Let's start bluntly. What's the biggest mistake that
you see people making when they want to get faster?
I think with anything people think that there's simple fixes
to everything. You know that there's, you know,
like a, a quick, I don't know, you know, work out.
One work out is going to make a difference or what Nowadays it's
you know a drink or you know a you know a mixture is suddenly
going to make you better. Trainers.
Trainers are going to suddenly make you better.
You know, there's so many different elements to it.
I think that it's, you know, it's working out obviously in
terms of what is fast as well in terms of, you know what, you
know, are we talking about Sprint speed?
Are we talking about faster 5 Ki think it's working out?
You know what you're, you know, where you're trying to go.
And often people come to me and they want to run a faster 5K.
And then it's obviously looking at what they've done previously,
what they're currently doing, and then what we can build on
top of that. And then as I said, it's not
just going to happen next week. It's probably hopefully going to
happen maybe a couple of months down the line.
Is that how long it takes? Well, I think anything that
you're going to build, anything, you're going to like breakdown
as well, because sometimes you've got to work out what
someone's weaknesses are. Sometimes you've got to try
things and work out that either they're really good at them
already or, you know, they're not so good at them.
So it's going to take even longer.
But I think, yeah, yeah, lots of people want quick fixes these
days. And, you know, again, we've got
an Internet that's telling people that, you know, do this
and you're going to have this result straight away.
And that's why I actually love our sport, you know, of running
where it takes time, you know, it takes years often and it
takes real setbacks and trying and, and failing.
But then when you do hit it, when you do improve, then that's
when you know, that's when yourself as a coach, you get the
the nod. And when athletes, they get
that, that real sense of purpose themselves.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what do runners obsess about
in training that doesn't actually matter?
Well, it's funny, this almost going back to my last answer
about there's so many, you know, other things around at the
moment, so much noise about, you know, whether it's a a new drink
people are taking, whether she said trainers, you know,
mixtures and you know, so I think that there's there's so
much noise around lots of things that people kind of, you know,
hear everyone has a voice now, unbelievably, running is super
popular right now. The amount of races, the amount
of talk, the amount of influences, which is amazing for
someone, for me that's been in it for so many years when it
wasn't so popular. But it also means everyone has a
platform and it, there's so much confusion, it still comes down
to, for me, it still comes down to some of the real basics.
And training is obviously one of those and smart training and
training that's relevant for you specific to what you're trying
to do, but also in terms of the right amount of rest and
recovery. Because again, you know, more is
better to a certain point. But unless you get the right
amount of rest and recovery, then you're almost just training
for the sake of training as opposed to training to get
better. Yeah, I think that's often
missed quite a lot is the rest and recovery.
People just smash every day, seven days a week, wondering why
they're not progressing and it's just they're not resting,
they're not rebuilding, I guess 100.
Percent and listening to the body as well.
And and don't forget often you're hearing, you know, stuff
of people that are either full time runners or now you know,
they're you know, they're maybe, you know, lucky that they don't
work full time. If you're balancing a family,
balancing university life, balancing everything else that's
thrown in there. They're all stresses on the body
and that means you've got to be smart and give yourself a rest
day and these running streaks and not had a day off in X
amount. So if you need a rest day, take
a rest day and actually that work you've done that day, week,
month before you actually absorb it.
I always ask people who trains to get worse and if you put your
hand up then yeah, you're in the wrong game of any training.
We all train to get a bit better or as you get older, like me,
trying to sustain the the drop off of the ageing process.
But to really have that, you know, that magic of, you know,
impact of training, rest and recovery has to be on point.
Is there one particular area of training that you believe is
completely overrated? Now you've been running for
years. Is there something that you used
to wholeheartedly believe in, or you see other people believe in
that you've sort of learnt through experience that is
complete not wasted? Fine, but it's not as good as
everyone says. It's a really great question.
I don't think there's one thing that I can say that doesn't work
because everything in a, in a training program over, you know,
say like a month, three months, six months has its place.
It's almost the value that's put into it.
We're in a big kind of phase right now of volume and, and
double threshold training, which is basically training twice a
day and, but doing 2 kind of medium effort sessions.
As opposed to back in the day, we would do one and we would be,
you know, literally ripping each other over the last two
repetitions to get faster and faster and literally finish
lying on the floor. You know, with, you know, every
time you're almost trained, you're almost trained to, you
know, full Max exertion because in your mind, it's almost like,
well, if I didn't, I wasn't getting the most out of
training. And I think now we've learned a
little bit more control. And obviously if you control
something, you can do more of it.
If you can do more of it, you get more volume and obviously
more volume to a distance runner is magical.
But I think that the world has changed.
You know, running shoes now give us a lot more cushioning.
Back when I was, you know, probably at my peak, we would
get minimalist shoes where we were literally almost running on
our shin bones. And therefore, you know, I
remember doing my first ever half marathon, I think it was
like 2016 maybe when, you know, shoe technology hadn't ramped up
yet. And it took my legs days, if not
weeks to recover from 1/2 marathon.
I did the New York City Marathon about 18 months ago.
I woke up the next day and like, yeah, energy levels were
whacked, but legs felt great. And I was like, well, like, you
know, this is this is the kind of change we've had now.
So I've had to change my mindset as a coach to actually think
what forget what I used to feel like after training, what
athletes feel like now they can actually do more because the
technologies move with them. So yeah, so it's you've got to
be moving as a coach in terms of technology.
It's changing. Recovery processes are changing
and again, if you just stay in your mindset of what you did
when you were, you know, X age and running X times, then you're
you're drag people back 20 years, whereas things have
accelerated massively. So, yeah, so I think it's that
real effort to exertion. But, you know, probably when we
could talk about, you know, how do you get faster?
There's always still a time and place for those maximum efforts
as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I tried to avoid them at all costs, but where we are like,
yeah, they're horrible. Yeah.
So for people that don't know, give us a quick version.
How fast were you and who? Who are the type of people that
you're coaching now? Yeah.
So I mean, how fast was I? I mean, if my my career
highlight, I was fourth in the World Indoor Championships in
2004, I made Commonwealth and European finals.
I got within, if I put my hand out and look at my finger to
nails, that's how close I've got to go into Olympic Games as an
athlete myself. So, you know, I got, you know,
super close to probably achieving every goal that I ever
wanted to achieve, but I didn't quite get there.
I had Welsh records, I won British titles.
I was a very consistent athlete. I think I got what I got almost
to the top of 1 mountain and then when I got there, I
realised that there was another a whole set of mountains.
And and also the other thing is the mount people behind you.
It's like that picture of Everest, that line of people
behind you are the people that are waiting at your place and
knock you off the mountain that you're on.
Myself as a coach, I've kind of created the environment that I
didn't have probably when I was an athletics, I was self coach
myself. So I've kind of created an
environment that I would have hopefully loved and thrived.
