Endurance Therapy and Performance

Most runners think they’re paying for a training plan when they chat to a coach.

The reality is that training plans are the easy bit.

The real value is knowing what to do when things DON’T go to plan.

When your knee starts niggling.

When your hamstring tightens up.

When fatigue starts building.

When life gets busy and training needs adjusting.

When your performance suddenly stalls and you can’t work out why.

Anyone can tell you what to do when training is going well.

The real skill is knowing what to do when it isn’t.

My background isn’t just in running coaching. I’ve spent years assessing and treating injured runners too.

That means when a problem crops up, I’m not just looking at the next session in TrainingPeaks.

I’m looking at the bigger picture.

Is it training load?

Recovery?

Strength?

Fuelling?

Pacing?

An injury brewing?

Or is it actually nothing to worry about at all?

The answer isn’t always to stop.

And it isn’t always to push through.

The skill is knowing the difference.

That’s why good coaching isn’t about just following a plan.

It’s about solving problems, making better decisions, and helping runners continue moving forwards when things get messy.

Because running rarely goes exactly to plan, and that’s totally normal. 🤘

One of the most common conversations I have with runners goes something like this...

“I’m always injured.”

“I know I’m capable of more.”

“I’ve been stuck at the same level for years.”

The interesting thing is that most runners are already doing plenty of things to try and fix the problem.

They’re seeing an injury rehab therapist.

Having semi-regular sports massage.

Going to ‘running specific’ strength classes.

Buying new shoes.

Following a training plan.

Watching YouTube videos.

Becoming best mates with Claude or Chat GPT.

Listening to podcasts.

The problem isn’t usually a lack of effort.

It’s that nobody is joining the dots.

Running performance doesn’t exist in isolation.

Your injury history affects your training.

Your training affects your recovery.

Your recovery affects your consistency.

Your strength work affects how much training you can tolerate, but also contributes to total training load.

Your lifestyle affects all of the above.

It’s a bit like trying to complete a jigsaw puzzle by collecting pieces from different boxes.

You might have some useful pieces, but the picture never quite comes together.

My job isn’t to give runners another piece of the puzzle.

My job is to help them see the whole picture.

Because more often than not, the runners who finally stay healthy and run the times they’re capable of aren’t doing anything magical.

They’ve just stopped trying to solve each problem separately and started looking at the bigger picture.

Consistency is usually the breakthrough.

Not another treatment. Not another gadget. Not another training plan.

Just a better understanding of what actually matters and putting those things into action.

I nearly quit.

More than once.

And I don’t mean “this is tough, dig deep” nearly quit. I mean standing on a mountain in genuinely horrible conditions thinking “I have no idea if I can finish this.”

But every time I got there, I came back to the same answer.

My wife and kids were going to be at that finish line. I’d spent 9 months on this - dropping body fat, building athleticism, actually preparing properly instead of just winging it and hoping for the best.

And underneath all of that, I just needed to know what I was made of.

For me.

Here’s the thing nobody really talks about - you can do everything right.

The training, the nutrition, the prep. All of it.

And you’ll still hit a point out there where none of that feels like enough.

The fitness gets you to the start line. It doesn’t get you to the finish.

What gets you to the finish is knowing why you’re actually there.

Not the vague “I want to complete it” version.

The real one.

The one that still means something when you’re cold, broken, and your legs stopped playing ball about 4 hours ago.

I work with runners on this stuff every single day - the physical side, yes, but also helping people figure out what they’re actually training for.

Because when it gets hard out there (and it will get hard), that’s the only thing that matters.

Crossed the line.

Family were there (when they got back from the toilet 🤣).

Worth every horrible minute.

UTS50 - first attempt. Done. ✅

Next year’s target is set. 🎯

Every running coach seems to have a running club nowadays.

And that’s absolutely fine.

But it’s also part of the reason why I don’t have one (although I do coach quite a few club runners).

Not because I don’t like community.

Not because I don’t think runners should train together.

It’s because I’ve never believed that the best coaching comes from putting everyone into the same system.

Some runners love group runs.

Others would rather put their headphones in and disappear for a few hours on their own.

Some thrive in a community.

Others simply want a coach who understands their training, injury history, work/life schedule and goals.

Neither approach is right or wrong.

The best coaching isn’t about getting everyone to do the same thing.

It’s about building the training around the person.

That’s why Rockstar Runners has always been about bespoke rehab and coaching.

A running community is great for the right people. Clubs are great for that social aspect, and giving access to club events.

The focus for me however will always be helping the individual runner in front of me become the best version of themselves.

I’ve noticed something about myself over the years.

Whenever everyone starts heading in one direction, I get curious.

Not because I think everyone else is wrong.

And not because I enjoy being difficult.

I just find myself asking:

“Is this actually the best option, or is it simply the most popular one?”

That mindset has probably shaped my entire career.

It’s why I’ve never been particularly interested in miracle treatments.

It’s why I’ve never been convinced there’s one perfect running style.

It’s why I don’t believe every runner should train the same way.

And it’s why I’m always prepared to change my mind when better evidence comes along.

I think one of the biggest mistakes we can make in health, rehab and performance is confusing popularity with effectiveness.

Something can be common without being useful.

Something can be trendy without being right.

And sometimes the best answer isn’t the one everyone is shouting about.

