthusiast. Massive amateur, pro enthusiast. Yeah, no, manage a gym, work with a bunch of cool people. - Who's your favorite person to work with? - Oh. - This was one of the questions. - From who? - You'll never know. - That's definitely a plug question. - It wasn't, I'll confirm, it was not.

- It was not a plug question, okay. - Who's your favorite person to work with? - Who's my favorite person to work with? - Just before you answer that question, this is a bit of ASMR for the people at home. - Oh, that's so good. - Sugar-favory. - That sounded better than normal through these headphones. That was good. Who's my favorite person to work with? - I'm not letting you off this question. - That's a stitch up. - It is a stitch up, but this was asked by one of your staff members, sir. - Actually, can confirm, this is the only question you got, sir.

(laughing) - I was gonna say, I never saw in your story, bar the time that you incorrectly posted when I wasn't even coming in. I was like, I'm not getting any questions from the crowd. - Yeah, that was actually my bad. I'll own that one. - Good, good. I don't know, I'm gonna say, I spend the most time with Plug, so I probably have a bit of a soft spot for him, but I don't know. - I really enjoy that you're actually answering this question. - I'm trying to answer it. It's so hard, our whole team's unreal, so.

- Yeah, but lots of people just sit on the fence and go, oh, they're all my favorites. - They are all my favorites. - I don't care, give me the favorite. - I'm gonna say Robbo. - Pandering. Who is Robbo to those not aware of? - Who is Robbo? Robbo and Ben, the two owners of the gym that I work at. - You are looking for a pay rise here, Campbell, or? It'd be nice. - Hit me up, boys. - They will listen to this. - I hope that, no, they won't. - They definitely won't. But nah, look, all things aside, we've got an awesome team.

I spend so much time with Plug, and my job's definitely got a lot better, a lot easier, since he's kind of come on board, so. But the rest of the team's amazing. - Talk me through, or talk us through your gym. Not your gym, but your gym. - Our gym. Huge factory complex, massive open gym floor, hundreds of unreal members, amazing team. We conduct like 60-ish classes a week, I reckon, maybe, give or take. Heaps of one-on-one stuff, heaps of small group, we do heaps of footy teams, corporate groups, external stuff with other squads and stuff down at their grounds.

So yeah, it's a pretty fun time. - Should you give the name of this gym? - Oh yeah, it's called Infinite Fitness Peninsula in Cranbourne West, 22 Remount Way, come see us. So nah, it's actually a great place. It's kind of flown by, I've been there like, what, five years now, so. - Yeah, we're getting old now in this kind of job. - Yeah, it's a bit weird. It's weird to think that I actually started there not long after I'd finished my last internship here, that's crazy. - You're welcome. - Yes, thank you Mitchell for onboarding me.

- We're just actually calling IFP Virtus 2.0. - Oh, well if you guys have bought shares in it, yeah, we're sure we can. - Oh, that'd be nice actually. - Our building's actually for sale, so if you guys slide in and accidentally happen to buy it. - I saw that actually. - Yeah, we might be on there. We might be able to merge two worlds. That'd be interesting. - Search for another day. - I know, that's very true. That can be Podcast 2.0. - It's dangerous. Campbell, how have you gotten to where you are right now?

I love this open-ended question, 'cause there's so many ways you can answer it. - Yeah, so, how did I get here? Well, it all started when I was at uni, and I needed to get my placement hours done. And I thought I'd get ahead of the eight ball and try and get 'em done in second year instead of third year. And I'd been following you guys on Insta for probably like six to 12 months. Thought this was a really cool place. At the time, there was not many places like this, and the other places that are now kind of pushing that better education on coaches and trying to better the industry and stuff like that.

So, this was probably the first place that I followed that was really showing that people were trying to actually better the industry, and it wasn't just uni or Cert 3.0 through whatever shit provider, no offense. - Podcast, man, you do what you want. Take offense to anything. Say whatever you want. - I'm gonna start slamming people. - And I'll get edited in the posts, don't worry. - Very good, very good. Nah, just let it run through, start to finish. Pardon you. - That's why I'm muted, so no one knows you bastard. - So, anyway, started following you guys.

Decided to come down here and get my placement done, which was unreal, the first iteration, which you onboarded me for. Yeah? You were the intake before me, weren't you? - Yeah. - So you just finished, and then you were just acting like you were owning the place already. - Yeah, forced my way into a job. - Pretty much. - That's a great story, that one. I told no, and I said, "I don't care." - I didn't know any different. - Lachie was like, "You're gonna sit down with me, "she's gonna onboard you." I was like, "Oh, okay, sweet."

And then I was like, "Do you work here?" And you're like, "No." (laughing) - Surprise. - I was like, "Sweet, okay." - Fast forward seven years later, I'm still in charge of that program. - Still here, and I still don't work here. (laughing) But, no, I got my placement done. It was like 16 weeks then, I think, the internship. - Yeah, it was. - Yeah, it was long. Yeah, and it was really, really good. It definitely opened my eyes to a lot of stuff that I didn't know. And, yeah, I started to kinda see this different world of PTing and whatever.

So, fast forward 12 months, went into third year uni, told them I'd already done my placement hours. They were like, "Uh-uh, no backdating hours." And I was like, "All right, no worries." So, I called up Lachie, he said, "Can I come back?" And he was like, "Yeah, okay." - You were the first person to do it twice. - Still am the only person, I think, that's done it twice. No, someone else has. - Yep, someone else has done it twice. - No way, who? - His name is Sam Jewell. It's technically he didn't finish the second time, so.

- Bastard, I have to come back and do a third one. - Third one? - I'll come back for a third one. - Go on then. I'd love that. It's very structured now, you like it. - I could, it could take me to a whole new level. But, came in and did the second one and got that out of the way and-- - Long standing joke that you were so shit in the first one, which you weren't. - Is that a long standing joke? - Yeah, between us, of course. - Wow, rough. - To be fair, that is a Lachie thing.

Lachie just tells everyone that you were so shit the first time you had to come back and do it a second time. - Oh, yeah, that's fine. - Severely incorrect. Just so you know, that's what Lachie says about you. - That's all good. - He will watch this too, so he'll chuckle at that. - Lachie, I know where you live. - Do you know where his new house is? - No, he doesn't need to know that. And then, once I got the second one done, I ended up coming back and getting signed off for the hours with Lachie, and he said, "Have you thought about where you wanna work?"

And all this stuff, and I basically said, "I've been following this gym for a little bit, "and they look really cool, and I wouldn't mind "maybe one day ending up coaching out of a gym "that looks like this." And I showed him a photo of IFP, and he goes, "Oh, I know the boys that own that. "I played footy with them. "Do you want me to ask you if I can get you a job there?" And I was just blown away. I was two or three months out of uni, probably not even. I was probably still finishing off my fourth year.

