010 - Running the Sydney Marathon: Our Australia Trip, Travel Chaos, and Career Q&A

[0:00] Welcome to Build Horizons, a show about picking the life you want to lead and how to make it happen. Today, we're going to talk about our trip to Sydney, Australia, and answer some questions afterwards. But first, our intro.

[0:30] with miles to go so run far build it slow chasing down a brighter horizon you and me and a road unknown building horizons let's go all right i'm jeff this is katy click subscribe below uh and with that i think we've gotten through the start of things so it feels weird recording we had to record so many episodes back to back to get ready for our trip but now and like training because it was just trying to squeeze and runs and yeah i feel like it's been a minute now yeah back on track um all right so we ran a marathon you have a medal to prove it yeah you brought it down show and tell for the people that are watching this on video you have to show it you have to like show it's so pretty has all sorts of cool designs on it actually i think people were saying this was one of the prettier some people are saying no i really i like people really like it and then on the back there's like some really cool sydney um i don't know what's the word i'm looking

[1:45] for like parts of the city what's that word i don't know parts of the city except for one they messed up on one of the things they accidentally put something it was like one of the stadiums i can't remember what it was called but they put a germany stadium i think rather than the sydney stadium so they got a little bit of backlash for that but now we'll have a right memorable medal that nobody i guess all of them are memorable but yeah but this one's specifically memorable so uh we'll talk about the race here in a second yeah because interesting thing and just some uh takeaways and thoughts on on that experience but um we had an interesting time getting there oh my gosh some thunderstorms yes it was true we have we haven't finished editing it yet and getting it out but we have video footage of our adventure yeah our uh the ambition matching available time and realizing how unawake i would be for so long after whereas we'll get to that in a sec too but um but yeah so we we headed west there were thunderstorms over denver we live in uh in kansas and so heading west to the west coast you have to basically fly through denver and uh we had like a

[3:00] five hour buffer to make it out west which you would think which you'd think you think it would be long enough but and we as we were approaching uh to land we saw our happy little plane backing up and leaving flying its way well that was in that was in la yeah so we we got to denver finally after several delays got to la yeah then more delays and knew it was going to be super super tight and then as oh wait i guess that's true we it wasn't from denver to la that was when we, um, yeah. So we landed in LA. I am so sorry. I'm messing this whole thing up. Landed in LA as our plane was leaving for Sydney. There we go. Got there. Yeah. Basically what you said, I guess I needed to say it too. Hey, you said it, not me. Um, and so we, uh, ended up having to spend the night we did not uh have a super excited i mean as you might imagine after having uh missed a flight and the fun part about that was first off it was very stressful

[4:17] uh so not knowing whether or not you're gonna make your flight there were lots of times where we're like okay we're definitely going to miss things well and it's not just i mean it's not just like a flight it's the one to get you it's a what 17 or 15 hour flight yeah to a different country that is already going to be a day ahead of you so it was just like all these factors building up and making it and it was super late at night yeah when we got there uh and so we weren't sure whether or not we were going to make our flight miss our flight there were lots of times where we kind of like oscillated between the two uh and ultimately like we mentioned we did miss it uh and just to add too sorry i didn't mean to interrupt you there were 25 of us on our plane going on this flight and they still left us yeah that's all i was gonna say oh sorry um you can say it if you want to there were 25 people uh also on our plane who uh also missed their flight as it backed up and took away um so we all had to find new flights uh they told us that there would be one that they could put us on that was like four days later, which was like, well, here's Google Flights. There's other choices available to us. We ultimately ended up getting upgraded

[5:33] to business class flying there, which was awesome. I honestly don't know that I could do it any other way. It's true, yeah. And it was the next day because flying to Sydney out of L.A. or anywhere on the West Coast, basically everything leaves at 11 p.m. And so we got on a flight out, uh, the next evening. Um, and so then we just had to kill a day in LA. Yep. And, uh, by the time we got back to our hotel, what was it like one o'clock in the morning or something like that? Oh, I don't even know. I was just so delirious. Which it was like 3am. Well, our internal, I am not wanting to stay up past 10. Yeah, for sure. yeah this this was the whole trip was an experience and uh oh my goodness with the yeah the tiredness and the jet lag this um but anyways yeah uh we were like what are we going to do in la and they were like well uh we have some friends who live in la uh let's see how close they are and looked at their address and like oh they're like not too bad yeah like 30 minutes 45 minutes yeah 30 40 minutes away um and so we imposed ourselves on some friends got to spend some time just hanging out uh instead of you know chilling at a hotel or doing whatever

[6:48] that was actually really really nice yeah it was honestly a big bonus we hadn't got to see them for had it been since our first marathon yeah that's our since our first marathon february 2024 and they have the cutest bernadoodles two of them yes they have two oh my gosh i love them so much super cute dogs um so we got to hang so we got to like have some therapy dog therapy time which i feel like we needed after honestly yeah and just chilling and relaxing uh it was just a good time i had a really good ham uh cheeseburger yep where was that place called uh maddie's patties oh yeah which is relevant to what we did in sydney too but we can get to that later i mean we watched some of the bear we watched the whole bear watched the end of the bear yeah and the yeah the producer and one of the actors yeah he is the guy who started that restaurant yeah yeah anyways um but yeah so had a good time uh hopped on a plane to la got to lay down or from la to sydney got to lay down spend 15 hours um flying over the ocean yeah and then we arrived in sydney you've not ever flown into i