And hopefully maybe you've made it to the Olympics, maybe made
it to the the top table. And so I've been lucky enough to
to coach athletes that have gone on to the Olympics, gone on to
the Paralympics, have won British titles themselves.
And that's given me far more kind of self satisfaction
because I knew what I could do and I knew my kind of potential
as an athlete. But passing that on and, and,
you know, making sure athletes, you know, realise their own
potential and also navigate the issues and problems that any
career, any athlete has. You have the highs, you have
the, the middle part, which is most of the time that you're
operating in. And then you also have these,
you know, extreme and, and really difficult lows.
And that's where as a coach that they're the times that you, I
think athletes need you most is when they are really struggling.
So I've been really lucky in my coaching career thus far that
I've been coaching 18 years now. I think I've coached, I think
it's 18 GB international. So I'm 1A year at the moment so
I need to keep that going. Have you got any famous names?
Any names that people would know?
Any sort of household names. So I mean, I've, I've looked
after, you know, Jake Hayward when he was younger, went on to
become an Olympic finalist, Steve Morris, who's superb
Paralympic. I know.
Steve Morris, Yeah. Yeah, is an absolute legend.
And just, you know, one of these athletes that, you know, was, it
was, you know, so fun to help and support, looked after Jake
Smith when, yeah, when he was coming through the ranks as
well. So, you know, the likes of
Charlotte Arter and, you know, Tom Marshall, Yai and Thomas
athletes have, you know, won, you know, British medals and
been to World Championships and Commonwealth Games.
Yeah. And it's, yeah.
As I said, it's, it's, I always feel like I'm very lucky to, to
help any athlete because they, they put their trust in you and
you, you help and support them to, you know, try and achieve.
And, you know, as a coach, that's, you know, that's it's a
real humbling thing when people, you know, trust what you, you
know, you know, you write programs to them and, and
support them. And then you hopefully see them,
you know, go and flourish on the track and hopefully then off the
track, a lot of them become coaches or, you know, really
nice people posts running as well.
So they're all really rounded individuals that yeah, that's
what I love seeing is them growing as people long after
their kind of peak careers have have finished.
Yeah, I I don't think you can deny that.
You've been in the game for years.
You've lived and breathed this and the passion is clear, the
way you talk about it on your face.
So no, no wonder these people are like excited to work with
you and stuff. They know that you've got the
experience and stuff like that. But I know you, I know you're
modest. I know you don't like to brag,
but can you tell me some of your PBS?
So PBS back in a day, so I was 337 zero for 5000 metres.
I wasn't that much slower indoors and indoors you meant to
be a little bit slower. So it's 338 sub 4 minute miles
indoors, outdoors on the road as well.
And you know, not a bad, not a bad 3000, but I like to tactical
race over 3000. Yeah, what's your, what would
you reckon your mile time is now?
Well, I've run the British Masters 45 record, not the
summer, just gone the summer for that and around 4:23.
So I'm, so I'm, I'm just about probably close to that right
now. I think I could run about 428
where I sit right now for the mile.
So, but I need to, I've got a couple more years.
So I hit the Master 50 category and the world records about
4:20. So I'm kind of keeping my powder
dry, making sure I stay in the game because I'd love to hold a
a Masters individual world record at some point.
Yeah, that'll be wicked. That'll be wicked.
So you obviously ran a 337 for the 1500 meters.
What does that level of speed teach you about what it really
takes to perform at that speed? Yeah, so it 1500 meters is just
109 meters shy of the mile. And so you are on your limit
pretty much for 3 1/2 minutes, you know, and it's 1 is where
you, there's something about it in terms of, you know when you
finish there's almost, you couldn't have given anything
more. You're on such a fine line of,
you know, one lap 1/2 a second too fast and your pace would
drop off drastically. You know, you go off half set
and too slow and you're not able to pick it up and get back to
where you want to be, you know, such, you know, small margins.
And but what I loved about 1500 meters was it was for me a right
balance of speed. You had to train at certain
points of the the year like a sprinter, but you also need it
at certain times to train like a marathon runner.
And so these kind of extremes, but having this big aerobic base
where I'd be running up to two hours and running over 100 miles
a week, but then trying to be sprinting close to me for 11
seconds for 100 meters and, you know, 23 seconds for 200 meters,
trying to balance those two. I love the complexity of it
because it wasn't just going out and running and it wasn't just
trap workouts and you had to try and have this right balance.
And so when you stepped on the start line, I remember thinking
at certain times in my career that the peak form I was in that
I could run on that any given day, a 400 metre personal best
or a 5000 metre personal best at that exact moment.
That's hard to have that balance.
You normally you'd have to be in one camp or the other.
But to be, you know, I say almost world class, you know, to
to be a world finalist that I was, you had to be in that that
kind of shape. I guess you you never get
comfortable in your training because when you get comfortable
at one, they're throwing you into something else with Sprint.
You got to mix it up. You got to mix it up and there
was always variety. And you obviously in the gym you
had to be conditioned. So there was a huge amount of
say circuit based training, but you also had to lift weights
that you know were far in excess, you know of, you know,
what the forces you had to generate.
And that's what I loved. I loved the fact that there was
such a mixture to it. And you know, actually some of
the things I loved actually love running the longer distance long
runs. And you know, I used to do it,
no headphones, used to do it solo, just go and run and just
kind of enjoy kind of just being out there.
But then I also absolutely love some of the speed work where you
were ramping it up and you could almost just feel the speed
soaking into your body. And I used to pride myself that
I could even tell you what time I ran for 200 or 300 or 400 to
like almost the 10th of a second just on feel.
I think that that kind of internal clock of the track you
because again go back to that pacing element that I talked
about that if you were not on the pace at any point in the
race that that could blow, you know, months of work, you know,
wide open. So you just get instinctive.
Is that a word? Is that a word?
Have to run to feel, run to feel and I, I try and promote that to
runners now. Our Welsh winter for the last
few months, a great example of that, that every time you went
and ran, you were so driven by your watch and your pace and
you're going out in windy, wet, horrible weather.
Sometimes you have to think about how it feels.
Does it feel that effort? You know, am I, am I feeling and
understanding what the effort for, you know, what I'm getting
out of it? Because ultimately when you
stand on the start line, you know, it's very few times or,
you know, in 1500 meters, you're not going to check your heart
rate at 800 meters and you think I need to slow down.
You're, you know, you have to have an internal clock.
And I think sometimes I think people are too prescribed,
people kind of rely too much on technology where we are amazing
bits of kit as human beings. The, you know, the ability that,
you know, for us to kind of like, you know, you know, heart
rate, our regulation of heat are, you know, kind of the the
way that we kind of move and, you know, function.
I just think that, yeah, sometimes we don't prioritise
listening to our bodies as much as kind of we do technology
because I think that kind of like just dilute sometimes are
kind of connection to effort and and what it feels like.