And I was just like, "Surely this won't happen "this quickly," sort of thing. And then he asked him, they said they didn't need anyone, and I was like, "You all right?" - That's cool, yeah. - Yep, yep. - Happens to the best of us, mate, don't worry. - Got shut down immediately. And then it was about, I can't remember, maybe like a couple of months after that, and then Lachie messaged me and said, "Oh, are you still looking for work?" Like, those guys that I asked, they're actually looking for someone now. And I was about to go overseas on holiday, and I said, "Yeah, I'm still looking."

He organized an interview, went and saw him the next day, and they said, "Go have a good holiday. "Come back, chat to us when you come back." And then now I'm here, five years in, and-- - What was Europe, bro? Is that Europe? - Europe, no, I went to Thailand. - Oh, that's dangerous. - Yeah, it was good. - What happens in Thailand stays in Thailand. - Yes, all of it stays in Thailand. - Some of it comes with you, though. - Some of it came back with me, yeah. (laughs) Nah, it was a good

time, and I was very lucky for them to say, "Look, just go have a good holiday, "and we'll still be interested in you when you come back." So it was pretty cool. - Role-wise, what does your day-to-day or your roles and responsibilities look like? - So now it's a little bit different. I guess at the start of last year, it transitioned just from coaching full-time and doing heaps of stuff on the gym floor to then trying to grow the team, trying to grow the business. And then Matt obviously came on board to work alongside me as well in more of an administrative sort of role.

- Who? - Sorry. - Who's Matt? - Cut that out, plugger. - You might be the only person that calls you Matt. - Sometimes, I don't know why, sometimes I just go, "I'm gonna call him Matt," and in some instances, I have no idea why I do it. - Quite funny, 'cause I get it. - I reckon his mum's the only person that calls him Matt. Nah, his mum probably calls him plugger. - One of those people that just, everyone knows him by the name. - Yeah, for sure. But now it's, yeah, so now it's a little bit different.

Now I've gotta oversee, we've got like six coaches, I think, plus Matt's my offsider, plus we've got the boys above us where we have all of the more serious conversations and stuff so day-to-day, week-to-week, still coaching like 33 sessions a week. And then aside from that, doing a lot of backend stuff, organising schedules, changing coaching times for the guys, and moving things around when we need it, adding things, pulling things out, yeah. - What's your favourite and least favourite part about the job now, being a manager? - Now, yeah, that's changed, that's definitely changed. It's

funny that though, 'cause like earlier on, the things that I thought were hard, as soon as I started managing more people than myself, I realised that those things actually aren't that hard. And trying to consider what everyone else is doing all the time is really challenging. So the thing about the job that I least like as manager is probably like, how do I say this? - Say it. - How much, it's not that it's a bad thing, it's just that it's the hardest thing about the job is getting in new staff, educating, trusting people, like

trusting people early on when you haven't actually worked with them for a long time with responsibilities and trying to build them up and not realise, especially in the beginning when I first had to do it, not realising how many things you know and how much there is involved in what you do that you just don't realise day-to-day. Like you just get to a point where you do all these stuff automatically and you don't think. And then you get someone in who is just fresh as a daisy and you go, oh, I'm gonna teach you how to do my job.

And then you start teaching them and you're like, well, there's a lot going on here. So that was a huge learning curve. So I guess like in short, like managing everyone else as well as yourself, it for a while was like just 24/7, all I was thinking about was everything to do with the team and I couldn't really switch off from that. - Yeah. - So. - What do you do? How do you like to? What, what, what? - Words, mate. Crossfit get me. (laughing) For reference, anyone who-- - Dat 20.3. - Yeah, seriously. Anyone who sees me battle with my words for the next, probably half an hour.

I did the open workout this morning, 23.1, and I was battling. - Oh, 23.1, is it? - Yeah, yeah, 23.1 in the open. - I'm actually so cut that you didn't tell me you were doing it. I wish I knew. - Well, to be fair, I didn't know I was doing it until I said, fuck it, let's do it. And I was like, oh, I got 20 minutes before Campbell gets here. - It's the best way to do it. Oh, that's an efficient workout, though. It floored ya. - 40 minutes, 60 cal on the rower, 50-- - Toes to bar.

- No, yeah, toes to bar, but I didn't need raises, scaled. 40 wobbles, 30 cleans, 20 chin-ups, which I did rows, 'cause lefty, shoulder, cooked. - Yep. Excuses. - Within myself. - And then-- - Not registered, not affiliated, doesn't fucking matter. - Because of the motivation that walked in the door and got behind you, what did you then do? - Oh, the extra 25 cal. - What, 24, 24, 24. - 24. - Yeah, needs work. - You had 25 if you gave it that last one. - Yeah, and I thought, nah, you know what. - Ah, well, that was good.

- What's your training look like at the moment, actually, on that note? - We didn't talk about the favorite part of the job. - I've got another question after this I just thought of, so go on, as you were. - You're on fire. - The sugar-free V, it's gonna be true. - That's very true. The best part of the job, is, this is gonna be a little bit cliche, but it's so true. Coaching people and seeing people come in, even on days where they're doing it really tough, and then still just sticking to the plan

and going through the peaks and troughs that you just go through when life's throwing shit at you, and they're just sucking it up and just trying to keep moving, and you can be there for them in those moments and tell them it's gonna be all right and actually help them through it. But I think that is a really special thing 'cause we train and we know what that's like. And if you're someone that has trained repeatedly for a decade or more, you know that you can just keep going, even when things are shit. Whereas I

think people that are new to fitness at the first sign of something not being right, they just get derailed completely and they think the world is imploding. So I think building people up to that point where they do become more resilient and they become more understanding that it's a long-term thing, not a short-term thing. - Durable and robust. - Robustness. - Quote Craig Day. - That's great. - Ability to adapt and overcome external and internal stimuli. Quote. - Excellent. - Craig Day. - Quote, unquote. - Quote the man next door. (laughing) - Wise old Al. - Oi.

- I mean, sorry, wise young Silver Fox. - To be fair, we've taken a photo of him downstairs before for one of the courses he's running. Taking a headshot, he goes, "Fuck, I look old." (laughing) I was like, I don't know what to say. - He doesn't even, he's looking good from his age. - I know, I was like, I do not know what to say to that, Greg, so I'm just gonna let one through to the keeper. - He's doing well, he's doing well. - You're training, talk to me. Second part, my favorite part about you, the day you walked in here, you said, "I'm gonna max out the trap bar."

(laughing) Shall we talk about that story first? I love this story, I tell this story. - You can tell it 'cause I don't-- - I tell this story all the time, just so you know. - Okay, oh, he hit me with it. - And listen, I was talking about it last week. - Oh, I actually wanna hear this. - Campbell's first visit post-internship, came in here all big, puffy chest. - Did I have to? - Absolutely, this is-- - Oh, that sucks. - Belted on, you bought your own chalk, like this was top tier-- - Oh, my God.