[8:03] mean i guess we've flown to mexico no that doesn't count uh first other continent how is your experience like how did it match getting off the plane and through all of that and getting out of there and then we're in sydney that i mean it was really cool i didn't feel like the i thought the flight was gonna feel way longer which to be fair we were on i think we would have lost our ever-loving mind yeah um i slept pretty good on the plane going to sydney um which made it i think a little bit easier on that first day to explore and get in and realize oh it's morning here yep um but it was really cool i don't know it was it was fun it felt it didn't feel as dramatic as what i was thinking it was going to feel but it was um a cool experience yeah and we got to our hotel and they did not have room for us yet and we went and had some giant pancakes oh my gosh giant pancakes i mean the am i huge pancakes here's the thing i mean we're americans we got ourselves some big food uh but man our first meal in australia

[9:20] they were like hang on to your seat there because we got a lot yeah and such delicious coffee they did have very good oh my goodness all the coffee in sydney honestly was 10 out of 10 yeah so yummy um and then we made our way around the city had i mean honestly from there it was a a number of fun just learning the city um making mistakes on public transport and katy getting mad at me um i it would you know you would think it's simple i did you all will be very proud of me i have now learned how to properly tap my phone on things because apparently i didn't have that skill but that skill has now been developed and i So Katy's gotten into 2019. I'm so proud of her. And then this day, too, after we had pancakes and we had to kill some time, I think you took out my notes about it, Jeffrey. We went to the barracks. Did you take out my barracks? No, I don't know. I don't see them on here at all. Yeah, but we had to kill some time. So we just kind of walked around. It's one of my favorite things to just

[10:36] kind of wander and see what you find. And we went across the barracks in Sydney, which is when the original settlers in that area, like, I mean, the history of Sydney, which Kitty didn't know. I genuinely did not know the history of Sydney, of how it even started and how convicts. Basically a convict state for Britain. But then, yeah, like seeing some of the historical landmarks there that are literally just there in Sydney. Yeah. It was really, really cool. Well, and it was cool, too, because they give you, like, it was a walk-through tour type of situation. You have headphones and then, like, an old iPhone. It was, like, literally an iPhone 3 repurposed. Yeah. And, like, it, I don't mean, like, it worked flawlessly. It worked freaking flawlessly. Like, when you walked into rooms, it would recognize what room you were in and, like, tell the story of whatever of that area or, like, made-up stories. Yeah, and honestly, it was super impressive. Voice acting. and everything yeah 18 year old hardware yeah um pretty crazy like from when we were in uh high school teeny tiny iphones yeah uh yeah and it was free to do this yeah we just walked in and they got our names and asked us a couple

[11:52] questions and told us how to do it it was really cool i was i love learning history i love history so yeah that was really fun yeah pretty uh pretty down our alley i mean for our honeymoon uh since we were broke 21 22 year olds um we went to dc uh because a lot of the things there are basically that you can walk through look at things for free well kind of it's tax dollars but free in the moment katy just has a political platform she's starting which is nothing's actually free nothing's actually free um and neither was this i'm sure but the uh the yeah it was a really good time um just kind of wandering through it was really cool it was really fun um and then i can't really remember what we did i think we got checked into our hotel and we're getting very very very very very tired at this point but i don't think we took a nap that day did we oh i'm assuredly we oh we did i just know these naps in sydney which i don't know we're always the best decision but i also don't know if i could have made it through the evening without a nap or like i was in another dimension

[13:07] type of naps didn't know i don't know i just because it would have been night at home yeah and i feel like my body was trying to get to that sleep so it was pretty intense naps for me like i don't think i really woke up feeling much better but also don't know if i could have made it through the day without yeah sleeping it was rough so i i don't want to go through like every little thing we did because we will this will be like a the most boring four-hour podcast ever um and i want to talk about the actual race itself but there were a couple like interesting things uh so the the next day we found we went and uh went to the more touristy downtown parts of sydney and ate at a italian restaurant and had some really really good pizza it was so good it was so yummy but one of the things that i that we noticed while we were there and i i still don't 100 know so if you're from australia know somebody from australia i don't know what the right way to indicate that you are done eating this was like consistently at every place we ate at because in the united states when you go to a restaurant and you are you know you order your food and like every everything up to that point is the

[14:23] same like we we order our food and they bring the food and then you start eating your food and then you get close to the end and then when you get close to the end in the united states um you can like catch eye contact with the server or they'll bring you over your check and then you will pay and since the united states you'll leave a tip and then sign and then that's the end of the interaction and then you just get up and leave and usually from time that you finish eating your food to leaving the restaurant is like i don't know maybe zero to five minutes i would say i feel like that's a fairly common like oh for sure amount of time we we got things to do we got places to be we just apparently that is extremely rushed by australian terms because uh i think we could have sat there for an hour after we finished eating before somebody would have it's like i don't know but honestly it's not a bad thing i think it's a good social time which is what they do it's social hour i presume but like i don't know i just there's so many other things you could be doing other than sitting at a restaurant i mean it was a lot of us just staring at each other like wondering what do we do how do we get our check and then here's what i i don't

