If you followed this blog before my break you will already know I love a bit of parkrun tourism – with a current streak of 36 different consecutive locations. Like any streak, once it takes hold it’s hard to walk away and finish. Just one more and then we shall stop.

But we don’t.

And this week was no exception, although it was unique. Why? because around Wednesday lunchtime the parkrun rumour mill started to trend about a possible, new location launching this weekend.

Now let’s put this into some perspective. The opening of a new branch of M&S may generate some local interest but it’s unlikely to send ripples down ‘high streets’ up and down the country. And this is WHY I love parkrun, and in particular the parkrun tourist community.

Where is it? Do we know the RD (Run Director). Is it still a trial event or is it a genuine inaugral?

Is it trail or path, free parking or paid? The questions are numerous because the information we all seek each week is held back – adding to the sense of tension and mystery. What if our sources are wrong – will it be a wasted journey, what’s our a plan B, can we keep the tourist streak alive.

The chat continues, little huddles take place on line – trying to make sure HQ doesn’t get a sniff that the Cow Cowell brigade are on the March.

Then at 5pm on Friday, when normal sane people are launching into their weekend – the news is official. Wakehurst (in West Sussex) it is – and it is parkrun numero uno. Let’s raise a toast for the Fibonacci Challenge and may the Wilson Index rejoice – for a new parkrun is born.

(Are you getting a sense of the drama and excitement, even the smallest inkling of a new parkrun starting, generates in pockets of the parkrun community). And so the 5.30am alarm is set and the route is planned.

And worthy of the early start it was. Wakehurst parkrun takes place in the beautiful, bluebell woods in part of the Kew estate, just outside Haywards Heath.

Over 400 fellow travellers (surely we are all tourists today unless this is your first ever parkrun?) made the journey and created the buzz that drives the tribe. Smiles and the slightly smug knowing looks of “we found you” connected the community as the RD welcomed everyone to the party, that’s not a party.

And as is the parkrun way at 9am the run starts, with ups and downs, around and again. Back to the start and finish.

It may be a new, fab location but the parkrun infrastructure of cones, marshals and finisher tokens make it all feel safe and familiar.

And before it’s really got going we are all scanned and waiting politely in line for coffee and cake.

A round trip of around 150 miles. A 6 hour cumulative journey (including the wait for your parkrun ping). And worth every ounce of effort.

Who knows when and where a Number 1 will surface again. But until it does let’s keep the tourism streak hot.

Cool Runnings

Coach Al

With the London Marathon less than 72 hours away the annual ‘expo’ that accompanies the process of bib collection is in full swing. Ever since I started running in 2017 the annual visit to the expo (either as a marathon participant or just a shopper) has been a firm date in the diary. Until this year.

Without consciously thinking about it I’ve no plans to visit in 2024 and my credit card has taken a deep sigh of relief.

In previous years I’ve always looked forward to seeing what’s on offer, what new gear has been released, getting my hands on and trying new gels, potions and gizmos that may help me drag me around a parkrun, a half or even 26.2 miles a little quicker and a little easier.

In the world of sports science and sports psychology this approach – of looking for a lot of little things that, when compounded, make for a much bigger cumulative improvement – is known as marginal gains. And for top athletes those small differences can make the difference between standing on the podium or finishing in the pack.

But for us everyday runners is the cost worth it? Or am I just a marketing departments dream customer. Unfortunately I think I know the answer.

Let’s start with shoes. And in particular the issue of carbon plated shoes and their cost. The science makes a convincing case that technology and good design can help you shave minutes off your PB if…. and it’s quite a big if. If your running gait and biomechanics are aligned with the design principles embedded in the shoe. That’s not to say you won’t get some improvement but probably not the gazillion percent the advert says and therefore are you gaining full value if your starting at a sub optimal level.

Next up – fuelling and gels. Let’s be honest we are just paying for the convenience. Real food does exactly the same job – possibly even better because it’s real food, not artificial and chemically loaded. But who wants to carry a picnic on each long run.