Yeah, and it's not always accurate.
It's not always accurate and how how much fun is it always being,
you know, a, you know, kind of a a kind of, you know, kind of
servant to your watch. I think sometimes it's nice, you
know, and to just go and feel a run and just, you know, just
enjoy it. But also just get an
understanding of that, you know, sometimes running with your
watch on, but look at the data after and then connect what you
felt with what the numbers say rather than just always being
told by your watch to speed up or slow down.
That's boring. Yeah, and your watch will tell
you whether you enjoyed that run or not as well, wouldn't it?
Did I enjoy that one? Yes, I did.
Yeah. It's funny, I know everyone here
hates adverts, but this one actually keeps the light on here
at Rockman, so bear with me. Rockman runs monthly online
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via the link down below. Now let's get back to the
episode. Let's let's find out how.
How do we get faster then how do we get faster?
If someone wants to get faster, what are they actually trying to
improve? Is it aerobic capacity?
Is it VO2 Max? Is it strength in the legs?
What what? What are you trying to achieve
with your training to get you going faster?
Well, I think the big one right now is, you know, millions of
people do park runs. So 5K's a very popular distance
and people will go there weekly after week and plateau they hit
the same time. And that questions asked a lot
of how do I run faster for 5K? And then it's almost like again,
going back to the, you know what, where do you come from,
you know, in terms of what your background is, but like, what
are you currently doing right now?
And often people are doing very kind of similar runs through the
week. There's very little variety.
And I kind of look at training in terms of at certain points
that you need to obviously train above your race distance and
that will make you faster as in, you know, your aerobic fitness.
So again, if you can run double the distance, so as a 5K run and
run 10K quite comfortably, that's going to serve you, you
know, really well for running a faster 5K.
Because if 5K is your limit and you're absolutely on your knees
distance wise at 5K, your limit, your ceiling becomes, you know,
very small. Whereas obviously if you can
build up that above distance fitness, that's really
important. Now you've obviously got, you
know, this goal pace you might have now at some point in your
training. Are you ever running at that
goal pace? And if it's a tough goal pace,
is it hard? And if it's hard, are you, is it
UN, you know, unachievable? If it's kind of you can we talk
about intervals and breaking down the distance.
And one of the classics for 5K might be 5 * 1 kilometre with
2-3 minutes of rest where you're trying to run at that goal pace
or maybe even a smidgen and just inside it that if you can't do
that, then there's there's very little chance you're going to
add it all together with no recovery and run faster.
But if you start programming in the body to run at that pace,
then it becomes, you know, mentally more achievable
physically, your body starts to understand it.
You know, that that's a nice one.
But then the other one that people don't always do is
actually run quicker, actually run quicker than that goal pace
and goes back to speed is beneficial to everyone.
And, and, but that could be something really simple, like
some strides after your easy run where you're just going and
running for 15 seconds a little bit faster.
You're taking say like 45 seconds to a minute rest of the
cover and you're just programming in the body to run a
little bit faster. And that could also be taken to
be used as some short hills as well.
Hills are kind of speed work for free resistance, you know, where
where you're, you don't have to go to a gym where you have to
work a little bit harder to obviously cover the same
distance. And again, that doesn't have to
be, you know, doesn't have to be a long hill, could be 15 to 30
seconds of a hill. And again, you're trying to run
a bit faster. You're obviously, you know, the
resistance is there. And again, it just builds up the
the bodies kind of running economy in terms of your ability
to work at a certain pace for less effort and that again, for
everyone who wouldn't want that? Who wouldn't want to run quicker
for less effort? So again, looking at people's
training and thinking, are you running over?
Are you running out? And are you sometimes running
under your race pace? And all those such a you know,
kind of lovely blend that you get this this variety of
training rather than if you just do one thing, if you just try
and do always long or as some people do, always just one
paced, easy recovery. If you never kind of test and
challenge your. Parameters there's definitely a
time in a week for going out and just running easy and just
switching on, whether it's your headphones or switching off like
I do and not have any music, but kind of, you know, listen to
your, your kind of self for the week and you might process what
you've been doing and, and what you've done that day.
But I think if you look at your training as a kind of variety in
the mix, but also sometimes think that if you're going to
try and get faster, I think I said at the very beginning that
you're not one session won't make you faster.
It probably takes you maybe 4 to 6 to 8 weeks for the body to
absorb that work. And so it's almost, you know,
look at getting faster in do the work now to get faster.
But actually the end goal and the the kind of fruits of your
work is probably further down the line and, and look forward
to that. That's a nice reward to have.
How would that look like? Would it would it look like a
nice even slope upwards in terms of your pacing?
Or would it be a bit more like a hockey stick?
And it would, you know, it would take those weeks of graft and
then you'll see, as you say, it absorbs and you see the
benefits. Go for a stepped approach where
and again it comes back to you know more isn't better.
You know if you're increasing your longest run, you can't just
keep increasing it over and over again.
Tend to go for maybe a two or three-week increase or you, you
reach a period where you're, you know what you might call your,
you know, your peak mileage or your most you've done recently
or, you know, peak volume. And then you have a week or a
few days where you come down off the training and it goes back to
that rest and recovery where you want to overload the body and
then you want to absorb and rest and recovery.
And often people are smart. They think maybe that it could
be that they've got a busy period at home or work or
they've got, you know, a, a race that they're going to down for
as well. That's not their goal race, but
they're still going to have an easier week into that.
Because again, if you're trying to stack week after week, I
remember doing it at university and learning the hard way where
I got to 80 miles a week and I thought I'm going to do it for
another week. I did two weeks.
I felt pretty good. I thought I'm going to do it for
a third week. So third week felt quite good.
Still 4th week I was starting to feel like, but I had this 80
miles. So I was literally certain times
adding on runs. I was missing recovery days to
add a run on because in my head it was like, right, let's do the
5th week of 80 miles. And I was already starting to
come off in terms of not feeling great week 6 again, it was, you
know, and then I'm thinking I'm losing fitness because I'm not
as fit as I was in week 3. I, I need to do more.
So I upped it a little bit to 85 miles a week for week 7 and 8.
And by week eight, I was, I think maybe even injured or
tired or I definitely needed week 9 off.
But it was a lesson that, you know, you have to be really
smart, that you can't just stay at one block for a long period
of time. You have to differentiate and
you have to have recovery weeks and easier weeks.
And once I learnt that, that you have a couple of weeks of good
work, you absorb it and then you go again.
The, the, the, the success is so much easier in terms of your
adaption to training. So yeah, don't, don't, don't do
the same mistakes, no. I guess it's our fear, isn't it?
You, you, you fear that I'm going to lose fitness if I don't
go out there and do that session and stuff like that.
So it's it makes you get out the door and do more than you
should. It does.
Well, everything makes you think that more is better.
