Walk the Talk with Alice Baquie

My name is Alice Baquie. I'm from Melbourne/Byron, and I'm a physiotherapist and I now work in the app space for forRunners.app

Tell us about your walk today?

So it's a pretty uncreative walk, but it's got a lot of sentimental value. So Flinders Lane here was, I guess, taking it right back to my uni days, which is longer ago than I care to admit. We used to come into the city and just be little ratbags. And then once I did qualify as a physio, my very first clinic where I practice from was just down the road here, 360, to take it all the way back to where I am now.

Flinders Lane is the home of my favourite wine bar. It's also part of my favourite running route, where I finish to get my coffee. I actually think this is the best lane in the city. There's just so much about it that I absolutely love. I'm literally that person that's been to Europe once and now I'm like, 'culture!'

What came first for you? Was it Pilates or running?

That’s actually a really good question, kind of chicken and the egg. I wanted to say Pilates definitely came first because I grew up a gymnast. Now I'm like an adult and trying to stop back pain.

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Oh my God, 100%? Aren't we all?

The running came after gymnastics. I'm gonna say the Pilates gymnastics first, then the running, and then we circled back to combine, put the two together.

 Do you think it's important to have a mix of different movement?

I do, and don’t, for so many reasons as well. At the moment, particularly with the running boom, there's such a huge inundation of just running and more running and running. 

And kind of burning yourself out, right?

And then going, okay, upon reflection, I possibly should have done a bit more strength work. I could have done a little bit more cross training. Also with Pilates, I found that that's really helped in terms of core strength with running. And it really does feed into, especially distance running. So Pilates is very strength endurance, focused.

And what about recovery then?

I feel like it's a bit of a hot topic at the moment. Well, I feel like recovery can be a little bit redefined in the sense that it doesn't need to be completely static rest. I actually genuinely think that gentle, active recovery can be almost better for runners, whether that's a mobility class, whether that is getting in the water and not even swimming laps. It's moving around.I am an advocate of gentle recovery, specifically around movement. You don't need too many external props to actually get some pretty decent recovery.

Everyone's quite reliant on the ice baths, i feel. 

I'm like, "You don't have to torture yourself. You could just do a stretch."

I really don't like them, ey.

What do you reckon is an underrated type of movement?

I'm gonna go straight to surfing. There's one specific race that I lined up at. It was a 10K road race, and there was a whole lot of guys that lined up next to me, just in their boardies, like old shoes, just kicking around, very tan, surfer-looking guys. And there was a whole lot of runners there in their carbon shoes, perfect outfit. It's like they've obviously trained for it. And they were kind of like, "Oh, who are these blokes?" They absolutely tore shreds from everyone. So never underestimate the power of a surfer who lines up at a road race.

You spend your time both in Byron Bay and Melbourne, what's the best about both?

Byron has got a very different environment in terms of it's very laidback, it's very chill. There's lots of surfing, there's lots of yoga. You go there and you automatically decompress. And then you come to Melbourne and you hit that rat race feel that automatic hustle. So when I do come here, I go hard on work. I go hard on socials. And then I go back to Byron, I go back to my little sanctuary.

What's your hot take on fitness in general?

I feel like fitness now is quite polarized into two major facets. Number one being performance and athletic activity. And the other side being wellness, which is coming at it from a different cultural angle. And I struggle with the rise of the wellness culture. I think there's a lot of it that I think isn't well-researched, is slightly toxic, and it's not sustainable for people's balanced lifestyles. Whereas I feel like athletic performance is something that we can have good research in. It's goal-orientated, it's joy-orientated. People have groups around it. Yeah, but also you've got to adapt and evolve what you're doing to try and fit in with society as well. So taking little pieces of the wellness culture, whether that is the recovery, whether that is the breath work, whether that is some really wonderful facets, and actually injecting it into some of the active, more performance cultures.

Yeah, that's cool, that's a real good take.

What's balance mean to you? How do you balance such an active lifestyle, living in Byron, and then also your friends and family?

Do you know what? I'm actually probably not great at it, but I'm very much working on it. But something-- It's all right. It's just sort of come to me this year, is realising that balance to me

doesn't necessarily mean switching on and off. It means just being able to sort of cope moderately amongst every day. I feel like there's this real sense of you go hard and then you go soft, and it's sort of just trying to keep a medium amongst everything that life throws at you.

Is there anyone you think we should walk with next?

Elise Beacom. Elise is an incredible marathon runner, she is a journalist, she's been to so many different countries. She loves a beverage and she's great craic to chat to.

Oh, awesome, sounds like our kind of girl!