[15:39] understand though is then when like i finally would be like okay i guess i'm gonna walk up to the place which is your favorite thing to do for the check and then like every time that i would have to do that it was also like the most like and i saw other people do it too i was not the only one who did this um but like it was always a mess like yeah it was so hard to pay it was so hard to pay for things but we did yeah i don't know what the deal i i there has to be a more of it like we must have been messing something up and there were lots of other people from out of town so i'm sure we're all messing it up but like i do not know what the correct social contract here is that we've created um a quick aside um today i just want to capture this moment while it's still a memory in my head but uh i said social contract and i didn't really mean to but it's relevant to the story where uh our two kids uh wrote out oh my god do you want to tell because i actually didn't experience this firsthand i wish i had it so i could read it um but well while we were gone i don't know if there was intense fighting going on I'm not really sure but I think it was the first

[16:55] day we were back Alice came up to me and said mom me and Avren wrote a contract and it was in big letters a little bit of misspelling about how they are no longer going to fight that they're going to be nice to each other and no longer fight I wish I could remember exactly what it said but they both because it was like the front page and then it flipped to the back they both signed it that they weren't going to be fighting anymore and they've already broke the contract oh wow that's so surprising yeah anyways um we got the we did spend some uh time out in the the blue mountains out west of sydney and yeah traveling around kind of rushing through a few things a couple on day two we got to run across the sydney harbor bridge that was so cool it was so pretty um got i don't know it was just i feel like that was the first moment though that i was in awe of being in another country yeah that part so actually that's a that's a good place to pause uh because i do the the thing that i've really enjoyed um in getting to visit a lot of cities for work and things like that is running tourism and yeah the ability to see so much of a city in such a short amount of time that like you know if you

[18:12] walked what we walked it would have taken you know like three hours or four hours of your day but if you run it you can get that done in less than an hour and the the amount of things that you can see is just it's just immense um it's a really cool city and you just get to to be able to see it on foot is it's just unique you know there's lots of places that you can get to that are like the centralized like you know there's thousands and thousands of people that go to the actual um opera house uh and you know do all the touristy take pictures spots there um but the amount of like places that we got to see that from or see the harbor bridge from or beyond the harbor bridge um at like you know as the sun is coming up it was so cool that's just a really cool experience that um i i before i ran i just i never even knew such a thing existed or that people would do that or that it would be as cool as it is but yeah it really makes me look forward to all the other places that we can do that in and really just it's just a beautiful way to see the city yeah and it's cool because and I know this isn't the case for everybody because some people live in big cities but for us here in Wichita Kansas area we don't have the ability to just walk around and

[19:27] see all these really cool things it's just it's more spread out so to have that uh i don't know opportunity and chance to just walk around and see so much is really cool i i think i always enjoy walking the cities and like you said running the cities and seeing things but yeah anyways i didn't want to miss that part because that part was really that is really good it was it was a really nice time um when we were uh at the um blue mountains so we did that with a tour group kind of yeah made some made some good friends um yeah we made yeah it was cool and there were a lot of us running the marathon um in our tour group so we got to talk to and people from everywhere i mean there are people from russia spain u.s yeah mostly u.s i think but we got to talk a little bit about you know what number what star is this what marathon number is this and i don't know it's just it made it just why you do it like what are you like what what's your favorite thing that you or what's favorite race like what and you know what i was in love is how fast all these people were i think we were the slowest people on that bus except for the guy we sat next to at the opera oh yeah at the opera house yeah but we met

[20:42] a guy on that tour who what was his like pr time uh like 2 30 so it was just crazy so cool but it was really fun hanging out with everybody all day and it was funny we were talking about it and i asked him how many miles a week he ran and he showed me uh and of course it's in kilometers so i had to like do some mental math but like he he literally ran 100k um which is 60-ish miles and he had done that like literally it was like a flat line perfect flat line um leading into the marathon for like the last, like however long it's on Strava, maybe the last like, uh, 12 weeks or something like that, but like literally just perfect. I'm like, yeah, that makes sense. And he was an incredible shape. Yeah, for sure. It's like, okay. Yep. This is a level of consistency that I have not brought to this race weekend. And I think this was his seventh star. Sydney was his last one. Yeah. It was really cool. There were a lot of seven stars, which was really fun and seeing people get there big metal. um and then i guess maybe the last thing before we uh go to marathon time is um got to we did like a tour of the opera house which is pretty pretty cool oh yeah it was cool to see it

[21:59] the show itself was awesome oh my gosh i was so glad we did that uh pride and prejudice sort of which is a a show that is kind of going around and it's in kind of it's a comedy yeah yeah they it's and then it's Every part is played by a woman, which was so fun to see. Incredible talent. Yeah, it was a cast of, was it five of them? I think it was five, yeah. And they all played at least two, three different roles. And some of them were musicians, and I think they all sang. But then a few of them would play instruments, and it was so cool. Some people are just so talented. I know. yeah but yeah it was i i really really enjoyed that like i i enjoyed that sort of thing anyways but they were especially good yeah it was so fun i'm so glad we did that because i wasn't really sure if i was gonna want to go watch a show after the tour but by far that was a highlight of the trip was seeing the show yeah no doubt any any other things before we get to our marathon fun yeah just the so after between the opera house tour and our show we actually had