The more or the more weeks I can do, the more long runs I can do.
And you know, I think someone wants to subscribe to me.
Training's like a one of those big buckets where you train it,
you're filling it with water, but there comes a point where
you even if you're pouring water into it, it's full up and then
everything after that just becomes a waste.
And obviously if you keep filling that up and it could
explode and you get nothing out of it, whereas you've got to
pour it in gradually. Yeah.
Because otherwise you just, you dilute yourself and, and
obviously you end up not enjoying training as much.
You don't look forward to training.
Injuries and illness are just around the corner.
And that's my job as a coach is to try and avoid that and and
for people to progress. But everyone that ever wanted to
succeed wants to do more and it's just trying to hold people
back. And that's something what a
coach does is just and I didn't have a coach at that point.
I was my own coach. And you can't see it from inside
a bubble that you just can't take that collective step back
and go changing it. Stop or next week's a 60 mile
week. Who kept where's this 80 miles
come from? And I'd have gone well, it's
come from me. Like it was like, because just a
made-up that was an arbitrary number.
And you know, which again, we get caught up with certain
numbers and, and things we look at, you know, so I think it's
just taking that step back. I think that's why it's so
important. If you've got a voice, you've
got someone that can just say, why are you doing that?
Is that making you better? Because if it's not making you
better, then why are you doing it?
Yeah, exactly. So if I want if I want to get
faster now, what does a well balanced week of training look
like? I mean, if you're looking at
there's no one magic week, that's probably the most
important thing that I think, again, going back to the
Internet, going back to what we see, people are very good at
putting up their golden week and we look at that in isolation.
Think that's a great week. I'll mimic that.
But what you don't see behind that is maybe the six weeks
before that, that could have been purely based training.
It could have been weeks of conditioning work that, you
know, the work that they're doing, not just running that
they're doing in the gym, you know, whether that's circuits,
whether that is, you know, like gym work, you know, whether
they've really progressed to that point.
But also as it goes back to, you know, what you've done
previously in terms of some people have had a real
background previously. They may have had a few weeks
off or months or years off, but they've got a bit of background.
Other people, they're starting from scratch.
I, I think you've got to be really smart that you that you
have right in your training. I do think that any endurance
event that you're looking to get faster in that you need a good
base. Aerobic bases are fundamental,
but I also come back to the the conditioning.
Are you conditioned for what you're going to ask your body to
do? For me, that could be, yeah,
simple circuit exercises at home or just building up very
gradually. And don't forget that kind of
mix of, you know, longer runs, longer repetitions, repetitions
at, you know, race pace and below, but not, you know, not
all at the same time. Having a variety in there
because you know, it takes a bit of time body absorb, but there's
no one magic fit. Every athlete that I look after
is slightly different. You know, said some might be
speed orientated. You know, they've naturally you
give them something quick and they it comes to them naturally.
Other people the complete opposite.
They are aerobic or you know, we call them, you know, kind of you
know, the kind of animals that kind of like, you know, aerobic
bases, you know, they can literally run all day, but they
find it very hard to run anything faster than than you
know, the easy pace. So it's kind of they're getting
people out their comfort zone. So I think you've got to know
what you're trying to do in terms of where you're going, and
then you've got to kind of work kind of backwards from it in
terms of how long you have and then that smart kind of blend of
training. So yeah, that the politicians
answer. There is there's no magic
answer. But I think that it's, again, it
comes down to variety and it comes down to almost, yeah, what
you've done previously that you have to then kind of complement
your strengths, but then also then work on those weaknesses.
The ultimately what you're trying to do in terms of if
you've got a pace in mind, again, lots of people have pace
in mind, especially whether it's a marathon or half marathon is
how realistic is that to what you're doing in training?
Because are you ever running at that pace to know that that is
realistic? So I think that's that's part of
it. And if it's not, how can you
break it down to make that manageable?
Right. OK.
I'm going to try and get some specifics out of you now.
That was a very good political so right.
So I'm going to give you a scenario.
Give me a scenario, yeah. Let's look at me.
I my fastest 5K is probably about 25 minutes at the moment.
I've got 10 weeks to get ready and I want to hit.
I want, I just want to get faster.
I just want to get to 2322 minutes, whatever it is.
How would you? I'm a regular runner, but it's
just a lot of sort of regular jogs.
It's not really speed work and stuff.
How would you break that 10 weeks down?
Would you break that into blocks of sort of three-week
concentrations? We're going to build base now.
We're going to work on speed. And then within each of those
blocks, what are you getting me to do?
So I mean, you've got, you've got 10 weeks.
So you've got an ability to, you know, kind of not rush things.
You know, first thing would be like, you know, what's your
longest run right now, where you're at in terms of your
longest run in relation to your 5K?
What is it, Terry? What are you?
Running longest, probably about 5-6 miles.
OK. OK.
Yeah. So you're getting up to 5-6
miles. So you would want in that 10
weeks not, you know, consistently just build every
week, but you'd want to get over 10 kilometres where that became
more manageable, more consistent as well.
So it becomes something that you know that you're building
towards that long run. And again, back to that stepped
approach where you might, we might build up two weeks and
then, you know, then we might step it down and build it up for
another two weeks. Whereas you can start to see
them already on week 5 or 6, having just built up your long
run. And then obviously you know,
you're, you're getting hopefully to a point where you may be
running even more than your, your, your 6 miles, maybe we
built you up to 7, even 8 miles. So you've never been fitter
hopefully in terms of your aerobic long run that's easily
achievable in in 10 weeks and where you're starting.
That's a nice start point, which would be a a good kind of base
for building then to be able to run a faster 5 Ki think people
get caught up sometimes and say you're wanting to run 23 minutes
that your first say like sessions in earlier on in the
have to be at 23 minutes. You have to be really realistic
about where you're at right now. And that's going back to that
feel of, you know, the kind of like if you are, if that feels
like 5K effort, then that's the time where you're at right now.
But it's kind of like building upon it in terms of, you know,
and if you are kind of getting more efficient at running
kilometres towards 5 minutes, then I would like to think that
that would over a couple of weeks start to get easy and you
might the, the pace would start to drop.
If for some people that that's unmanageable, then you can even
cut it in half. So you could do shorter
repetitions, but try and run. If you know that 23 minutes, you
know, is something that is achievable, then running, you
know, half that distance, whether it's 500 meters at that
23 minute pace. And you can break down
intervals. You know, there's fart lex,
which is, you know, you're moving in between, there's
different distances you can run. There's so many different
elements to it. So and again, that can start
that can start early on in the programme, but it's also with
the build that, you know, you kind of like progressively,
hopefully then going to get slightly quicker as the the
programme goes on. You know, within that as well,
you know, you kind of got this ability to, you know, build up
your your threshold. So again, it's really controlled
work, you know, where you are, you know, kind of building this
kind of, you know, like threshold, like, you know,
trying to push your, your envelope up and where you're,
you're, you're, it's uncomfortable, but you can
maintain it for, you know, a duration of time.