- Shithouse read. - This is peak powerlift, amateur powerlifter phase. (laughing) - Ultimate shithouse read. Campbell walks in and goes, "I'm gonna max out the trap bar today." I'm pretty sure you stopped at like 180. (laughing) - I didn't, I actually didn't. I can attest to that. - I'm pretty sure it was like two 10 or 205 from memory, and there was still like a good inch and a half left on the trap bar, and I just remember you being so deflated and defeated, going, "Fuck, I ain't shit," and walked out. (laughing) - All right, I'm gonna jump in here, and I'm gonna correct this story, because that is not true.

I don't remember it being that big of a deal that I marched in and said I was gonna, I don't remember walking in and saying, "I'm gonna max out the trap bar," but that's pretty cool, pretty wanky. What actually happened was it was 225. - It was 225. - I knew exactly how much it was. - You dog. (laughing) You dog. It was 225, and Jess Ryan, bless her soul, was squatting with me, and she buried a squat pretty badly trying to max out, and it stopped all of us, or stopped her and I training,

and then we had a bit of a chat with Cam and learned how to get out of a squat that was gonna bury you, which was a really good educational moment, but yeah. - Yeah, but that's not a good story, so. - That's not a good story, and poor Jess. Credit to you, Jess. - Yeah, and poor Jess, and poor Jess. - The only thing I was salty about not maxing out the trap bar was that I felt like I could've kept going. (laughing) It was frustrating, but anyway, that's all good. Your story is definitely more along the lines of Wallace telling everyone that I was the shittest intern in the first intake.

- Yeah, you're true. Second intake. - Probably because of that story. - No, I did you a third intake, I reckon, 'cause I did the second one. I was third intake. - Do you want me to really mentally screw you up right now? - Oh, no, don't. - That was seven years ago. - Oh, don't say that. That's so weird. - I literally started my internship a week from now. - Really? - Seven years ago, yep. - Wow. - Last weekend in Feb. - That seems like, at the same time, it seems like so long ago, but also not.

- Do you want another thing to mentally scar you? - I'm ready. - I get a long service leave in June. - Oh, that's weird. (laughing) - How weird is it? - That's weird. - Seven years of service. - Wow. Does it come in at seven? I thought it came in at 10. - Nah, you get six weeks in seven years. - Oh, well, there's hope for me here. That means I've got like-- - Look at you like, "Shit, what am I doing?" - Wow. - Hey, boy. - I got 18 months to hang around there, and that's good.

- Yeah, now you know. - That's good, yeah. I'm gonna count down the days 'til that pops up. That's good. - Your training, Campbell? What's up? - Oh, my training. - No, it's good. I'm very good at going off a tangent and then bringing us back. That's my job over here. - You're good at coming back from the tangent. - I just stay on the tangent and go to another tangent. Like, I'm terrible with that. - Fuck us, you mate. You can do what we like. - I had a programming consult that was supposed to

go for 45 minutes, and the last 10 minutes of it was programming, and the first 35 minutes of it was probably nutrition and generalised training chat. So-- - Still all relevant. - I tangent hard. - Still all relevant. - Training-wise. So, yeah, at the moment, training's a little bit getting in what I can in terms of, like, riding, because I've just got, the social calendar is, like, stupid at the moment. - All right, Mr. Popular. - It's, nah, it's the year of weddings. So, there's a lot of weddings coming up. But training-wise at the moment for me is, like, two heavy lifts in the gym, one conditioning day, and then one to two rides per week.

But as an example, I was planning on, I've done two sessions in the gym this week. I was planning on riding the Savo tomorrow and Sunday. So, because I'm leading into an event in about six weeks, like, riding takes more of the focus when I've got the opportunity to do it. But if not, if there's not much competition and stuff on, then just training the gym flat stick and maybe one ride a week. So, but yeah. But it's a big mix of everything. Like, I do two lift days that kinda just hit all the main stuff, like heavy push-pull, heavy squat, heavy dead, and then some plyos and throws and stuff like that.

And then the conditioning day is more just, like, an extra, if I don't wanna do a second heavy day, or if I don't get a lot of riding volume in that week, I'll just, like, do the conditioning multiple times. - Yep. - Yep. - What's your favorite part about training right now? Powerlifting background into a general kinda background. What do you love doing now? - At the moment, oh, like, training right now, or training styles? - All of the above. - All of the above. Training at the moment is good in the sense that, like, I'm excited but nervous for what I'm training for.

'Cause it's a bit scary. But otherwise, other than that, like, I like now just doing a bit of everything. I still like lifting heavy on the main lifts and stuff. Love, like, throwing in, like, ollie complexes and stuff like that. I haven't really done a lot of that structured. Like, I wanna do more of that. But I've certainly, for the last little while, been doing a lot of plyo stuff. Less of that, like, typical volume work and hypertrophy and stuff. More, like, just some heavy stuff, some accessories, a lot of plyo. - Nice. - Yep. - Do you wanna talk about what we're training for?

Or what you're training for? - Yeah, so, I can do that. I have entered-- - This is where you get to nerd out, by the way. 'Cause our little topic here is gonna be extreme sports. - Oh, extreme sports. - Just you in general and extreme sports and how they relate. But let's talk about your events first. - Okay, no worries. So, I've just entered the EWS in Tasmania. That's the round that's at Derby. So, the EWS, for those that don't know, is the Enduro World Series. It sounds very fancy and it sounds like I'm a pro athlete, but I'm not.

- There you are. - I'm definitely not. So, I'm just a punter that races at a state level. And I used to race national level events when I was younger, but I don't do that anymore. But the Enduro World Series has resumed again now post COVID. And what they've done is they've opened up amateur categories for people to enter who aren't in the pro cat. So, historically, like at that level, you need to have accrued UCI points to be able to go and race at the world level. And there was like a minimum amount of points per year that you needed to accrue to be able to enter the events.

And you only got those from like, say, national championships and eligible rounds where the points were on offer. So, for the amateur categories, there's no entry requirement points-wise or anything. So, you can just enter and see if you can do it. So, just biting off more than I can chew and just seeing what happens. - Adapt and overcome. - Yeah, that's it. And a lot of improvisation. - Where's your fascination for, well, biking, but like extreme sports in general? 'Cause to an extent it kind of is. - Yeah, it's definitely-- - It's like an extreme sport, like it definitely is, right?

- Yeah, it would be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. - What's the fascination, there's my words again. - Inherent danger. - Fascination. What's your fascination with extreme sports? - So-- - And where does it come from? - Ah, that's a great question. Where does that come from? - I thought you were gonna have to talk about your feelings. - It almost doesn't make sense that I decided to do this as a sport because my mum would attest to this. When I was younger, I was very conservative about like just throwing myself out there and doing things that were scary.