[23:15] lunch at the opera house and the way they oh gosh you almost missed the best one um but they have like outdoor seating it's really pretty um but with outdoor seating comes friends in the form of birds and seagulls yes but you know and we uh did not have to uh pay and wait for our check because we prepaid for this particular meal um and then but i will say it was the one time where i felt like they were really paying attention to us as we were finishing our meal and there was like a group of them beside us yeah and it was like they they were like getting ready to clean our table. Um, and it was like the seagulls knew something was going to happen. Yeah. They were watching us closely too. Yeah. The seagulls and the wait staff were all like surrounding us as we were getting ready to leave. Um, and it very quickly became apparent as to why, because I would say within about 0.2 seconds after we stood up, the amount of bird swarming our table.

[24:32] I wish we had a video of it so much. It was so crazy. And they, I mean, the waitstaff are literally right there shooing them away. But like you, you did. I had a little piece of bread I didn't eat. And I got that thing quick. They, I mean, it was immediate. Like it knew what it was going for and it got it. I was very proud of that bird. but then they got shooed away and they, uh, it was so funny. Maybe it was more fun. Obviously telling the story is hard to explain, but yeah, it was just basically stood up immediately. He had our table swarmed by both waitstaff and birds. Yeah. And yeah, just so funny. Oh my gosh. It was crazy. Sydney, you're crazy. Yep. Um, all right. So marathon itself, uh, it was terrible. Uh, we'll start there for you, for me. Uh, yeah, I had a, I had a really bad time, uh, which it was humbling. I kind of went into that a little bit arrogantly cause we were going to run together and, uh, well, this is like, we're going to be significantly slower than anything else I've ran to that point. And, um, you know, at the beginning of it felt okay, but I did like around mile 10 or so, I started to realize like, I'm starting to feel a little more close to cramping than I should for being 10 miles in. and um you know and we'll we'll get into

[25:47] kind of the the later on parts of that but yeah it was it was a rough time definitely not not a enjoyable experience um leading into it was a little bit stressful so we just were i don't know pretty unprepared for the action again we approached it as like this is gonna be fun this is gonna be fun we're gonna have a good time have a good time uh but what we did not pay enough attention to leading into the race which will not mess up again is we were in different starting groups and had it not been for a very nice race organizer person who let me kind of like sneak to the side right at the start line um it would have been a whole freaking deal to try to find each other yeah and even still it was pretty crazy um and one thing maybe people that haven't ran these types of marathons to understand the different start groups and corrals so they have you usually with people that run similar speeds so you you let the marathon know what those speeds are yeah like what your pacing is going to be so then they put you in those groups um i do think they'll make exceptions if you ask but in general if you don't make any requests that's what they do but we're not talking

[27:04] just like oh were further up Jeff was on a completely different street and we had to separate even on our like on the tram I had to go on a different one yeah with a group of people so it wasn't like we could easily find each other oh yeah and um each each like little corral group that you're in has more people than you've seen at any other race in your life oh it's bizarre majors are oh it's so crazy i can't even explain it how i mean you are like is like start like you are rammed in to this area the time on the clock starts like um you know obviously when the the actual elite runners are starting right yep um and it takes uh a couple hours for everybody else to be able to get over the start line so that's how many people that yeah and and it is a very wide start and there's lots of people and it's extremely packed and it still takes two hours for everybody to get across yeah um so it is it is a true logistical i mean it's just it's a nightmare to get started so all that to say thank you so much volunteer for letting us run together appreciated that very

[28:21] enthusiastic australian accent guy he was so nice he was looking we had uh koala hats on and he really he liked your koala hat didn't he well he asked what is she wearing and i'm like same hat and glasses and he's like told everybody all the other race directors around and his cool australian accent he's like koala hat and glasses looking for koala hat and glasses oh my gosh um to try to find you i miss the accents yeah it was so fun they are and as the other thing i'll say about australia everybody there is so kind and friendly and i don't know they're just lovely yeah honestly a very midwest feel that was very familiar just with a bunch of cooler accents than ours way cooler yeah um so we we met up and started the race which felt really which obviously i feel like any race you usually feel pretty good on um but my experience was a little different than yours um i out of the gate felt amazing um felt like i could push pace a little bit which we kind of did at the beginning um and i know like we even at the beginning of the race um like maybe mile four five six um we had a little bit of chat of like you know if we sped up just a tiny bit we'd be able to hit your pr um yeah and kind of we i mean

[29:36] at one point i pulled up strava to figure out what your pr was during the run so uh we were feeling reasonably good at that point i mean the it was a lot cooler at that point it did warm up quite a bit it warmed up quite a bit yeah i got like sunburned yeah um but uh you know the start of it was super cold and felt wonderful there were um a lot of hills oh hills which i'm so i've really got to but this was probably the best marathon i've i've done and felt this good throughout the entire marathon yeah i don't understand how that is because there were hills on hills i mean it was and it wasn't just like little bumps it was like you couldn't see the top you just kept running up and up and up and up and forever hills yeah especially at the beginning thankfully in the middle for people that might be interested in running sydney it i think it calms down a little bit so you have like tons of hills at the beginning it kind of calms down in the middle and then there's a few more hills at the end but just so many hills yeah and you know hills in a race aren't the end of the world I mean it and as we've learned from Utah it's actually kind of nice to have some uphill just to kind of work different muscle