Over the years I’ve found that the runners who make the best progress aren’t necessarily the ones looking for the newest gadget, the latest hack or the perfect training plan.

They’re the ones who consistently do the basics well.

The runners who stay patient.

The runners who focus on what works for them rather than what worked for somebody else.

I suppose that’s how I try to coach too.

Not by forcing people into a system.

But by understanding the person first and building the approach around them.

Because when it comes to performance, rehab and long-term progress, the question I’m most interested in isn’t:

“What is everyone else doing?”

It’s:

“What does this person need right now?”

Here’s something nobody tells you: ‘strong enough’ and ‘ready to run’ are NOT the same thing.

You can do every exercise on the list. Tick every box. Feel like you’re finally nailing it. Then lace up, get two miles in, and feel like you’re falling apart - wondering what the point of any of it was.

The exercises build capacity at the injured area. That bit matters, don’t skip it.

But running has its own demands. The impact. The pace. The fatigue that stacks up over 45 minutes that no calf raise in your kitchen ever comes close to replicating. 😉

So if you’re doing all the right things and still struggling when you actually run - you probably haven’t skipped the work. You’ve maybe just done half of it.

👉 Exercises build the area back up.
👉 Gradually reintroducing running
teaches it to handle the specific demands of running again.

You need both.

You can’t lunge your way back to the start line.

Trust me, people have tried. 😅

If you need help getting your running injury sorted, drop me a DM and let’s chat.

Here’s a story I hear all the time.

Runner gets injured.

Goes to a therapist.

The therapist helps relieve their pain. The runner gets discharged with a sheet of exercises they’ll do religiously for four days and then never look at again.

(The sheet is probably still on the kitchen counter.)

Follows a training plan. Feels okay. Thinks ‘maybe this time is different’.

It is not different. 😅

The pain comes back.

Back to the therapist. Same treatment, same discharge, same plan, same injury. A suggestion to come in more frequently for ‘maintenance treatment’ 🤢

Repeat until either the runner gives up or the therapist gets a Christmas card from them every year because they’re basically family now.

After the third or fourth round of this, something shifts.

They start wondering if maybe they’re just not a runner. Maybe their body’s not built for it. Maybe they should just take up cycling or something.

And honestly? That thought - that quiet, defeated ‘maybe it’s just me’ - is the bit that gets me.

Because it’s not them. It never was.

What nobody told them is that ‘pain gone’ and ‘actually rehab properly’ are two completely different things. The therapist got them out of pain - that’s a big part of the job.

But nobody looked at why the issues kept coming back. Nobody asked about the three months of terrible sleep, or the fact that work had been a complete s**tshow, or the strength that just wasn’t there to support what they were asking their body to do.

Nobody connected the dots. Because that’s not what the appointments were for.

That’s where I approach things completely differently.

I work with you to develop a specific plan of action, including how you adapt your running programming to get you not only back running, but back performing and progressing again.

Drop me a message if I can help. 🫡

5 days after UTS50 and my legs honestly aren’t the main issue anymore. They took around 2-3 days to recover.

This is after 56km. 11,000+ feet of climbing. Technical terrain. 9+ hours of racing.

As a coach and therapist, the interesting part for me is what happens now post-race.

Most people expect recovery to feel linear. Sore for a few days, then gradually back to normal.

Reality is, it’s usually a bit messy.

After big events, you’re often juggling muscular damage, nervous system fatigue, disrupted sleep, inflammation, dehydration, appetite changes, mental fatigue… and sometimes all of them at once.

What catches a lot of runners out is that the legs often start feeling better before the rest of the system has properly recovered.

That’s usually the ‘danger window’.

It’s where people start forcing sessions again because “my legs feel alright now”, but easy runs still feel strangely hard, niggles begin creeping in, recovery is a bit crap, or motivation suddenly drops off.

Recovery isn’t just waiting for soreness to disappear.

It’s like its own training phase.

The goal isn’t just to feel normal again - it’s to actually absorb the stimulus of the event and adapt from it.

Honestly, a lot of runners aren’t undertrained.

They’re under-recovered.

And there’s a massive difference between the two.

This is why I don’t encourage racing too frequently so you don’t end up in a never-ending recovery cycle.

Ya know, the stuff your running app ain’t telling you…😉

That feeling coming in towards the finish line after 9+ hours of hard racing to family and friends…

That was the hardest physical challenge I’ve done to date, and the event gave me everything I went for.

Harsh weather conditions, hard terrain, a s**t tonne of climbing, laughs between participants, shared stories, plenty of moments of questioning myself and my abilities.

Things to overcome.

What an event the UTS 50 was this year.

I decked it 5 times, got caked in mud, led packs of runners running down the side of mountains with next to no visibility.

Helped people on the course physically and psychologically.

Thanked the incredible volunteer team at the aid stations.

My wife and kids got to see me go through that and come out of the other side fighting.

You can’t put a price on that for me.

It’s sparked a drive back in me that I hadn’t even realised had wavered.

A huge thank you to Kelvin for the support and guidance to prep me for this race.

Of course my awesome family and long suffering wife for the support and sacrifice to allow me to put the training in.

Thank you so much to everyone who has sent me messages and commented on posts with support too. It means a lot!

Time to recover and start to lay the plans down for what’s next. 👀