Like I wasn't, you see those kids all the time, they're just got no fear, throw themselves off things, break themselves or get up and they just don't care. Like I wasn't really that sort of kid. I was kind of just like a do everything kid. So I could do everything pretty well but nothing like amazing. And then just when we were younger, we just, as everyone does, like everyone's riding bikes around the neighbourhood and chilling with their mates and building jumps and doing dumb shit. It kind of started with that. And then once one of

my mates bought a bit of a better bike and went to a race and then I went to watch and as soon as I saw the first race and went to watch, I was like, this is the sickest thing. And then-- - What made it appealing? What'd you go like, this is awesome. - I think it was probably the first like racing style event that I'd ever seen that wasn't like car racing. 'Cause when you're a kid, like obviously, you know when you're driving cars and racing cars and stuff. But I think it was the

first thing that I'd been to where you were like in a crowd close to the track, it was high speed, the race is like flying past and everyone's watching and cheering and whatever. And it was just really cool for spectators to be that close to something that was like so much action. Not to say that like other sports aren't like action packed, but this was like, you had no idea who was gonna crash and break themselves, who was gonna win by a massive margin. It's just like so unpredictable. And it was just really exciting to watch like every now and again, someone would come down and they'd be amazing and everyone would be like, "That's awesome."

You know, they've never ridden that fast or whatever. There was a big sense of like pride in the spectators watching people doing really well and like seeing them succeed, even if they didn't win. So yeah, it just felt really close knit, like the crowd and felt really invested in the riders. And it was just such a cool, cool thing. And I just got addicted to it straight away. So yeah, then fast forward like 15 years, it's just like, nothing's really compared to that ever. - Yeah, what keeps you on it now? I love this look. He's like, "Fuck, I knew this was coming.

"I didn't know this was coming." - To be honest, I actually, it didn't cross my mind for a second that we were talking about bikes. So this is mad. - Man, that's all we're talking about. - So yeah, this is sick. I can talk about bikes all day. So now what I'm finding, so I've gone back to racing now post-COVID. I actually gave riding away mostly and definitely racing away for a long time. Like I stopped racing in like 2012 after like massive injuries and all that sort of stuff. And I just was like, "Can't do this anymore."

Had a massive hiatus of it, off it. And then have come back to it post-COVID 'cause I started riding a lot more in lockdown. And then now coming back to it, what I'm finding is I'm just doing it 'cause I love the feeling of going racing. Like I love the weekend, the lead up to it, going there, setting everything up, being in the pits, getting the start gate, hearing the beeps go. Every part of it, I just absolutely love it. And I think what I've come to realise now being a bit older is that like that's what I actually enjoy is just doing it.

It's not about results. Whereas like when I was younger, it was all about results. And I just put way too much pressure on myself. So that kind of towards the backend of that junior era, it kind of ruined it a little bit for me 'cause ultimately I wasn't at the top end of the age category and I was competing against kids that are like pros now and they've won worlds and stuff like that. Like I was never gonna be in that category. But back then I just really wanted to get good results and I put so much importance around that that it just took all the fun out of it.

And now it's just like, I don't give a shit about results, it's just all about having fun. - Sure, what are you good at and what are you shit at on the bike? What's the strength, what's the weakness? - What am I good at and what am I shit at? Sorry, that's an interesting question. I would say I'm not good at not overthinking things. - Sounds unlucky. - Yeah, anyone that knows me would attest to that. Hyperactive brain for sure in terms of the anxiety around controlling things a bit. Yeah, I think like now I'm

finding that I can tell when I ride really well and I relax and I hit things really well and I feel that like bit of like flow state sort of thing happening. But I think there is a lot of like almost like past trauma from hurting myself so much and from putting all that pressure on mom and dad and they like footed the bill for my medical stuff and that's ultimately why I stopped racing in the end was like it wasn't fair on me and it wasn't fair on them. And I think like I sometimes hold that tension when I'm riding or racing 'cause I just don't want to end up there again.

Even though I had a big injury last year, like I got through all of that on my own 'cause I was like now I can take care of all this stuff. Like this isn't a problem anymore. But I think I still hold a bit of that. Like I don't fully relax and just let it be and not think about the possible negative outcomes. But at the same time, I'm definitely getting better at just not overthinking things 'cause I'm actively working on trying to be better at it. - How do you get yourself back into a flow state?

What are your triggers to get yourself back? - I always tell myself there's always like two cues. It's like a movement cue, like when I'm riding and I always say eyes up and let it roll. 'Cause I find like when I look down too much, if you're looking at what's like right in front of you, you're too worried about like what you're on top of, but it's not about where you are, it's about like where you're going. So you always have to, I've always gotta keep reminding myself to like look up, whether it's like technical stuff, corners, whatever, 'cause you'll just ride a lot better if you just let it happen.

And it also keeps you thinking in the future, not in the present. So you're always looking for what's coming, you're not stressed about what you're actually doing. And then letting it roll is just trying not to break so much 'cause like when you panic and you are worried about what you're doing and you think you're gonna make a mistake, you'll start breaking more. And when you're breaking more, you're taking momentum away. So when you've got more momentum, you're more likely to just roll over things. So you actually, you panic, but it makes it worse. So yeah, that's my little thing, eyes up, let it roll.

- Nice, like it, put that shit on a t-shirt. - Sell it. Good dude, should make stickers I reckon. I feel a little bit, I had it on a, like there was a piece of like electrical tape on my top tube and I just ride it on it and like permanent marker, so. - You could turn that into a t-shirt. - That's a good sticker, I mean, I'll buy one. - Yeah I could do it. - I mean, what, that's kind of a really good question then. Now thinking about let it roll on t-shirts and merch and, no, no, this one, this one, hit it, no this one.

I gave Cam on the button for how to mute himself and he just royally screwed. - Should've just gone on the old this one. - No one can hear you now 'cause you're muted. - That's very true. - So he just royally screwed the pooch on that one. - I got no idea what I'm doing on a podcast. - I'm so out of-- - Have you done a podcast before actually? - I've done one, me and Plug did one. - In the Game Face Studios? - In the Game Face Studios, yeah. - I've seen that actually.

- Yeah, it was good, it was good. That was like, I had no idea what to expect and I didn't know what I was doing, what it felt like having cans on, listening to yourself. - Having cans on? - Yeah, 'cause he calls them cans. - What? - He calls them cans. As soon as I heard it I was like, I'm so using that. - Yeah, I'm gonna steal that actually. - Yeah, so he was like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, once you got the cans on, like, bah, bah, bah, and I was like, the fuck are the cans?

What are you talking about? And he said, headphones. - I'll take that. - The first time I was so, I had no idea what was going on. I was just looking around the room, I was like, I can hear myself better than normal. - I mean, there's a lot of things to look at in that place too. It's not just to-- - Yeah, there was a lot of stuff around. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Damn it, I forgot a really good question. I was really excited about it. - We were on a roll there. - Yeah, I was really excited about my question too and it covered what it was.

- Something about writing, eyes up. - Yeah, it's always about writing. - We're talking about writing for the next 20 minutes. - Oh, sick. - What's, how would you describe your sport to someone who has absolutely no idea what we're talking about currently? - Oh, shit. - Because it's not a common sport. - Yeah, it's not common. It's definitely growing, it's growing, like, out of control. But yeah, it's certainly not like your footy netball. - Absolutely. - Everyone, everyone's in it around it. So, when I was, well, some people will have seen, like, cross country mountain biking, it's in the Olympics.