I don’t wish to sound hypocritical as I do run in carbon shoes and I use gels on race day. And I also strongly believe in the placebo effect – if it makes you feel like a better runner it is helping you to become a better runner. End of!

But to quote my dear old, late mum “all fur coat and no knickers”, which for the purpose of this blog I’m interpreting thus…

Whatever tools and tactics we use to access those marginal gains the starting point HAS to be having a strong base, built on solid time on feet. Without that I guess my mum is right.

So as I prepare to fill in my application for London 2025 I need to date mark this post and remember it’s the miles in me that will propel me towards the finish.

Cool Runnings

Coach Al

Well that was a longer break than I planned. Nearly 9 months to be precise.

In that time I’ve managed to complete another World Major Marathon (Chicago), taken hundreds of runners around the Xmas Lights of London, run the Vegas strip (legally) at night, extended my parkrun tourism streak (currently 34), worked towards becoming a member of the Cowell Club (IYKYK) and generally made a whole gang of new friends and connections across the running community.

So why the silence, surely there’s a lot to explore and unpack in all those mini-adventures that warrants 10 minutes a day to blog. Absolutely but….

I’ve been struggling with poor mental ‘fitness’ (I don’t like the connotation of mental health as a label) and this has prevented me from having the confidence to continue to blog.

Add to that a downturn in my physical fitness (slower times, more walking, definitely more tears ) and logging on to blog became low down on my list of priorities. With hindsight that may have been a mistake but it felt like the right decision at the time. Who doesn’t have 100% vision in hindsight.

In those 9 months there’s been a lot of turmoil, emotional conflict, severe self-doubt and a load of self-loathing. And it got me absolutely nowhere.

Over the same period I continued to run, but rarely with the same gusto – think enduring rather than endurance – and that’s been my mindset “just get it done”. Which on the whole I did.

So what’s made the difference and what’s brought me back to the keyboard. Probably not one thing as it wasn’t one thing that took me away. But with professional help and massive support from loved ones (Carolyn ❤️), I feel ready to share again the thoughts of Coach Al.

I also hope this time it will be different – perhaps more personal reflections, rather than technical content. Maybe not everday (as was the original plan) and more when my thoughts need to be shared, because that helps ME first and foremost.

So let’s give this another go. Already the adventures are stacking up for the rest of 2024 and well into 2025. Next up is a stint at the London Marathon this weekend where I will be on baggage drop duties, hoping to help calm those runner nerves with banter and bad jokes.

Cool Runnings

Coach Al

PS. The photo is taken from The Hampton Court Half Marathon in March 2024 where I ran as a Finish Line Friend – and was able to give back to the running community – probably my best day of running in 2024 so far and I only had to run the last 0.1 mile over and over again.

Not been very well recently so it’s time for a little break. Hope to be back posting soon.

The irony is not lost on me. I’ve not run since Sunday because I’m suffering from man flu so today I’m obviously gonna write about the pitfalls of over-training.

However, I’m pretty certain I’ve been guilty of this in previous training blocks. And it’s so easy to fall into the trap of thinking more must be better. Just another run, just another mile, just a little bit quicker pace.

As a coach and PT the wisdom is that fitness gains are achieved from a combination of appropriate stress plus effective recovery. The stress comes from your running but also comes from your strength training, cross training, work stresses and just general life stresses. The recovery is linked into the rest days, good nutrition,plenty of sleep and managing the other stresses.

And when these are all in balance everything is fine but it’s a fine balance and when out of kilter, it can lead to feelings of fatigue. And given that life is complicated it maybe that the training load is the easiest and fastest thing to reset.

So how do you know if you’re training + recovery is in balance?

