He Turned Down The Australian Team To Run Our Race
King of the Hill is two weeks out and Liam Henderson is back in the studio. Alex reckons it is the hardest race in Australia to win, and the reason is the hill that gives you nowhere to make up time once your pace drops. They get into who is going the distance, whether anyone would actually dope for 25 grand, and why a bloke turned down a spot in the Australian team just to be on that start line.
In this episode:
- Why King of the Hill is the hardest last one standing race in the country
- The 25 grand on the line and whether anyone would bother doping for it
- The gap between being fit enough and being ready operationally and mentally
- Troy's first crack at it and why physical fitness is the easy part
- The GoPro theory and why your Strava footage always looks slow
- Building weirder events, from a heart rate last one standing to a hybrid ultra
- Who the big dogs are and who Liam and the boys are tipping to win
- Why someone dropped their whole year for one race, and what that tells you
Timestamps:
(00:36) Liam Henderson back for round two
(01:13) What King of the Hill actually is, explained properly
(03:04) Why Liam keeps coming back to the most brutal challenge
(05:24) Shepparton and Ballarat, cooking his nutrition at 35K
(17:59) Would anyone dope for 25 grand and how you would even test it
(24:24) The park run doping experiment nobody asked for
(29:19) The GoPro theory and why fast running looks slow
(42:00) Troy on nerves, migraines and going operational for 30 hours
(45:00) Why the big dogs always win, and it is not the legs
(65:50) Why the hill makes it the hardest race to win
(84:18) Turning down the Australian team to run King of the Hill
(94:55) Why last one standing is the ultimate format
(52:00) The picks, Blaine, Piotr and the dads who go long
Full episode out now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Follow the pod on Instagram: @pullingthreads
18 Oct 2026
The Old Blokes Who Know Everything And Still Service The Wrong Machine
Troy turns 35 and celebrates by getting invited to an underground invitational trail race on the same course as Down Under 135. Pissing rain, waist-deep river crossings, a bloke who fell 15 meters off a ridge and was somehow the least hurt person out there. Then the brothers get into the stuff that actually grinds them down. Old blokes who carry deep institutional knowledge and still bring the wrong machine down to be serviced, their old man and his undefeated I-told-you-ya record, and the French backpackers who drove 34,000km around the country in an unregistered van and came out $50 in front.
In this episode:
- Troy's birthday race through flooded trails on a Down Under 135 course
- What a pacer actually does and why they do it for a free race entry
- Clinton Duke Elliott, the sparky turned engineer turned doctor who skydives and boxes
- Bobby and Folksy and the two-way street of old blokes at the mine
- Dad's I-told-ya record and the trade he was right about all along
- The Nike After Dark debate and whether three blokes should have been there
- The French backpackers who did a full lap in an unregistered van
- Seatbelt cameras, phantom fines and the camera every tradie should be scared of
Timestamps:
(00:17) Troy's birthday and the gray hair chat
(01:49) The underground invitational race in pissing rain
(04:40) A bloke falls 15 meters off a ridge and lives
(05:30) Tim's voice note on the run
(14:08) The handicap race, hunting and being hunted
(23:54) What the hell does a pacer actually do
(24:35) Clinton Duke Elliott, the generational lock-in
(34:14) Crib time and the fuel cap that got ripped out again
(35:51) Old blokes, institutional knowledge and the wrong machine
(41:02) Dad and his undefeated I-told-ya record
(44:35) The Nike After Dark half marathon blows up
(53:08) Male privilege, running at night and the strange look
(62:35) The French backpackers and the unregistered van
(67:53) Seatbelt cameras and the fine burden of proof
(72:00) Selling a bus with no roadworthy across state lines
Full episode out now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Follow the pod on Instagram: @pullingthreads
11 Oct 2026
Nobody Chooses Their Trade. Your Mum Does It For You
Nobody actually chooses their trade. Your old man did it, your mum signed you up, or a mate said the cash was good. This week the brothers pull apart how every tradie really ended up on the tools, then build the ultimate family out of six trades, argue about whether an auto sparky beats a mechanic, and cop a voicenote about a gold mine that fooled its own investors with a pile of fool's gold.
In this episode:
- Why Troy left his running shoes at home and Immanuela drove two and a half hours to save his King of the Hill training
- Falling asleep on top of a bogger underground at 2am and the painted gumboot punishment for getting caught
- The Congo mine with water cannons, spears through windscreens and shift bosses getting run over for dobbing
- The fool's gold con that kept a rural Victorian mine open a couple more years
- Big parts win hearts and Parkinson's law ruining every reno
- Building the perfect family from three blue collar trades and three white collar ones
- Auto sparky versus mechanic versus heavy diesel, settled once and for all
- Why Australian council permits and CFMEU rain days make us soft
Timestamps:
(03:15) Troy leaves his running shoes two hours into the drive
(05:00) Immanuela saves the day and the back-to-back 40k and 25k
(09:30) Falling asleep on the bogger underground
(10:35) Mount Isa, the kilometre-deep drive and sleeping in the back of the Cruiser
(13:30) Painted gumboots and solar panels on night shift
(16:45) Congo water cannons and the spear through the windscreen
(23:13) The fool's gold con that kept a mine open
(27:30) The first time we saw pyrite underground
(28:55) Nobody actually chooses their trade
(34:40) Troy's first year underground on 60 grand
(43:26) Going from the dumbest kid at school to feeling like a G at TAFE
(47:34) Why install work is dog work
(52:20) Building the perfect family out of six trades
(01:25:30) Council permits, CFMEU rain days and why we're going soft
Full episode out now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Follow the pod on Instagram: @pullingthreads
Who has been a guest on Pulling Threads
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Dan from Maple Movement
Pyry Luikkonen
PT Pod
Pat Smith
Brandon Grech
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63 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 35 / 100
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