So you know which people don't always like it's, it's
uncomfortable and you've got a tremble in their back there.
They're great for setting, you know, whether that would be your
kind of marathon feel, if you have any idea what your marathon
kind of pace or your half marathon pace and running, you
know, longer repetitions or a number of repetitions at that.
And again, if you know, if I said go and do you know, 10 * 3
minutes at marathon pace off one minute, if you think actually
that that shouldn't be impossible if you, you know,
marathon time would be, I don't know, in three hours excess.
So you should be able to do that for 30 minutes. 4 hours success.
4 hours, but but you should be able to do that, but it won't be
easy. No, but it won't leave you lying
on the floor in a pool of your own sweat thinking, I don't know
what I can do tomorrow. But what it will is it will
build your aerobic base as well. Again, that volume.
So you know, again, you can compliment it really nicely in
that time where you can, you know, push up, push up your
threshold, push up your long run.
It's not a linear line that will just go up in terms of 10 weeks.
You just increase everything. You probably get to a certain
lifestyle point as well in terms of frequency of how many times
you run a week. You know, people have a limit,
you know, because of other things they're doing, whether
it's, you know, whether it's previous injuries, whether it's
their life balance, they just don't have time to run X amount
and that's fine as well. You know, you might be 4 times a
week, might be 3 times a week. And therefore that then dictates
how much you can do in those sessions.
And you have to start prioritising the actually that
long run is a priority, the one interval sessions of priority.
And it might be if it's three times a week, then the easy run
is the other priority. If it's four, then magic, we can
put in the threshold session as well.
And you can see now where you've got a bit of a blend, the week
starts to change a bit of variety in the training as you
build through two weeks easy week, two weeks easy week.
You know, you're looking probably at, you know, maybe,
you know, six weeks of really good training in there with
three weeks of kind of down recovery, more kind of, you
know, kind of absorb the work. And then you're in the race
week, Terry, where where you've got to do it.
So yeah. And I think that that and you
could also, you know, simulate and, and do something where you
break the race down and, you know, kind of get a feel for it
before. But yeah, so I think that key is
variety. He is thinking about those
components you can challenge and train.
But yeah, I think in, you know, when if someone trying to run 23
minutes, you wouldn't necessarily need to be like,
right, I need to be this just exclusive block.
I think that's a nice thing with 5K.
It's an event that you do need to spin the legs a bit, but you
also need an aerobic base as well and a ten week plan.
It's almost ideal for a blend of everything within there.
And so I see what you say, you blend it all.
It's sort of like you've got to get your distance in, you've got
to get your maybe sort of race pace.
Would you call that the threshold and then you push in
the envelope sessions? Threshold's going to be slower.
That's going to be slower. It's quicker than your long, but
it's not as quick as your race pace and then you've got work at
your race pace that and that's almost the one to kind of
develop over that 10 weeks is the how long you can run at it
for less recovery. So you might have in the
beginning, you might have shorter repetitions for longer
recovery. And then what you're doing is
you're then reducing the recovery and increasing the
repetitions so that you're bridging the gap between.
There's no resting races. Say that's people great.
You can be the world's greatest interval trainer, but come race
day, no one stops the race and says, right, everyone have a
minute rest. We'll go again in a minute.
It's continuous, you know, and 5K, you know, chatting to
someone the other day that 5K is one of the hardest events.
It's disgusting. I think that's even like the
terminology that someone's used that it's really hard.
If you run a, you know, and you hit a 5K properly, it can really
hurt you. And therefore your training at
some point has to replicate that.
But also said it moves your parameters on in terms of your
distance. And, and I said running a little
bit faster sometimes makes you, they're more economical when you
go back to running at 5K pace. Because again, talk about
parameters. If you know 5K is your longest
run and that's all you ever run is 5K, your parameter is 5K.
Whereas obviously if you're running 10K or 12 or 13 K, 5K
becomes a bit of a shorter run. If you're never ever running
faster than your goal 5K pace, your parameter is that is fast.
That's that's what I class as fast as you're sometimes running
faster, that's fast. You're you, it's about change
your parameters. So if you know you can run
faster, even instead going back to that 15 second stride, then
the body goes actually 5K paces fast.
But it's not as fast as I can run and it's definitely not as
long as I can run as well. And so it's just again, playing
that, that balance between the physical element of things, but
also the mind element that you want to know that you can
maintain it, as you said, with that disgusting feeling at 4K,
you know, if you're out there in that park run and you're at 4K,
that's when the body's saying, oh, come on, slow down, slow
down. And if you're going to hit that
goal pace, it's probably where you, well, definitely it's where
you've got to even maintain it or sometimes even pick it up.
And it goes against everything your body's telling you.
Legs are screaming, mind's telling you this is horrible.
Easily back off, easily slow down.
But yeah, that's where the training then you're like, no,
do you know what I know I can maintain this, I know this
feeling and I can get this done. And that that's what it is.
Your, your training should be paid for racing or running, you
know, running the faster you know, faster 5K you know, and
hopefully you enjoy the process and you enjoy you enjoy the end
product of it. Yeah, it's that train hard, play
easy. That's what they say, isn't it?
Yeah. So it's like, yeah, convincing
your your body that this is easy, this the 5K is easy if
you're training harder. And I like that it's just
because you, you do, you do. You did avoid giving specifics,
but it's because it's you've got to find out where you're at.
And then you just build week on week.
You're not looking at going in week one, right?
Let's bloody blitz it. Let's run the bloody 5K at that
time. And it's just building week on
week on week. And to to get you to that faster
point, Right? Yeah.
So, and also everyone say, for example, someone comes to you
and they're already running 13 kilometres or or 16 or 20
kilometres, they're long run, then that's not the component,
that's the component you you maintain.
But that wouldn't be then the focus, right?
OK, if they've one of them faster, what's the other
elements that need more focus? So, you know, and again, if
someone, you know, somebody's running all their work at race
base, great. But it's like, are they doing
enough around above or below, you know?
So I think if that's it's working out, the little tweaks,
everyone's slightly different, everyone's got a different,
slightly different background of, you know, where they've come
from, what they've done, other sports they've done.
And again, yeah, it's almost like, and also what the timeline
is as well. You know, some people want PB in
five weeks. Some people are realistic.
It's like 5 months. And yeah.
And it, yeah, definitely the latter is the easier one.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what are your thoughts on
heart rate training? Is this something that you
prescribe to? Is this something that you get
you yourself, your athletes to to do?
So what is heart rate training? How does it work?
Well, heart rate training is obviously, you know, taking away
the guesstimate. I know I'm an advocate for Run
to feel, but I think heart rate training is, you know, the heart
rate we've got. You know, I've got a watch on
that has load of data, loads of stats, creates the zones for for
me without me even putting my own data into it.
