How to Run Pain-Free After the office: 9 Tips to Beat Office Tightness
If you work in an office, or sit at a desk, you probably already know that this isn't exactly the way we were designed to be. Our bodies just don't enjoy that feeling of immobility and the odd and sometimes repetative movements we are required to make. If we're...
Stuck?
It's not by chance that dirt roads end up with ruts driven deep - it's like when we find our training isn't doing much except tiring us. It's how patterns are formed - once we get results from doing 'a thing' we carry on doing it. Why not? It worked didn't it? Habits...
Keep up please!
Who are you running behind? We all have goals, those desires or achievements that we are working towards and in the main, these are a positive. But we've often also been conditioned to 'Keep Up With The Jones's'. To stay in front, to not fall behind, to run ever...
Effort or Technique?
Have you ever tried to run better? I don't mean by using any special techniques, a new found training system, or after reading a book on how to run differently. No, I mean just straight out, all pervasive effort. That head down, let's get at them, hard graft? It's...
Running solo
We're in challenging times. It's something of a catchphrase for Spring 2020 (open-ended of course)! For us runners though it's not so easy to pop a catch-all catchphrase on to how the lock down is affecting us and our individual and collective psyches'. To start with...
Habituating running…and running a marathon in 4 weeks
Often we read these incredible stories about runners who've committed to extraordinary goals. Sometimes it's pretty clear that on occaion they would have been better advised not to do it at all, you've proably come across people who are contemplating their first ever...
More miles? Have your legs had enough?
I've been asked by a number of the runners I coach, and on some of my runners workshops recently, how many miles they can build up to within a certain period of time. This is an interesting question and one that will inevitably differ depending on the runner asking...
Mindfulness and Running
Have you wondered how to make each run as fun and enjoyable as your very first few runs? Or maybe you've heard about the state of mind some runners talk about, called Flow? Perhaps you already practise mindfulness and would like to find practical ways of...
How can you fit it all in?
The Opportunity Cost We’re all familiar with the opportunity cost of doing one thing, which prohibits us from doing another. It’s one of those economic arguments that mean to have one thing, we necessarily can’t have another. So as runners it’s interesting that...
Passion? You need to stop looking for it
Passion - are you searching for it? Have you ever taken the journey into work first thing on a Monday and thought you needed a chaange of scenery, to get out there and find something you're passionate about? Ever thought about that while running? What do I mean? Well...
The Bangor 10K, hunting that personal best
This is an article I wrote in 2015 after I ran the Bangor 10K as my first proper 10K race. It was a fabulous experience, and one I hope to repeat. Race day arrived on a Saturday in October, I drove down to Bangor. Leaving the car and moving through the...
How your brain changes when you run
Writing a book very often requires research. The form that research takes however, can be diverse, very diverse indeed. Let's look at a book I'm currently writing, on nutrition for runners, within that envelope I've come across all manner of different pieces of...