If you are in a training block you should expect to feel some cumulative training fatigue. It’s normal and is part of the training journey. And it should look a bit like this:

You’re hitting all your runs at the necessary paces, you can recover from hard sessions within 24-48 hours, you will be sleeping more (from recovery needs) and eating more (from fuelling needs), and your easy runs should still feel really EASY.

And you push and keep going because that goal or PB target is just out of reach. And you go harder and longer and you soon start over-reaching and hit the wall that is overtraining.

The symptoms creep up on you because they are very similar to the normal training fatigue but with some significant exceptions.

You will sleep even more because of your chronic fatigue. You may become ravenous because you’re chronically underfuelled.

But you will see a drop off in performance as you struggle to hit your workout goals. This can lead to mood swings and loss of motivation (because you’re trying even harder). You may find that your resting heart rate is volatile.

And when you’ve tipped over the edge… the appetite may go, all workouts become hard, you have persistent muscle soreness, you’re ‘tired but wired’, and you start to suffer from regular colds and illnesses.

And now you’re caught in that vicious circle.

So what can you do about it.

Firstly, remember some of the basic training ‘rules’ – make the easy days easy, and check your training volumes. Have you been too aggressive on building mileage?

Prioritise sleep – as the body IS THE BEST healer. And remember stress is stress so external factors will have an impact so embrace that.

There’s no need to stop and rest completely, just recognise where you’ve been and make small, simple adjustments to allow you to get back on track. You can do this.

Cool Runnings

Coach Al

Technically, that’s not an accurate statement of what I’m going to blog about but a heading that says “do you write stuff down in a journal after every run” isn’t a sexy or catchy title.

Leaving running to one side for a moment the benefits of journaling are many. By writing down our thoughts and feelings, we can process and make sense of our emotions, which can help us understand ourselves and our experiences.

So how does that all translate into benefitting your training?

Keeping a running journal is a simple way of capturing anything to do with your runs, your training, your races, injuries, nutrition and pretty much anything running related.

And as a coach, I encourage my clients to record all these things to help monitor and track progress, and see and spot trends that help focus on improvements, and to provide a physical record of how far they have progressed over time.

So let’s explore in a little more detail some of the benefits of keeping a record of your running.

1. Track goals: Sounds obvious but if you don’t know where your heading how do you know if you’re going in the right direction? For example, by monitoring your training goals you can see clearly whether you’re increasing mileage too quickly or too slowly.

2. Monitor progress: Again, sounds obvious but being able to look back at progress over time can be a huge motivation going forward – especially when training gets hard and the miles get long.

3. Boost performance: Reviewing your training diary will help you work out what works well for you. What sessions felt good? Which sessions were tough? How did you fuel and hydrate? Knowing this kind of stuff allows you to tweak your training accordingly.

4. Be accountable: Your daily scribbles becomes part of the contract you have with yourself, and is a physical way of staying accountable to yourself over the long term.

5. Find your weaknesses. Keeping track of the details will allow you to chip away at weaknesses – because who wants to keep repeating the same mistakes and getting the same disappointing results.

So having made a commitment to journal, what kind of things should you note down. Here’s some ideas: run distance, time, splits, aches & pains, heart rate, the weather, type of session, what you ate pre and post run, shoes you wore. Basically anything that will help you look back and assess progress.

In this digital age I can hear you all saying that Garmin, Strava and other running apps can all provide some or all of this information and is accessible, near instantly, on our phones. Now, that is true to a degree.

But there is something different about the physical action of writing stuff down and getting it out of your head. And over time you will have a unique, physical record of your journey and your achievements that digital apps struggle to represent.

The analogy is with photographs – we all carry around eleventy billion photos on our phones but the ones we really look at the ones we print and put on the wall.

Cool Runnings

Coach Al

In one of the running forums I’m active in there has been a thread talking about the benefits of skipping. So I thought it might be interesting to explore this in a bit more depth.

Technically, skipping would come under the heading of a plyometric workout – which is the term for a series of strength exercises that focus on explosive speed and strength using jumping. And the beauty of a plyometric workout is that is doesn’t require any complicated gym equipment or a range of different weights.