You can go and get, you know, properly tested on a treadmill,
you know, and it's a bit like, you know, taking your car to be
MO TD. You know, they give you then
your bespoke heart rates for paces and that you know, takes
away the guesstimate. You know, watch is obviously
based on everyone's data, it can be slightly inaccurate at
certain times. I think for me, watches are
really good and and heart rates are really good.
If people have been tested for going back to those thresholds
where a certain heart rate, if you go above that, you're
working too hard and there's obviously, you know, a couple of
different threshold zones. You know which threshold you're
hitting and you know that almost what you're putting into that
training session is going to be far more beneficial in terms
it's not guess them at work on that.
I think that heart rates are pretty good for every runner for
making sure you run easy and you are running recovery.
Because again, some people will kid themselves.
They're like, I feel easy. I feel easy, you know?
And they're red in the face and they can't speak and they're
slowing down and you're like. That's not easy.
That's not rest of recovery pace.
Whereas your heart rate, you should have some data or create
some data yourself that you know what an easy run is.
I know myself when I'm out for an easy run, I look at my heart
rate and I know if I'm recovering that it's under 140
beats for me. I know if I'm really recovered
and I've absolutely nailed it, can be even under 120 beats.
I know if I've had a few late nights, I've had a really busy
period at work. I've over trained a little bit
and it's telling me one 5160 that I need to be a bit smart, I
need to ease down in the run, but also I need to be careful
then for the rest of the day, rest of the next couple of days.
So heart rate, even when you're not training is really useful.
Your resting heart rate is a really good indicator that
you're sleeping, fuelling, hydrating and actually you're
ready to train and or you're just fighting something off as
well. I don't think we use our resting
heart rates enough. Going back to our bodies are
amazing bits of kit that we almost take for granted.
Everyone has a resting heart rate and it's also a missive.
I think it's a missive if it's not to to appreciate what it is.
You know, if you said to someone, what's your resting
heart rate, most people would be like, I have no idea.
Runners with watches and people, you would probably have an idea
because your watch does if you automatically, but I, I think
that's almost like, you know, you're that that's your, you're
plugging into the mains to see what your your battery like an
electric car in. If you get an electric car, you
look at what the percentage is. If you've been driving it for a
few days, If you looked at your battery, that's your heart rate
in the morning for when you run. Yeah, well, you get it on on the
Garmin. It's got the body battery.
I can see how much I've reached. Out, but you also know, don't
you? When you're tired and run down
that it, if it's higher and if it's, if it's, you know, higher
than it should be, it's a pretty good indicator normally that
you've overcooked it either training or in life and that
you've probably got to back off that it's, it's probably
unsustainable if it's, if it's starting to spike.
But also, you have a really nice kind of feeling when you know
you're fit and you've got a nice balance of training.
You look at your rest and heart rate.
I think mine was 34 Once Upon a time.
They have to check you're still breathing every now and then.
Well. I just remember it was just that
and that was you know, so I was like, yeah, and, and my, my Max
heart rate was over 200 beats. So again, going back to those
parameters of, you know, I could get over 200 beats and my
resting heart rate was 34. So, you know, I was SAT, you
know, with a nice range. So yeah.
So I think it's fun, fun, fun if you understand it.
Don't become too obsessed all the time because again, when you
step on a race line, most of the time you might look at your
heart rate. Distance runners now for like
marathon, half marathon will a little bit, but if you're doing
like a 5K, it's very, very often you won't have time to look at
your watch and your heart rate you've.
Got time to breathe? Yeah, you're trying to get air
on board and making sure you don't run into the person in
front of you. Yeah.
I wonder if you can give me a quick, because obviously when
you do your heart rate, it splits it into 4-5, maybe 6
zones, depends on what, which one you're looking at.
Yeah. What's the importance of those
zones? What?
What do they represent? They represent how hard you're
training, obviously represent the zone you're trying to train.
And obviously, you know, there's, you know, times of, you
know, training plans that certain zones, obviously as you
go up in numbers, they're harder, you know, and obviously
you don't want to be spending all your, all your work, You
know, if you're running Max all the time, that's a massive red
flag. A lot of people, you know, we'd
go back to that volume. We'll spend a lot of time now in
zones one and two, probably heard a lot about zone 2
training as everyone has very popular.
And that's because it's, it's volume, it's sustainable volume
that you can maintain and keep going and build.
And again, yeah, it gives you an idea that you are not.
Previously, sometimes people train too much in the middle
where it was, it was almost too steady running.
It was, it wasn't hard and it wasn't easy and basically just
diluted themselves. So they basically would never
really effectively getting the most out of themselves.
It was, you know, it was, it was steady training and it's steady
training has no real extremes in terms of longer or faster or at
race pace. And therefore people were just
doing a lot of kind of almost, we used to call them jump miles
where just wasn't effective. So again, prioritising and you
know, you know, putting it into those key, you know, bands means
that this X is at this amount. Even if you're feeling good in
this long run, I'm not suddenly going to like like ramp it up
the last few miles. I stay controlled, but also then
sometimes I need to be, I do need to challenge myself.
You know when, you know, when I'm racing, I've got to be in a
higher zone. So if I don't spend time at that
zone then I'm I'm pretty much done for.
That's that's the biggest benefit I actually find with the
heart rate on my watch is that when I'm running a race, I can
look at my heart rate and I almost know how long I can
maintain that heart rate. So I'm going too fast.
I know I need to bring it back down, otherwise I'm just going
to blow up. I want to talk about marginal
gains. You're the professional, you're
the coach. Now we talked about just general
training, but you, you must know some little marginal one things
that are going to push the 1%. What small percentage gains are
actually worth chasing? Is it like is it your running
gate or? Marginal gains are really simple
for everyone. And I think even if you're a
runner sports person, non runner sleep is the biggest marginal
gain you can get. And I, I'm as guilty as anyone
that I don't get enough sleep even driving here.
I was actually thinking I need to start prioritising sleep
because my, my new watch I got on Christmas tells me even more
data than I want to know about my sleep pattern.
And it's not great. And I know that, you know, back
in the day when I was an elite athlete, I was sleeping probably
11 hours a night and I was also napping 2 hours in the afternoon
as well. So I was probably sleeping for
13 hours. I reckon there's been some weeks
with busy lifestyle over the last few years where I maybe
slept 13 hours in a week, maybe maybe a bit of an extreme, but
13 good hours, you know, because it can be a bit kind of mix and
match. And so you kind of like that,
you know, that was such a key kind of performance enhancer
because you recover, you're more alert, you can do more training.