[30:52] groups yeah and I mean that that part of it is nice I mean you're it's not like the absolute optimal course for running your PR yeah no for sure but honestly the what you do in preparation for the race uh like how many miles you get in uh stuff like that, that is way more indicative of what your time is going to be more so than the course. I mean, like, I think if you ran it, like if you prepare, let's say you, you had a really, really great training block and, uh, and you had a, let's say three hour, 30 minute time that you would run on just kind of an average course, I'd say like a really fast course you might run, um, in the high three twenties and in a slow course like Sydney, let's call it slow course. You've maybe run in the low, um, you know, three thirties still. Uh, like I, I think the, the range of what the course impact is, is maybe only five, 10 minutes, um, at, at, at most, um, the, the vast, vast majority of how your day is going to go is going to be in, in, well, other than just apparently the random number generator that is how the day goes, but, uh, is, is much more, uh, tied to what you did in preparation. Yeah. Yeah. So I felt great. I hit mile.

[32:09] I remember it was around my like eight, 16, 18. I kept thinking to myself, okay, when am I going to hit this wall? I know. Cause I've hit it the last three marathons about mile 20. I hit a wall and I just feel horrible. Those last six miles are genuinely the worst. Um, but I actually, this was the first marathon. I actually think I could a negative split my last six miles um so all that to say that's really encouraging i do feel like this distance for a marathon is and i don't i don't know if it was just a fluke of a day we'll have to run another marathon to really figure that out but um i can actually run this distance without feeling horrible during the run now granted recovery was still i think pretty typical recovery for me um but as far as the actual race i i think i maybe could have which is crazy to say could have maybe pr'd on this course yeah which is not even it wasn't even an ideal course so i don't know what that speaks to you know fitness and if i if it hadn't been in the heat of this summer you know could have even improved more um on it so yeah it was really encouraging for me um but poor jeffrey cramping up yeah

[33:26] really bad i had to rub his calf halfway like i don't even know mile 22 probably your poor calf just seized up and i had to try to massage it out for you and yeah i mean it was the first time that the like fear of i don't know if i can finish started to creep in just a little bit um i mean it really was just because even walking was so impossible there for a second it was hard yeah and that's like a scary time because you know walking for four miles isn't particularly possible if you can't walk 10 feet uh eventually it chilled out and we just ran slow and got through it yeah and i just ran on a cramped calf for like hours do you know what why do you know why like have you thought of like have you figured out why you got why you cramped so bad because it wasn't even just your calf at one point it was like moving up your leg it was so brutal for you yeah I mean I do know that with the running in the heat that we've been doing and I've had random really really bad times with that yeah um is like I I definitely am having something that I need to figure out with how much I sweat

[34:42] and lose electrolytes and get behind on that. I probably, if I had one thing that I think I did the worst at with this, I mean, other than like, obviously training more would have been helpful, but I mean, you also, we ran together, so like, I don't, I don't think that was just training induced. Um, I, my only thing I can point at is I just probably did a very poor job of hydrating leading into the race. Yeah, I definitely did better at hydrating than you did. And then, uh, because I do have a higher sweat rate, I do require more water. We, this is the first time that we ran with just what was on the course. Oh yeah. And I normally also have a lot of, um, carbs and electrolytes in the stuff I run with. And so that probably had, I mean, we just probably, I probably way undershot on the hydration front, both before and during the race. Yeah. Yeah. And that resulted in a lot of pain. I mean, that was, that was a very, very, very hard hour and a half, two hours, um, at the end of that. Um, and I felt bad to slow you down, but, Oh, it's all good.

[35:58] We were going to stick together that run. We had already decided. So yeah, I just didn't think it would be me. That would be the one dragging us down. So that was like a hard mental shift to get over, but we still had some fun moments and, yeah and sydney's a cool place to suffer in if you're gonna suffer in a place it was such a fun and it was a really fun course there was a lot of you know the crowd was amazing we got to the volunteers were amazing there was a handful of places where it was kind of like out and back and you could see the runners uh on either side and so there was actually one point where we got to uh see the like the chase pack for the men and the lead the lead woman uh which was she ended up winning yeah she ended up winning um and that's just freaking cool that was so cool they are truly it is i mean i don't even know how we're the same species of humans like like y'all are fast y'all are fast yeah um in a way that i can only barely comprehend genuinely like sprinting this race up hills yeah it is mind like mind-blowing to my brain yeah it was it was pretty cool the the men's race actually was a pretty close finish um yeah it was a tight pack of like four or five of them up until the last uh like mile and a half or so yeah it was really cool seeing that i think that