So, that was pretty big for the sport, getting that sort of exposure. But there's all these different disciplines. So, like, if you have, we'll liken it to, like, running. So, like, you've got sprinting and then you've got, like, long distance. So, downhill in mountain biking is like the sprint format, which is basically start at the top of the mountain, race the course to the bottom as fast as you can over, like, all the rocks and jumps and steep sections and whatever. And then the person who gets to the bottom the quickest is the winner. But

then at the other end, you've got, like, cross country where people just ride around on a circuit up and downhill for, I don't know, an hour, multiple hours, whatever. But they're all on course at the same time. And it's the first person across the finish line wins. So, you've got these, like, endurance formats and then you've got these sprint formats. There's other ones as well at both ends. But then what I do now is this discipline called Enduro, which almost combines both into one. So, instead of what we used to do with the downhill, we get driven up to the top and then you race down to the bottom.

The bikes that we have now, you can just ride all day up and down and they're incredibly capable on the way down. So, I could probably do 90% of what I could do on the downhill bike on my current one, but I can ride it uphill all day, which is pretty sick. So, with the Enduro format, when you're racing, you've got, say, five or six different tracks that you race. And then on the practice day, you probably get time for like one practice run on each one. Try and remember what it is that you're actually doing.

And then on the Sunday, you come back and you race all of them as quick as you can. And in between every single one, you've probably got to climb back up to the next one. So, it's a full day of riding. It's like the enthusiasts discipline. - I feel like it's the well-rounded one, but it's also the I'm not good at either, so I'm gonna get good at both. Is that correct? I don't know, tell me if I'm wrong. - It's kind of, yeah. So, yeah, essentially. So, I think with the endurance stuff, you've got to be like so incredibly fit.

Like it's just, those guys are like, yeah, it's nuts how fit they are. And the downhill stuff, they're super fit now, but it's more so heavily weighted towards skill and just basically how big your balls are. - Yeah, literally. - Yeah, 'cause it's terrifying. - Not touch the brake. - It's terrifying the size of the features and stuff that they have to do now and the speed that they go at as well. Like even the girls at the world level are insane. Like, it's just crazy what they can do. And the juniors, even the junior girls are insane.

Like, so the level of the entire sport has lifted so much, but the category in the middle that I do is sort of like, you don't go 100% like you do in the downhill race, 'cause you've only got one course with that. So you probably go like 90% hard on the way down, but then you've got to have the fitness, like the cross country guys to be able to ride all day, up and down and get through the day. So it kind of encompasses like the fitness and the sprint and the skill, 'cause the stages that you race is still plenty hard, but it's just, yeah, it's not like the downhill stuff.

- How do you get out of your own way? And what I mean by that is there's a 20 foot drop. How do you, what's the process for you or what was the process to get out of your own way of going, "I'm not going to do this," or, "Hey, I'm going to tap the brakes." - I am going to do, yeah. So stopping that, like that panic button. I think- - Basically increasing the size of your kahonas. (laughs) How do you- - I've got a secret button. - Because honestly like that can be taken to so many things in people's lives that doesn't have to be just jumping down a cliff.

- Yeah, that's very true. There's so many parallels and this is why like my parents were like such huge supporters of mine when I decided to go and do this as a kid. 'Cause I was like, "You're just learning crazy life skills "out of like literally just trying to do shit on your bike "and not hurt yourself." It's like, it's so weird when you like ride up to a feature and you're so scared of it like a few times and you keep stopping and you keep stopping. And then all of a sudden you just have this breakthrough moment where you just don't stop and then you go.

Like I had a massive one of that when I was like 15. There was this course that we were practicing out near Healesville and there was a big jump like over a road. So like where the shuttle car would drive up, you would start like on the high side of the hill and jump over the road and land down the hill. And I reckon I rolled into this jump like 30 times and stopped every time and panicked and shit myself. And everyone was like, "Oh, you're not gonna do it." And then all of a sudden I just had this moment where I just kept going and I just didn't stop and I just did it.

And I think like, it's almost a little bit of, you have to just compare what you're doing to things you've done previously. - What are some comparisons for you? Sorry to interrupt. What are some comparisons for you? - Oh, on the bike it's just previous things I would have done. So it's like, I'll go back to a memory and be like, I remember when you did this and what the speed was and what it felt like and what you did with your body or what the takeoff's like or whatever. You're always cross-referencing like things that you see against past experience.

And sometimes you've just got to say to yourself, like you can do it and just trust that it's gonna be the same as that other time. And you just try and emulate what you did the other time and just relax and let it go. - Yeah. - So, yeah. - What were you saying before that? Apologies. - I know. - Cameron needs to be a ball back. Hill, down the road. - Oh, yeah. Yeah, so that one example, like I was so young. Yeah, I was so young at the time and it was probably something that was a bit beyond me at that point, skill-wise and all of that sort of thing.

But yeah, for whatever reason, I just got out of my way and just did it. And then after that, that kind of changed things a little bit after that. I was like, oh, I can do things that scare me. And it's not as bad as what you think it is. Like you can look at something and it can be so scary and then you do it and you go, oh, that's so easy. Like, why was I scared of that? So I think like there's big parallels there where like things, a lot of the time, we make up in our head like an outcome before it's happened.

And you have to tell yourself like, that hasn't happened yet. - Barriers only exist 'cause you create them a lot of the times. It's really like jumping in a cold shower or a nice bath. - Yeah, same thing. You know it's gonna be cold. - You're not gonna die, though. - It's not gonna kill you. - You're on a little different case. - Oh, yeah. - You land on your head, you think you ruined some strife. - Yeah, you can die. - Replying to an email that someone like wants like negative feedback for, like. - Yeah.

- It's not life and death. - No, that's for sure. - It's a little bit different for you, though. - Writing an email and racing mountain bikes is similar. - Yeah, same philosophy, but different outcome potentially. - It does like teach you stuff, though. That's the cool thing. And like to learn that at a young age and then always be coming back to that and going, I can do hard things. I can do things that scare me. I can get incredibly uncomfortable and have a lot of people watching me and still do it and have so many times where I tried it and I didn't do it.

Like I failed, I'd crashed, broke something, ended up in hospital, whatever. But that didn't matter. Like I just learned something from it and then I either decided to go back and do it again or I didn't for a while and then eventually everything was still okay. - Yeah. - Yeah. - As someone who was a nervous, anxious, not step out of your comfort zone type kid, reflect, have you reflected on that now? Or am I gonna make you talk about your feelings like now? - You can make me talk about my feelings. - No, I'm gonna make you do it anyway.