And we can all do it if we kind of, well, hopefully sometimes
prioritise it. But I also know how it's very
easy to sit and watch Netflix late into the evening and burn
into that time because you feel like you need some time to
yourself and then you're back up early in the morning and you're
not getting, you're getting six hours sleep and that's not
enough. I think again, in terms of
marginal gains, refuelling pre, during and after training, it's
just such important, you know, kind of factors and, and
obviously the right feel at the right time for the right event,
that or specific activity you're doing is so important.
And the same with that hydrating as well.
You know, being hydrated during the day just is so important.
Again, it's one we really easy forget and during training as
well, I, I constantly not shout my athletes that's wrong, but
they know I will be. I will look at them
disapprovingly and say like have a drink of your drink within the
recovery. I've got one.
And there's a few guilty, guilty athletes in there that they know
and they apologise and they know next time because again, it's so
important you rehydrate, you know, during the training
session and then after as well. They are such important easy
wins for anything you're trying to build.
And then, yeah, you know, going back to, you know, what else you
could be doing. You know, there's, they're
probably for me, the, the real drivers, other marginal gains.
I don't know whether there's, you know, any real kind of
magic. As I said, there's, there's so
many things out there right now. Do they make a massive
difference whether that's the said the drinks, the the the
potions, the the, the different stuff out there that are kind of
like added on value? I think to certain times they do
help for some people, but I think they all might even be a
psychosomatic, you know, take, take this, you know, kind of
mixture before and I'm I'm going to run, I'm going to run APB,
almost forgetting the great block of training they've done,
you know, the fact they periodised into that race and
they're, you know, ready, ready and rested to go.
They think a drink they took two hours before was the difference
between that and the PB. If it helps them then yeah.
Then as a coach I'm like, yeah, take it.
Marginal gains. I suppose it works in.
That in that respect even. As long as it's uninformed
tested, you know, batch listed. I am, I am, yeah.
Get involved with that. So, but yeah, I I think that the
the ones, the control, the controllables, I think you know
that they're the biggest kind of marginal gains.
And, and the other one is just that the marginal gains of, you
know, up here and, and how important our minds are to us,
you know, and how we, we often, you know, we're our worst
critics a lot of the time, you know, training at any level, you
know, for anything that's hard, you know, therefore, you know,
you and you're going to go through dips in motivation, you
know, and you're going to go through dips in kind of like,
you know, the, the kind of, you know, training cycle.
But it's kind of, I think it's working through that.
And the marginal gains of building your mindset up is, is
often, you know, totally forgotten about or not given
the, the right amount of kind of support.
So I think that for us as a coach also is like getting
people to think about their mindset and their resiliency to
setbacks. Because again, that that you
know that if you can deal with things that come at you, then
you know, marginal gains wise, you know, it doesn't matter if
you're in the best shape of your life, if you can't cope with and
something goes wrong, then everything goes out the window.
Yeah, I suppose it goes back to the training program that you
were on about. It's, it's this stepped
approach, it's this building that's going to give you
confidence, these little wins over time and that build your
confidence to race day as well and help the mindset and stuff.
100%, yeah. That's, yeah, hopefully goes
hand in hand as well. But yeah, I think it's just
being realistic, you know, and also kind of like good
communication. You know, if you have a coach,
then that coach athlete relationship's really important,
yeah. I put questions on it because I
was wondering there must be like is there anything to do with how
you run your gait? Is there anything like anything
instantly that you can do that will shave a second or two now
off my time I. Suppose it's not marginal gains,
but I think for me, running economy is an absolute
fundamental, you know, say goes back to, you know, the effort
you're running. If you can run faster for less
effort, that's, you know, that that's the the Holy Grail of,
you know, distance running as a coach and therefore, you know,
thinking about what your running economy is.
So thinking about whether that's your form and technique, you
know, with a treadmill, you can set up a video with your, your,
you know, your camera phone and you can record yourself from
behind, from the side, from in front and look at yourself
running in a closed environment. And then thinking about, you
know, what your foot strikes doing, Thinking about, you know
what your knees are doing, what your hips are doing.
You know from the side, looking at, you know where your, you
know, centre of mass is. You know, from the back, looking
at your, you know, your shoulder, your oscillation, you
know how you're moving on the treadmill.
And then it would be thinking about prioritising, you know,
what is a cause and effect, you know, as in, you know, what
would then make me a faster runner?
You know, and actually, can you tweak those, whether that's
strength, whether that's, you know, work in the gym.
And that doesn't have to be with weights.
It can be just general conditioning with your own body
weight because if you can't control your own body weight,
then you shouldn't be lifting weights.
But again, if you know, and running 2-3 times your body
weight hitting the ground with force each time.
So again, that's and also what you're doing at the end, going
back to the treadmill video, maybe do it at the end of a long
run to drum on the treadmill after your long run, not when
you're super fresh because we can all look superb, you know,
fresh out the box, you know, do it at the end of a long run when
you're, you know, you felt fatigued, you felt tired because
you're going to get a better representation of what you look
like when you're at your kind of most vulnerable running wise or
your worst, your weakest. Because we all watch people run
a half marathon. We cheer them off.
They all look great, don't they? We watch everyone coming back in
their home straight. It's a different runner coming
down the home straight. So have a look at yourself under
stress because that's often where you start to see, you
know, things start to buckle. You, you, you see, you know,
the, the little hole in the bucket, that's where the water's
starting to come through. And therefore then what's it
look like? What can you influence is that
the gym is that exercises are they drills You can do walking
drills and then you know, going back to I love hills for running
mechanics because to get up a hill, you've got to run up a
hill. It says, you know, you don't
fall up a hill. You know that you have to pull
yourself up the hill. Therefore, you know, exaggerate
your knee, lift your knee drive you exaggerate your arm drive.
Also, that resistance means that when you go to a flat, then
actually flattening suddenly feels a bit easier.
So I think short hills are a really effective way of
improving your running economy, improving your ground contact
time as well. And that could be something.
So it's super simple, like 6 * 20 seconds of a hill with a walk
recovery. And then I was like, people to
go and run after and you might go and run for a few kilometres
after almost to calibrate. So you've run a bit faster on a
hill, you've got resistance and you go and run on the flat at a
slower pace. And it's almost like again,
going back to those parameters, the body goes, I know it's like
to be running fast under resistance and then you bring it
back to slower. And actually it's almost like
again, kind of this calibration of thinking about your good
form, thinking about whatever you saw on the treadmill that
you need to be thinking about whether that's we all sit down,
that we all slouch all day. Most of the time because we're
sat on computers, we're driving, very few of us sit with a nice
good posture. So it might be that they said it
might be your arm carriage, but what's that focus?
And when you go and run that you know that nice bit of controlled
running, what's your what are you thinking about form wise?
And then like anything, go and recheck it.
Go and watch yourself again in a few weeks time after doing the
drills, after doing the exercise, after doing some
hills, are you then starting to see a difference in your
technique? But then hopefully the keys
always, are you them running faster for less effort.