And for any runner looking to build stronger muscles that can propel you forward faster and resist impact injuries these types of exercises should be included in your weekly strength sessions.

In essence the skipping and jumping movements focus on the stretch and recoil response of your muscles over a short, intense period of time to generate power. You are also focusing on those fast-twitch muscles that all runners should target in their speed sessions.

The movements are fast as the aim is to have minimal contact time with the ground and the goal is to bounce back off the surface as quickly as possible – as in the action of running.

Anatomically, ‘plyo’ exercises will work a number of different lower leg muscles including the achilles tendon, the calf muscles as well as targeting your quads and hamstrings.

However, a word of warning – don’t start with plyometric exercises and instead start with a simple bodyweight workout for 4-6 weeks before including your new explosive moves into your strength programme. Starting with lots of stress and impact exercises is a recipe for injury so build into it slowly.

So what kind of ‘plyo’ exercises can you use?

I’d start simple with something like jump squats as they cover all the bases including your glutes, quads, hamstrings and calf muscles.

Then move onto jump lunges – requires a little more balance and co-ordination but starts to replicate the single leg movements that we call ‘running’.

Master these two and then the lateral hop awaits. it’s simple but hard at the same time but to help you focus imagine you are jumping over a rope a few inches off the ground, as you hop from side-to side.

And just when you’re feeling on top of the world with your new found athleticism it all comes crashing down because the burpee is waiting to bring you to your knees, literally. Who knew a burpee was a good thing 🤣

So I know I lost you at ‘burpee’ but stick with it, please.

For all these exercises, good form is essential to ensure the correct muscle groups are being worked in the correct way. So if you can, video yourself completing each of the moves and compare your movements to the many great videos you can find on the internet.

Also, don’t rush through your sets. Keep the movements controlled and be patient because those speed improvments will follow.

As with anything new, if it’s fun then it’s more likely to stick as a habit. And with any new habit, add it into your daily routine – so why not try those lateral hops between business calls.

Cool Runnings

Coach Al

Woke up this morning feeling really rough. Throat like razors and both nostrils blocked. Not the way to really celebrate a double Medal Monday.

It’s a good job it’s also a rest day today so I don’t have to agonise about whether to run or not. The considered wisdom is if it’s above the neck it’s ok to run, but below the neck so not.

The medical view is that running may actually help clear the sinuses but if you’re feeling under the weather the chances are your immune system is already working overtime.

So you should always listen to your body, lower the intensity and be prepared to stop should you begin to feel even worse.

But I’m gonna brew me a tea and head back to bed.

Hopefully, the normal blogging service will resume tomorrow.

Cool Runnings

Coach Al

Photo courtesy of Kirsten Widdowson.

Firstly, a declaration. The running community as a whole are just awesome.

There are times when working hard towards a huge goal such as a marathon, a first race or chipping away at the parkrun personal best requires commitment, dedication, sweat and a few tears. And this blog has and will continue to document those moments and provide advice on how you can best achieve.

But that’s for another day because today was all about putting those things to one side and having some fun with it. And boy did we achieve that down at Windsor riverside where around 30 Fordy Runners took part in Beat the Boat.

The concept of the race is pretty simple – sign up and commit to running your 10k quicker than it takes a pleasure cruiser boat to cover the same distance. And to make things a little more interesting those boats commit to covering that distance in 40mins, 50mins, 60mins and 70mins – so whatever your ability you have a realistic chance of ‘beating the boat’

And here is where the fun starts – it’s become a club tradition that this race is also a test of your fancy dress abilities, and your skills in adapting your costume and still being able to run!

This year the theme was Mermaids (and Mermen) and the ensemble team of Fordy’s rose to the occasion with gills and glitter galore – even the men, me included.