[37:13] was the first time i'd ever seen the lead elite yeah like running it was super cool yeah yeah normally um normally loops or or not as many out and backs that are at the right point of the race yeah we just have to kind of right place right time honestly like there's uh because the start is so staggered for everybody. Um, you know, the other probably 40 something thousand people probably didn't get to see that. Um, we just happened to be right place, right time. So that was pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then, yeah, we, we made it to the end. The end of the race is like one of the coolest, uh, finish, uh, approaches because you are, there's like, you're running through big buildings on either side and you come into the the harbor area um and you can like you turn a corner and you see the opera house in the background and the finish line like that's a pretty cool as far as finishes go i mean that is that is really up there yeah it was cool and they we got some really cool pictures from the marathon photographers of the finish and opera house in the background and yeah it was really cool and then we get to do our most favorite thing after a marathon which i'm realizing is just how

[38:29] the majors work which is the world's worst next 20 minutes while you try to walk back to your hotel so if anybody has good advice on this and listens to us i i don't think there is i think i would have paid five thousand dollars to have somebody just wheelbarrow me back to the hotel because actually funny enough while we were waiting to cross because they had to we had to wait to cross traffic they had to like it was kind of crazy how they did it they kind of like corralled the runners yeah you like go halfway and then they send the runners back behind you and then you walk across yeah um my my cap started cramping up so yeah it was miserable sympathy cramps yeah it yeah it was horrible walking back I I that's my least favorite part is and we didn't check we did not check any bags or anything and just switch our shoes around we've never done that yeah we just kind of bag checkers which honestly though I mean there's just such a long line I feel like I just get it show up with what I got on is it's just not fun it's just part of it you just have to embrace it no it's gonna of suck but just have that expectation

[39:45] going in that the walk back is honestly just try to find a hotel i think as close as that's as close like when you're booking things to try to find that you just kind of have to make it out of all the logistics areas and um and there's just a lot of people so freaking many people and uh and nobody's moving fast because we're all half dead i know and everyone's just laying on the ground covering their faces with their medals in their hands tons of people just asleep yeah just laying on the ground but yeah no it was so fun highly recommended if you think if you're thinking about starting running marathons or doing a marathon and you want to you know see a different country sydney's a good one it's a tough it's a tough course so it's also very far away it is very far away i'm kind of glad we have that check done yeah um so we we ended up coming home the next day um and which was opposite because for flights out of sydney you leave in the morning yeah not in the evening which i found to be a little tricky um didn't sleep as much on the way home i did not sleep hardly at all i think i slept for an hour maybe of the 15 16 hour flight yeah plus then um you know another six hours from

[41:01] la to home worth of flying and boy howdy yeah i don't even know that next 48 hours was tough like you kind of feel sick being that jet lagged i just wanted to cry at one point i just wanted to go to bed well it was you had a really hard time the first night home i actually slept pretty good yeah i mean we had been awake for like 36 hours or something insane um and then it was like 9 30 at night you went to bed woke up at a normalish time yeah you actually did a really good job i also went to bed but then i woke up at like midnight or like 12 30 and i could not go back to sleep despite having been awake for like 36 hours i slept for three and i was up and then i finally started getting tired again at like 6 a.m which is suspiciously uh like 9 p.m sydney time yeah and i finally went back to bed thank you so much for letting me go back to sleep because i don't even if i would have had to have stayed up that entire time i think i would have died yeah i know the night that we got home and the kids were so excited trying you're talking a million miles an hour and i'm like i could not even i couldn't even get their words together i was so tired yeah they asked us like all kinds of questions and things or like

[42:17] they wanted us to go do something and um like i just like i can't even put together the sentence you just said you going to have to take another pass i can't even communicate clearly with you right now yeah but yeah jet lag's pretty gnarly coming home but i feel like now maybe the last two days i think yesterday was the honestly yesterday we're filming this on or recording this on saturday we got home monday and friday was the first day i felt like i didn't need to take like a midday nap to try to get through the day turns out when you leave at 9 a.m sydney time and arrive in la at 6 a.m the same day somehow you've time traveled negative three hours that equals bad time because you've been on a plane for the last 14 15 hours uh and gone back in time three so yeah 17 time zones or whatever it is yeah pretty rough yeah it's it's a rough it's a rough go getting back onto the right schedule but yeah but here we are we're here we're good we've made it um we uh are we've done some of the like gathering of the clips but haven't edited it together because it's just been so crazy since we've been back yeah just now this weekend i'm sure we'll get around to getting that up there so by the time you hear this hopefully

[43:34] there's a video out or it will be out soon um it should be fun any any other final sydney things before we hit a question or two no um i know one thing i talked about was i was nervous about the food um i did okay on the food um food was our only thing we argued about the entire time we did we fought um tired yeah but i was shocked at how good sydney pizza is and it's really yummy and good job sydney you know how to make good pizza honestly genuinely some of the best pizza i've had and that was mostly what i ate was was pizza i didn't get adventurous with anything yeah but they do eat kangaroo in sydney which is kind of sad um but yeah the kangaroos were cute too yeah and koalas got to see koalas but that was the only other thing i wanted yeah um i it is kind of funny uh kangaroo for them is treated very similar to how deer are here yeah like even to the point of like when they have like warning signs and stuff for like driving at night because you don't want to hit the kangaroos on the road and that's exactly how deer are in the midwest yeah yeah very interesting yeah very interesting um all right question time should we do a couple we