I'm just curious what you've thought about. - Let's open up. - Like looking back now, like what has mountain biking allowed you to do that previously you hadn't? Like what doors did it open for you like selfishly? Like as in like what are the barriers that you feel like are really easy to overcome or how have you become the person you are now by doing mountain biking as a sport and doing hard shit? - Yeah, I think there's some pretty common examples I reckon that come to mind. Things like social anxiety, like going to events and being worried about who's there or like not feeling yourself and stuff like that.

I think everyone kind of can understand sometimes what that feels like. And I think going through stuff like with riding as a kid, it can help you kind of just be more settled and go. It helps you feel more self-assured as well. I think like going through all the stuff with riding and the challenges that you overcome and whatever it does, it makes you feel inside like you can do things. Like you're not necessarily, and 'cause it's an individual sport, it's not team sport, it kind of teaches you to be quite like self-sufficient and resilient and not necessarily rely on other people for your success, your wins and all that sort of thing.

So I kind of digressed a little bit there, but yeah, in instances where you're gonna feel uncomfortable and you're worried about an outcome, it definitely helps you overcome that. Same as like with getting a new job, like I'm going to a job interview, what if I don't get it? Doesn't matter if you don't get it, just go anyway. Oh, it's my first day on the job and you get thrown on the gym floor and you think you're shadowing someone, but then they say, "Oh, you're gonna run the class." Like you just do it. And I'm not saying that those instances were easy.

They were really hard. Like Robbo just making me do the class the first day or whatever happened. It's not that it just, I went, "Oh, this is easy." It's like, I still shit myself. But you just learn that like shitting yourself is okay and you're probably just gonna be fine anyway. So you just do it. - Yeah, it's not as bad as you might think it is. - No, but yeah, certainly with the self-assured thing and like, yeah, just knowing that things that are uncomfortable are gonna be all right. That's probably the biggest parallel I reckon.

- How would you introduce someone to the sport who's never done it before? Like what would you do? Someone listens to this and go, "Hey, I wanna try this." Where did that start? - Literally buy a bike. Even if it's like a secondhand one, secondhand market's mad. You can pick up like bikes for peanuts now that was so good a few years ago. Get yourself a bike. Even if it's like a cheap bike, three, $400, whatever. Get out to somewhere like Easy As, Listerfield, ride some easy tracks, nothing hard, nothing that's gonna hurt you or anything like that.

And just feel what it's like to get out in the fresh air, in the nature, with your mates, talking shit, having a laugh. And you're actually doing something that's like helping your fitness, helping your health. And you're all like connecting and just having fun, whatever. That's where it starts probably for everyone. And then once you do that and you catch the bug and then you start spending all your money on bikes and-- - Golf clubs. - Or golf clubs. And then, but then you start to realize that, oh, like that's not the only place I can go.

I can go here, there, interstate. I could go overseas and do it. You can do it anywhere in the world. But not only that, like the more that you do it and the more that you're into it and more that you enjoy it and you open your eyes to these other locations, you realize that like you can probably go and see parts of the world that maybe you wouldn't have gone to either. - Great little segue to my next question. Top three destinations. Where do you wanna go? - Oh. - Yeah, look at him. (laughing) That was my next question.

So I'm so glad you talked about that. - Canada in June, July. - No, where do you wanna go? - Oh, where do I wanna go? Where am I going? - No, where do you wanna go? Dream. Time, money, nothing is a barrier. - Oh, nothing's a barrier. - Nothing's a barrier. - Oh, okay. - So you got too excited about that question. You forgot the answer. - I was already just like, I know where I'm going. Oh, well I guess like time and money and stuff doesn't really come into it 'cause you can travel anywhere you want if you just decide that you just wanna go there.

Like it's definitely, I don't know. I really wanna go to South America. I think like a tour through South America would be really cool. It's kind of a scary place, but at the same time, like I know so many people that have been there and some of the things that you can see there and stuff is just nuts. And it's definitely a part of the world. Like I've been to Mexico, but Mexico's just-- - Cancun though? - Yeah. - Yeah, it doesn't count. (laughing) - No. - I'd do that. - Mexico's, I wouldn't even class Mexico as South America.

It's more like, it's too close to the US to be like what you will experience when you go right down South. So that's probably completely false, anyway. - Doesn't matter. - Nah, like I'd love to do South America. I'm going to Canada in June, July and that's been on the bucket list since I was like 16. And then I think, I wanna say like Mongolia area. I don't know why, but I've always just been like, that's just a weird part of the world, man. There's a lot going on there. And I think it would just be like really like rich to like just go there and just see what it's like.

It looks so barren and like you're just in the middle of nowhere, 'cause I went to China in 2008 and some of the places that we went there, I can't even remember the names of, we were out the middle of nowhere and it was like we're on Mars. - Yeah. - It was so weird. - What about riding? Where do you wanna ride? - Canada. - Where in Canada? - Oh. - Big country. - It is a big country. There's like, well, I'll fly, we'll go into Vancouver and go to Whistler and all that sort of stuff.

There's really good riding in Vancouver, Vancouver Island. And there's a few other like spots around in that sort of area that are like lesser known, but I don't know, following a lot of riders and stuff. Like they ride there a lot. So I'd probably wanna go check out a lot of places there. I really wanna go over to New Zealand. There's a massive scene in New Zealand now. Everyone knows like Queenstown's kicking off, so. - Yeah, I've done the one in Queenstown. - Yeah, there's a lot going on there. And they've got a really strong racing scene as well.

So going over there, doing some riding racing would be sick. And I'm really excited to get to Tassie. Tassie's now got some of the best trails in the world. - Yeah. - So it'd be sick to get down there in June. End of, no, sorry, end of March. - Nice. - End of March, we've got Tassie. - What's on your bucket list? Or fuck it list, as I've been calling it. - Oh, the fuck it list. - I like the movie, it's a horrible movie. - The one with Morgan Freeman. - Nah, there's another one. It's like teeny bopper, like bad.

- Okay, remind me not to watch it. - Hey Campbell, don't watch it. - Okay, thank you. - What's on your bucket list Campbell? - What's on my bucket list? That's a weird question. - It's okay, that's why I'm here. - What's on my bucket list? - What's something you want to do you haven't done? I like thought perfecting questions. - I'm going to let you simmer on this one too. - I'm simmering. - Yeah. - I'm simmering pretty hard at the moment. I actually can't think. - Like potential. - Emotional damage. - It comes after.

- I just, I just wanted to press that. Ever since we tested it before, I've just been wanting to press that. What's on the bucket list? Is there a crickets button? - Nah, George you can put it in after the credits. - Definitely the crickets button. - After the credits? - I don't know. I've thought about the usual shit, like skydiving, bungee jumping, rah rah rah. But at the same time, I kind of don't really care. - Yeah. - So I don't know. Other than that, like really exciting. Actually, no. - It doesn't have to be something.

What do you want to do? - I really want to go and drive a race car. - Yeah. - Yeah, that would be sick. - Might have a hook up for you. - Oh yeah? But do I get to drive it? - We'll talk about it later. - Okay. Here we go. - I got a guy. - 'Cause you know a guy. I actually know a guy that owns a race car. Remind me to talk to you about that afterwards. - I don't want to stitch him up on the podcast. - Yeah, we're not going to name names in case he goes.