And that might be going back to your heart rate that you're
going out for your easy run. You're certainly running 5
seconds faster kilometre for your easy run and your heart
rate's 5 beats lower. You'd be like how how has this
happened? Training has happened.
And again, you know, you you've you've looked at what your
weaknesses are, you've addressed them.
You've done, you know, lots of different components.
But then yeah, you're not expecting it also to happen.
Just the next session. It might be two weeks, it might
be 3, 8 weeks, but go back and recheck and yeah, I think people
will be pleasantly surprised if they did that because a lot of
people just don't learn to run. A lot of people just go run.
In terms of technique, people don't actually ever really often
work in it. If you, I say to people, if
you're a pole vaulter or a sprinter, that's all you do is
technique. You go down, you know you're not
going to have a pole vaulter, so it's just going to go down and
you're not going to have 100 pole vaulter.
It's just all bombing in at once, not thinking about
technique. It would all be about technique
first. Whereas runners, we get everyone
just running and it's almost like we've forgotten often to
actually learn how to run more efficiently because we we've all
just ran at some points in our lives.
So I think, yeah, running technique and running form and,
and working on weaknesses. It's becoming a little bit more
kind of more mainstream, but there's still a lot of people
out there that never really thought about it.
And I said you don't, you don't have to energy tremble yourself.
Go down local gym and, and you know, capture yourself.
It's very easy to do. It's all there.
You were talking about improving over time as well.
Is that one of the best features on Strava that I love is the
it's tells you when you've done the same run and then it'll show
you side by side. That's a great way.
So every like 4 weeks I like to do one of the same runs that I
did 4 weeks ago and that you get a direct comparison then.
Like I love that bit. Yeah, so I like that function on
Strava too, but for almost a slightly different reason.
But if I'm out for a run, I feel absolutely awful and I get back,
I'm like, that must be the slowest run it in.
And then I look at that function, it tells me the year
ago I ran the same time. It reassures me actually that
I'm not running as badly as I thought I was.
So yeah, I think that little bit of data about, yeah, previous
runs and loops, yeah, I think it's beneficial.
It's awesome if someones listening now and they wanna get
faster, Yeah, what's the first thing they should do?
First thing, you've got to be realistic to where you're at,
OK, So if you're getting faster and said going back to that,
what is faster for you? What is the distance you're
trying to get faster at? How long have you got?
Is it a realistic timeline? And then it's like right, then
it's going back to those ingredients of what am I doing
right now? What do I need to increase add
between now And obviously, you know, trying to get faster
within that, you know, whether that's running longer, whether
that's running that race pace, whether that's running below,
that's challenging yourself, that's mixing up probably what
you've done, doing the same thing you've done previously and
expecting the same result. It is, it is.
We often do that and think why are we not getting faster?
I did the same training sessions and the same block that I did.
But yeah, so mix it up variety wise.
But again, I think people often get, you know, the the fastest X
or fastest that, you know, fastest relative to you.
So, you know, if you can improve your own times, that's fast and
your speed is relevant to you and relative to you in terms of
what you class as speed. And that's a great thing with
our sport. You're only really racing
yourself and your own previous times.
And I'm in a position now where I will never run a 5K personal
best in my lifetime again because age says I and I won't
because I know what I was doing when I did run my personal best.
So for me, I'm fighting old father time to try and decrease
how slow I run per year. So my, my mindset now is
training to, you know, make sure that I maintain a level, but
accepting that I'm going to lose a few seconds.
But again, the relative kind of mindset is that, did it feel
like a hard 5K? Did I feel like I ran it, you
know, from start to finish as well as I could?
And that's the time that I ran XH.
So next year I want to make sure I can get as close to that
percentage or that time again. Yeah, this your own bloody
fault, James, because you're so bloody fast back when in the
Wow, if only you were slower, you might be.
You could sleep. Yeah, I'll go to I'll go to a
new event. I did run a marathon PB in New
York because I'd only ran a few marathons.
So. So you're.
Still getting PBS if you just got to change your folk.
You got to change your event, yeah, And go up distance.
So yeah. James, where can people follow
you? And you've got a podcast as
well, so plug that. I do, yeah.
I'm part of the Beyond the Track podcast, myself and Jenny Long
for, yeah, talking about everything in Wales and and
beyond in terms of some topical news items, track and field,
cross country, Rd. So yeah, so it's super exciting.
I'm at Team 3 coach on on Instagram so I'll coach at team
dot. I can't remember coach team thi
can't remember. Google it.
Just Google it. I'm on, I'm on Instagram
somewhere. I think it's coach Team Thi, I
think yeah. And then yeah, then I've got ATV
circuit. So going back to conditioning, I
started a circuit during lockdown and Team 3 circuits on
YouTube. It's coming to its 6th birthday
next month. We've done 230 Team 3 circuits
and it's free for anyone to turn up on a Monday at 6:15.
And when I started it, I, I was in that first week of lockdown
where we were told as coaches, you couldn't have contact, you
couldn't have face to face. And I thought, how can I still
reach my community? But also kind of feel like I'm
kind of, you know, helping, you know, what's going on.
So I started the circuit and people turned up and I've had
hundreds and thousands of people get involved with it and people
still turn up now every Monday. And because they turn up every
Monday, I keep turning up the time that I turn it on and no
one turns up, That'll be the last team three circuit.
But it, it's got a life of its own.
And so yeah. And it's, I have people
literally message me week by week saying it's really helped
them, you know, they've really, they really enjoy it.
So yeah. So 6th birthday team 3 circuits
on a Monday. Congratulations, that's
incredible. 6 years of a free circuit session and everyone
took and over 2000 people or. Just people just think keep
turning up and yeah. And I just.
The buggers. I wish it'd stop.
I honestly like what we did during lockdown.
No one ever thought that, you know, I never thought it would
continue because I didn't have such a strange, odd time.
And when obviously we kept coming back out of these little
kind of fire breaks or lockdowns, people were like, can
we keep it? Can we keep it?
I was like, yeah, fine, that's fine.
And then obviously we finally came out and I was like, oh, I'm
still enjoying it. People are still turning up.
It's helped my longevity as a runner as well.
I think, you know, I'm, I'm still winning British masters
titles and racing in spikes, which is the age of 47, you
know, I'm quite proud of that. And the last six years pretty
much the only SNC work that I've done is my own circuits.
So it's kind of blended, you know, my kind of training
together. And I said, and it's got this
community and its life of its own.
But again, really humbling that people still turn up.
I'm all around, not just around the around Wales, around the UK.
I've Paralympic champions TuneIn from New York, have people
tuning in from Yeah, from far wide, you know, to, to be part
of it. So yeah, it's fun.
And yeah, here's for another six years.
Brilliant man. Well done, James.
Thank you very much for coming. Down.
Thank you, my friend. Awesome.
Thanks for having me. Thank you.
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