[44:50] can do a couple yeah i don't have a ton of time but we got it let's uh do you want to read the question you want me to do you want me to read that question one is that what you want me to do okay go ahead and read the first question okay so this question if you just want to hit the highlighted bolded parts i think that'd be fine okay um it comes from user any letterhead 5715 um and they say hi all i graduated a while back and started in finance. I am four to five years in and recently left for a startup. I'm starting to learn through this recent career change that I might have a poor sense of self when it comes to jobs. I think I have an interest in something and then I'll do the job and be like, ah, maybe this isn't it. So how do I identify what actually suits me and my personality? Okay. So, uh, any, any initial thoughts or you want me to just kind of hop in? You can, um, you can go. I just read it for the first time, so I may not have the best advice at this current moment in time. Um, yeah, we didn't have as much time to prepare. We really did just did this morning. Um, so one thing I wanted to say is first off, um, I, I want to make it super clear that you don't need to be super

[46:05] limiting to what you look at. I mean, most people can do most jobs in most companies. Um, so, you You can do a lot of things. Figuring out what that is is generally what you apply yourself to. I mean, lots of things can be super boring and lots of things can be super interesting, and you typically get out of it what you put into it. I mean, the job description is going to have the things that you have to do, almost always you end up with more, um, more, I mean, you can, you can really stretch that out or you can get that sort of stuff done as quickly as possible and then end up having a little bit more time, uh, or find ways to go a little bit beyond what that job description is and add value to the company or add value to your team that you're on. That is, I mean, one, it's, it's fun to be able to provide value to people. It's fun for people to be excited about the thing that you are working on or whatever um and and that like is a a virtuous cycle if you you know you work hard on on doing something valuable and then that's seen as cool and good and then you also gain skills and that you're better at it

[47:22] and then you next time you have the opportunity to do something like that you have a little bit more you know background to build on i mean to me the things that are like to, to like go back to the question, you know, how do I find something that like suits me and my personality, the things that you find that you're like, okay, I, I, I found my thing. Um, first off that, that, that alone in a sentiment is like, there's not like some arrival that you're like, okay, this is perfect. I, most people don't find that. But if you find something something that you can like you you you pour yourself into something and like the day goes by quicker um and you learn new skills along the way like that is that's like the the thing that you should be striving for is find something that you can apply yourself um and uh one thing i want to just add, like as a, as a point of like maybe advice is many, many people think that the answer to figuring out what you want to do means go look for another job. I would say, and everybody's

[48:38] going to have different experiences on this and everybody has just an end of one personal experience for this. So like, I don't think there's like a right answer or wrong answer per say. But one thing that I don't think is as exciting or sexy is figuring out ways that you can change what you do within your current place of employment. There is almost always like blurry lines somewhere where you can learn a little bit of another area or another, like I mentioned before, like learning other skills that are valuable elsewhere in the company and ease into figuring out what are other things that you can do and apply yourself in. Um, and you know, you, you can definitely change what you spend your day to day on by finding another job and going there. Um, and you'll definitely find ample advice out on the internet, especially Reddit. Reddit is very job hopping happy. Um, but there's also ability to do that within, within a company and you build that skill and background. And that's why I, I, I would recommend it is if you, if you move into another role in a company that you already have a

[49:53] background doing other pieces of it, then you know, then you become a person who can help bridge the gap between different areas and that is a very valuable skill or a very valuable um experience that you have and you can leverage that with whatever that new role is and uh anyways those were just kind of my initial thoughts on that any anything that stood out to you on that yeah and i think you know there's going to be times where it's going to be boring i mean all jobs have i am maybe i'm that's wrong for saying all jobs but there are most jobs have parts of it that are boring but I do think even with my own personal experience which you have way more experience in this than I do I find I have found both my particular career and job right now that there are parts of it that I think suits me and then there's parts that don't but I you know I get to do you get to do a little bit of everything a little bit of both um and just knowing that's kind of part of it but there's like right now i'm getting to work on a project that i think is so fun but then there's been projects i've worked on in the past that

[51:10] you know or they're all right yeah um but i don't know it changes and you know what you're and again this could be depending on the job but you usually don't get stuck on the same thing um so know that there are probably going to be some changes in there and the more you learn the more you might have opportunity to do things that might suit your personality more and that's kind of what I found with my um particular job is you know what I started off doing I'm actually doing like way more now which is a lot of fun I don't know if that's great advice but I you have way more advice with um because I haven't even so like I haven't this is one of this company I've worked for now is one of the longest jobs I've had um so I think someone like you has probably better advice in this than I do, but I will say for coming up on four years at the job I'm doing, um, I I've seen this, there's some that have, you know, suit my personality well. Um, and then there's some that are just, you know, it's fine, but it's also just part of the job. Yeah. And this will kind of tie into the other question. Cause I do want to get to it real quick, even if we only spend a second on it, because I want to reach out to this person and send them a DM too, because I think their question is good and they deleted it it made me sad um but the the fact is you will change and jobs will change and