- Not a chance. - Sponsors dropped instantly. Yeah, I think like, I've been, I've loved race cars ever since I was a kid and used to just burn a million hours on V8 supercars on PlayStation 2. So I, yeah, I've always wanted to drive a race car and see what that's like. That's probably the biggest one, I reckon. Yeah, I would just love to see what that feels like. - I'd love to do like hot laps or something. - Yeah, like you can go in saying that, right? So like, to my knowledge, you can go do like a V8 hot lap or whatever, where they put you in like, I don't know.

- Me either. - Tuned up straight car. That's got like a roll cage in it or whatever. And they hold your hand while you do it. And you don't really like get to do too much. But yeah, I think like driving a proper race car would be sick. I wouldn't mind as well. This one terrifies me. I would actually really like to do a track day on a motorbike. Not that I can ride a motorbike very well. I can ride a dirt bike okay. But I reckon a straight bike would be crazy. So yeah, maybe like.

- Yeah, the whole like lateral shift, getting on your side thing really freaks me out. - So one of my clients, client plug, Tim Large, weapon. - It's an exceptional last name. - Yes. - Poor kid. - Large individual. He actually took out the Vic Super Sport 600 title, I'm pretty sure last year. Legend. Yeah, seeing him and like that level of people like rip around Phillip Island is just phenomenal. - Yeah, I got a few friends that go down there and like pretty regularly and have Porsches, things like that. - Oh yeah, I'd love to do that, it'd be so sick.

Terrifying, terrifying but so cool. So I reckon that would be a really good one. What's on the bucket list? I climbed a mountain in China when I was 15. I'd actually love to go do that again. It was terrifying. That's definitely on the bucket list to go back and do it again. - That's on my bucket list, Seven Summits. - Yep. - Not that I'm a very good hiker, but I will be. - Yeah, it'll test you. - Okay, I like doing hard shit. - Yeah, that's very true. 23.1 or whatever it was. Yeah, but that mountain as well, like that wasn't like a snow capped Everest type scenario with like breathing apparatus and shit.

It was just like a really high mountain and we were just on the side of a cliff face like this. And that was really cool, but. - I think you'd come and feed me a gamble. - What? - You like doing life threatening shit. (laughing) - Yeah, it's weird, maybe I do, I don't know. I don't really think like that, 'cause I see other people that I know that do life threatening shit all the time. - On a different level as well. - And I'm like, yeah. And I'm like, they are crazy. That's a whole nother mindset.

So like, I don't think I'm that sort of person. But yeah, I guess some of the things I do like are a bit risky. I don't know. It's a bit of a theme, motorsport and things with wheels and. - Fast things. - Fast things. - High heart rate and life threatening. - Yeah, high heart rate. Love that, yeah. Other than that, I don't really know. Maybe go on to Africa. - Africa. - Yeah, that'd be cool. - Or safari. - Yeah, look, cheeky safari. Have you seen the pyramids? - Pyramids? - Yeah, no, that's not in Africa.

Oh shit, no, that is in Africa. - It is in Africa. - Okay, sweet. Yeah, safari and then finish with the pyramids, yeah. - Work your way up. - Yeah, sweet. - Yeah, natural progression, yeah. - Yeah, exactly. Oh, do you know actually what would be sick? I don't know if you can do it anymore, but how they take you out into the jungle or whatever and you get like really close to the silverback gorillas. - That's cool, didn't know that was a thing. - Yeah, that'd be crazy. One of my mates just did that and he's a really good photographer and he took some really close up photos of silverbacks and it looked unbelievable.

- That's cool. - So. - Nice. What's on the horizon, Campbell? - What's on the horizon? Head into Canada. - Yeah, you are. - The big things I guess on the horizon is like racing Tassie, going to Canada for a bunch of time, come back, work out the rest after that. - Nice. - Yeah. - What are you most excited about for Canada? - Get to see my man Nick Archer. Also get to see my man Nick Dorling. And then, yeah, just ride some of the best trails in the world that I've literally watched on videos since I was like 14.

- Nice. - And kind of like, yeah, that's a big bucket list item for me. So tick that one off. And haven't been to the States for ages, so it'd be cool to just get over there again and. - Yeah, I'm excited. - Yeah, spend some time over there. So that'd be cool. It'd be like a big reset, I reckon. - Nice. - Just kind of like time off work and not just like a local holiday, like a big, big holiday. - What's something you wish people knew about you, Campbell, that they don't know? - Something I wish people knew about me.

- You're a moderately openly closed book. - I'm a moderately open, moderately openly closed book. I've been called a lot of things, Mitchell. I've never been called that before. - You like that one? You like that one? It's a nice one to get you thinking about what the hell that actually means. - What's something I wish people knew about me? - Yeah. - That stumped me. - I love this. - I actually don't know. - It smells like potential. - I feel like your brain's ticking over to something good here. - It's not ticking over to anything good.

There's just a chimpanzee with cymbals just smashing. - You're the second person on this podcast to mention that. - Oh, really? - Seems like I ask hard questions that make people think a bit. - My last, as Plug says, I've got two brain cells left fighting for third place. - That's a good one. I might steal that too. So we're taking the cans and that. - The cans, the brain cells, yeah. But look, at the moment, there's not a lot happening in there. - I'll give you a leading question into an answer. - Okay. - Not that I have an answer for you, but.

- Excellent. - What is something that you would like more people to know? That you have a, either don't get to express or don't get to show that side of you? Then internally you go, you know what? Don't know how to do this. (lips smacking) I'm actually really stumped on this question. - It's not a bad thing. - I don't know. I don't know if I'm struggling to interpret what sort of the question's asking me to say or whether. - I was just curious, you know. - How do I, yeah, how do I articulate this? I don't know.

Is this something about me like on a personal level? Something that I don't say to? - Any and either and all, any, either, all. Could be anything. Just a nice question I've liked to ask people recently, so I'm continuing the trend. - Have you had some good answers? - I've had a lot of thinking 'cause it's a left-to-center question. - Yeah, it is. - You know what, I actually don't really know. - Yeah, it's a hard question to answer, I think. - It is a hard question. - I feel like I am pretty open with a lot of people about most things.

So, I don't feel like I close myself off that badly. - Yeah, what's wrong with that? - I don't know. At the same time, I definitely feel like I can close things in pretty hard if I need to. So, I don't know. - What's something you wanna try, haven't tried? What is something you wanna try that you haven't tried? - What's something I wanna try that I haven't tried? (laughing) - That's hard as well. What's something I wanna try that I haven't tried? Is this anything? - Anything, yeah. - Food, like anything. - I really enjoy watching people work out what part to answer this question 'cause it could be food, could be experience, could be anything.