So from the gun the fun started and didn’t stop until our last runner crossed the line. And herein lies the message. Take any race, and make it have purpose – even if that purpose is to have loads of laughs and giggles for serious training can continue tomorrow (actually, and metaphorically).

We did that in spades today and next year’s theme has already been chosen and fancy dress ideas already circulating on social media. How about that for positive feedback for the race organiser, their team and anyone contemplating joining the fun next year.

I have to admit that Fordy Runs Running Club works hard to be inclusive and this shows in days like today where pace, past glories and times are not even a thing. Instead it’s all about the photo opportunities. But having fun can take some effort as many of our members work tirelessly behind the scenes to make sure days like today happen regularly and frequently so that as many of our members as possible can participate.

It also helps that Run Face, the race organisers, embrace our craziness and now see it as part of their offering to other runners and other clubs. It does help that the Thames riverside location is stunning, and who wouldn’t be encouraged by a boat load of cheering friends and family sailing alongside. And did I even mention the Prosecco at the water stations 🥂that helps too

But for me it’s about using events like this – not too large, not too intimidating, a little self-deprecating, to create an environment and atmosphere for runners and non-runners alike to enjoy.

This is how you spread the word that movement is not only good for you but should be fun too.

In the day and age of real-time data and instant feedback on your performance, wearing a wig or a silly outfit certainly provides a perfect counterpoint.

OK, back on the serious stuff tomorrow.

Cool Runnings

Coach Al

It’s parkrun day so today I’d thought I’d talk about the Battle of Trafalgar. Really, did you honestly think I’d go there. Although I will be making plenty of references to Nelson.

This week was traumatic. My 5k parkrun app was updated and based on ‘advice’ from parkrun HQ three awesome challenges: Fibonacci, Prime and Nelson were removed from the app. And I’m not a happy bunny.

Now if you don’t really understand what I’m talking about, firstly, please accept my apologies and I’ll try and explain.

If you are a parkrun addict (and there are many) one of the great things about parkrun is chasing down the challenges that have sprung up independently of the official organisation.

These often involve chasing either a letter (derived from the name of the location) or a number (based on the number of runs that location has held).

Before covid, and before the 5K app, parkrun, for me, was intermittent, and usually at one of two or three regular locations. But having been denied parkrun for over 18 months, with its return came a new found love and commitment to parkrun tourism.

Since then I’ve visited nearly 70 different locations, in 7 different countries – and joined a new tribe – the parkrun tourist.

It’s still only a 5k run, and it’s still not a race, and it’s still primarily for fun. But taking part in a number of different challenges has opened up a new sub-culture which has, in turn, made for new friendships, and deepened existing ones.

The chatter often starts on a Wednesday or Thursday about which parkrun, who is car sharing with who, are there toilets, and where will we go for breakfast. Nothing too important but totally essential for a good parkrun experience.

But in recent weeks a few events have ‘suffered’ at the hands of the tourist invasion. I say suffered in inverted commas because I think it’s a good problem to have and one that the parkrun community can solve without the need for parkrun HQ intervening.

I don’t underestimate the worry of a local Run Director facing a 100% increase in the likely number of runners just because they are hosting event number 666 (a Nelson number). But if you were in Vaxjason in Swede in June you saw exactly how the parkrun community CAN come together to make that experience a good one for runners, for marshals, and for locals too.

The decision to require the app host to remove the more challenging challenges because they encourage a large number of runners to all target the same event is misguided in my view. And misunderstands the real value of parkrun.

The purpose of parkrun is to bring people together, to take part in something that promotes well-being, AND does so in a way that promotes community – something that is lacking in large parts of modern day life.

So if us parkrun tourists are causing problems – don’t ban us, reach out to us, and invite us in to help solve the problem. Yes, I know we haven’t actually been banned from visiting different parkruns each week but by removing some of the challenges it certainly feels that way.

Sorry, rant over – and today we ran to ‘touch the bird’ – if you know you know.

Cool Runnings

Coach Al