[52:28] there's also multiple things that you can enjoy like there's not like one thing that you have to figure out like you just need to i guess a different way to say that there's not like one golden thing that you have to finally find and uncover that's going to be like the answer for the thing that you do and then you die um the the real answer is there's hundreds of things that you could spend your time doing and and learning skills at that you could learn to enjoy um you just have to find one of them uh or a handful of them over the course of a career yeah and and so like not not to make it a more glorified thing than it actually is like it's just you got to find something and that is through some of the things they talked about there yeah um all right do you want to read our next question uh real quick sure anyways 206 yep um so the it's how to navigate early stages of a career and they came back and said i just feel like i need to have perfect knowledge of my domain or else i won't be able to perform well for my employer and he she might think i know nothing and i am a fraud yeah that's so strong words fraud yeah well um i i know what

[53:44] this feels like um and i see this a lot and a lot of the uh a lot of the exposure on applying to jobs comes from the more glorified stuff from like the the big tech companies and stuff like that like going to work at Facebook or Google or whatever. Um, and the reality is real life for the other 99.99% of people who don't work at those places, um, is significantly different than what that is. And I, so I wanted to hit on a couple of those things. Um, so, uh, at, at the start, like being worried, uh, about, you know, like, okay, I have this degree and this person talks a little bit about um they have a marketing degree they they got a um a master's in marketing and they are not even sure if they like marketing anymore and the every day that goes by they're like losing some of that academic knowledge like they're they're like and and and the person's mind like i can definitely see they're equating that to like okay i'm losing value because i'm forgetting some of

[54:59] the things from classes. Um, I will tell you when hiring somebody, um, a degree can be helpful because it definitely checks a box, especially for some larger companies where they're trying to filter out, you know, through hundreds of applicants. Um, and so they want to just look at a certain subsection of those. Cause you go, there's only so many hours in the day and you can only interview so many people. Um, and so that does check a box. And so you've done that and you've checked that box. Um, and then there's the experience piece of it, which you will not have if you're starting out your career. Um, but in, you know, some, some roles, people will look for a required amount of experience, but I will say at least in my, my own experience, the experience stuff, very like, okay, that's nice. Uh, but it's not often a disqualifying, uh, factor, especially the world is changing so much um it just isn't as applicable as maybe it used to be um or maybe it's never been that way i mean i only have the experience that i have but uh and then um what actually matters so like that that'll get you uh into an interview um and so you you already check the big box of like do you have a degree so like that really and and honestly like

[56:15] even that it only sort of matters. There's hundreds and hundreds and thousands and thousands of jobs. But if you have the degree, have the master's in marketing, that opens up a larger section of things that you could apply for and get an interview in. But by far, the thing that will get you hired is how well you fit with the team. And that's an overgeneralization. Not everybody hires that way some people more heavily value degrees and experience and things like that but i i would say by and large the most important factor that people look for is um how well is this person going to fit into the team that we've built and so you know give making sure that people know that you're a you're a self-starter or you're kind or you're curious um that you're not going to require extra supervision because like that's that's the thing you don't want to do is hire somebody and then have to you know babysit every little tiny thing that they do so you need to be able to indicate that like i can figure some of this out myself and in the brass tacks of it is especially in a lot of roles that you

[57:32] would be looking for with a master's in marketing or something similar you're probably not going to be super useful to the company for the first year that you're there and and that's where like you're worried about you know the employer thinking that like oh man i hired this person and they don't actually know anything spoiler they don't expect you to know anything anybody who's done this long enough knows especially if you're hiring somebody who hasn't actively done literally the exact same thing in the exact same type of company. You're hiring somebody who basically has no useful knowledge whatsoever. Now, if you have a degree or you have experience, you kind of can prove like, okay, I can learn how to do certain things. And so I can learn how to do this job. But almost everything is going to be specific to the company that you work at in the role that you are. You're going to have to learn everything. Nothing that you know is probably going to be particularly useful in whatever it is. Even if it's literally doing a marketing job at a company, you will have some general principles and some, you'll have a headstart on being able to like, oh, I remember hearing about this. I need to go look up how to do X, Y, Z. Uh, but you're almost certainly going to have to learn

[58:47] everything that you do and the person hiring you knows that. So I just, I wanted to, to break that myth a little bit of like, oh, well you have, you've gone to college and you've learned all this stuff. And so now you'll finally be valuable to an employer you aren't so you don't have to worry about being a fraud uh the person looking to hire you knows that you don't have anything useful to bring to the table on day one um you unfortunately just don't know that yet yeah um but yeah i i totally get how you can uh feel that way yeah for sure yeah definitely anyways i know that we didn't have a lot of time but i wanted to to hit that one because it is it is a misconception that i see a lot yeah um and i i think it can be harmful to like how people actually show up to interviews if they feel like they're trying to show off all the things that they're going to bring day one when in reality they ain't gonna bring nothing yeah yeah and it's okay and that's normal yeah um anyways outro time so uh if you uh would like um you can email us well i guess first off thank you for listening yeah yeah thank you you know this is different but and what's next i guess like i think it'd be fun to talk like what's next on the horizon for us yeah we'll have to figure that out for training we can maybe talk about that we'll talk about that

[1:00:03] next week yeah yeah uh if you'd like you can email us any questions thoughts topics or just want to say hi you can email us at buildhorizons.com follow us on socials etc etc anything else katy or just want to sign us off yeah thanks for building with us we're cheering you on oh no hold on