Activity. - Oh, I actually wouldn't mind going zorbing. - Zorbing, that is a great answer. This is what I'm talking about. I love the answer, just, you know what? I really wanna do that. - I was like, what's something that would be sick to do that I've never done and I was like-- - And what do you think, rolling down a ball down a hill? - With some water and you're soaking wet and you're completely out of control. - I'm seeing a trend. - Great, oh yeah, downhill's out of control. - All right, my man, we are gonna wrap things up.

What you talking about you didn't think you were gonna talk about? - Biking. (laughs) - Yeah, I didn't think we were gonna talk about bikes so much, I had spent so much time this week rehearsing an answer for when you said, I want you to talk about something that you're passionate about. That you think that the guys are really gonna benefit from. And I rehearsed it as ad nauseum and we haven't even talked about it. - What was it? - So I probably took the question too, literally. I thought that I really needed to find something and it wouldn't come out organically.

I thought you were just gonna ask me, now what do you wanna talk about that the guys are gonna find value in? 'Cause I think I take these things too literally. - A little bit. - And don't let them just happen organically. But I was gonna talk about in and amongst the coaching chat just how recently I've realized that things kind of go full circle and that I've had two 17-year-old kids, one of which I've trained for like two or three years, and one who just approached me at the races the other week who I've formed a bit of a bond with over the last couple years.

And I had this moment where I realized in a conversation I had with Bailey, who was the one I've trained for two or three years about nutrition, that I can be a big voice of reason for him in and amongst his world where he's just, kids these days are just falling victim so hard to social media and the like oversaturation of just information getting thrown at them. And he was just asking me about keto and counting calories and stuff like that. And I just had this short convo with him just to say like, you're like 15, 16, 17, whatever, in high school.

You don't need to be on a diet. Like you just need to be moving and eating well and whatever and just breaking that down for him and trying to help him not get stuck in the weeds of just this, all this info getting thrown at him that he doesn't need to be falling victim to. And then I had this other moment with Paddy where he reached out and then his mum came and spoke to me about me coaching him and mentoring him a little bit for his rating 'cause he's doing incredibly well. He's like top three in under 19s.

And I like flashed back to this moment where I was 16, 17 and I got a coach and he was like a huge voice of reason for me at that time. And I think like the whole way through my coaching career so far, every now and again, I get these moments where I go, oh, gee, I'm really, I'm progressing here. Like teaching someone to do job that doesn't matter how to do job. Like those little things, they pop up every now and again and you go, oh yeah, I am really getting somewhere. 'Cause a lot of the time you just go day in, day out coaching, same things, all that sort of stuff.

And I just had this big moment where I was like, I'm now the coach helping the kid. And I know how important that was to me when I was 16, 17. And I wasn't really listening to the things mum was saying. And the coach would tell me the same thing and I'd be like, mum, coach told me this, blah, blah. So I just had this big epiphany moment thing where I was like, yeah, things go full circle. Like, you know, you go through things and then you can help people go through it and I don't know, so it was pretty cool.

- You well-rehearsed that one. - I thought we were gonna talk about that and then we didn't. - That was excellent. - So there you go. - Podcasting. - Thank you. - Who's a, last question. - Are you sure? - I promise this isn't my last question. Who is someone in your world that you would love me to talk to? - As a future guest. - As a future guest. - Anyone and everyone. Could be anyone. - Anyone and everyone. - I can talk to a fish underwater. Wait, I can talk to other words, things. - I think that's how it goes.

- Sading, something like that. You know what I mean. - Need more caffeine. - Need more food. - Someone in my world. - I don't have to know them. - You don't have to know them? - Do not have to know them. - Geez, there's a lot of good people. - Easy question to answer with lots of people then. - Nah, they're all too good. They're all too good. - Yeah, I'm pretty shit actually, that's fair. - Fitness related, not fitness related. - Nah. Second part to the question. Who is someone you'd like to know more about that you think this is a good platform to do it on?

That has good things to say. Value to add that potentially hasn't or doesn't have the platform to. I like your thinking face. George, can you zoom in on this? That's your zoom in on your face. - Nah, I need to just go back to thinking. - Yeah, there it is. - I don't even realize how much I squint until I've come on this podcast. Far out. - Nice to see the recording. - I hate watching it back. - I've overcome that barrier. - I hated watching the one back that Plugger and I did. - Yeah, this would be 10 or 11.

No, this would be 10 for me. Tyler's gonna do one podcast in this season, yeah. - You've done more than that though. - I've done more than that before, yeah. But in this iteration of me in charge, I've got over the barrier of listening to myself and seeing myself and the hand gestures that I make and things, yeah. - Yeah, it's very handsy. - Yeah, it's a handsy podcast. - Great day at speaker school. - I'm actually struggling to think of a guest. I think if I come back to the story that I had before,

someone that I can think of off the top of my head would be the coach that I had as a junior, Jarrah, from Swift Supplements, Jarrah Brice. You could get him on, have a chat to him. - I'm in. - He's a great guy. He has started his business to kind of create a better product in the supplement industry 'cause it was full of garbage and all that sort of thing. So yeah, he's got some, he's got an interesting story. He's an ex-elite level athlete and yeah, has coached a lot of people and whatever, he'd probably have a pretty interesting story.

- Excellent, I love that. See, that wasn't too hard. You made it. - There you go. - Aaron. - You're welcome. See you on the podcast, Jarrah. - Three minutes ish. Aaron, three minutes ish. - Is that long? Is that short? - That's normal. - Is it? - I'm just perfectly average. - No, you're on par. - Okay. Under par by a shot? - Not at all. - Oh, damn. - People like seeing this part of you, don't worry. - Okay. - Especially Tyler. 'Cause Tyler asked you who's your favorite coach and you didn't answer him since you were real funny about it.

(laughing) - Oi, he didn't ask me who my favorite coach was. He asked me who my favorite team member was. - True. That's not me, Tyler. - That's very true. No, love the boom. - The boom. He was coming on here. - Good. - He doesn't know it yet, but he's coming on. - Oh, Wally came on here as well. - Yeah, she'll be episode. - Interesting. Is that 'cause you couldn't get me? - I think you were actually meant to be before her and then I fucked up. - It's not. It's not. I told her that as a joke and she was so cut.

- She would be. - Yeah, she was. - Now we have to chat. - Nah, she's a weapon. - I'm outta here, my man. Well, we're outta here. - Thank you. - On with our night, week, life. Lovely chatting. - It's been great. - Sorry. Just got bigger pops. Pleasure. Thank you for coming on. Appreciate it. Thanks for visiting. We'll talk about it again. - We will. - We can talk about your story now that you've preloaded it and practiced it. - Yeah, I got it out. Thank God. That was a weight on my shoulders that I need to get off.

- Yes, sir. Campbell's coaching Instagram in the link below. - @coachcampbell_. - He doesn't use it much, but it's there. - I don't. I'm terrible. (laughing) I need new content. - Outta here. Thanks for listening. - Have a good day. ♪ Emo, emo, emo, emo ♪ ♪ Emotional damage ♪ child. Have a good day!