Category Archives: Blog

How to Run a sub-20 Minute 5 km

I have a theory that any man (for women the equivalent is probably 23 minutes) between 20 and 40 with no underlying health conditions can be trained to run a sub-20 minute 5 km, obviously if you have a lot of weight to lose or have never run before it will take a while, butContinue reading “How to Run a sub-20 Minute 5 km”

It’s The Final Countdown…

To coin a phrase used by a number of my first time marathon athletes when this landed on their doormats a couple of days before their last long run; “Shit just got real”. In the last few weeks before your first marathon the reality of the situation can suddenly hit you; so I have aContinue reading “It’s The Final Countdown…”

A Week in The Life (Part 2)

In part 1 of this post I went through the process of how I plan my upcoming training, this time we’re going to look at what actually happened… Monday, rest (or recovery) day; nailed it! All green, all ‘workouts’ complete – but to be fair nailing a rest day should not be a challenge, althoughContinue reading “A Week in The Life (Part 2)”

A Week In The Life (Part 1)

There are plenty of books out there describing the theory of training plans; how to design a season’s training, how to build each macrocycle, example workouts to go in each microcycle, a few rules for putting workouts in a microcycle, but then things start to get hazy. If you don’t have any commitments outside ofContinue reading “A Week In The Life (Part 1)”

Winter Motivation

It looks like winter has landed and as the daylight wanes, so does many peoples’ motivation. Last week I had my own battle with motivation; it started with a minor work crisis that had me still at my desk at 6pm on Sunday and the possibility of a long run rapidly diminishing… However, I downedContinue reading “Winter Motivation”

How I Managed to Stop Getting Injured (Quite as Much)

In 2018 I made one simple change to my training and since then I’ve run further and faster than ever before and had fewer injuries; what was the secret? When I ran Manchester Marathon in 2015 it would have been my first marathon if the course had not been measured 400m short… But still itContinue reading “How I Managed to Stop Getting Injured (Quite as Much)”

Cake

This text is also available as a podcast Today’s podcast is about nutrition. Those of you who’ve run with me will know that I love nutrition, more specifically cake. However, as much as I’d like to exist exclusively on cake, science tells us that that is a rather less than optimal nutrition strategy. There areContinue reading “Cake”