About The Coach

There are now a great many trail and ultra running coaches, particularly those offering their services online. This raises a contentious question: how can athletes assess the competence and credentials of a running coach, particularly when that coach operates primarily online?

The sport has yet to find an adequate way of establishing and verifying coaching competence. I certainly don’t claim to have the solution. What I do know, however, is that winning a handful of trail races and marathons, paying for and completing an online coaching qualification such as UESCA, accumulating sponsors, or building a large social media following does not, in itself, make someone a competent coach.

Unfortunately, in an increasingly influencer-driven sport, popularity is too often mistaken for expertise. A large following demonstrates that someone is good at attracting an audience. It does not demonstrate that they are a good coach.

A race history can make someone look experienced. Sponsors can make someone look authoritative. A coaching certificate can make someone look qualified. Social media can amplify all of it. But none of these things, individually or collectively, guarantees that the person taking your money knows how to coach you safely and effectively.

This matters. Athletes put their health, time, money and performance in the hands of their coaches. In trail and ultra running, the consequences of poor advice can extend well beyond a bad race result. The ability to market yourself as a coach is not the same thing as being qualified to coach, and personal success as a runner is not proof of an ability to develop other runners.

I am not suggesting that there is a single qualification that makes someone a good coach, nor that formal qualifications alone are enough. I am arguing for something much simpler: transparency. Coaches should be prepared to clearly state what they have studied, who their mentors were, what they have actually coached, where their experience comes from, what they are qualified to do, and just as importantly, where the limits of their competence lie.

With that in mind, I will outline my own relevant qualifications and experience. I don’t expect anyone to take them on trust; I would rather put the information on the table and let athletes decide for themselves.

 

My Coaching Timeline

	1980s – At age 12 I began training under legendary coach Paul Blissett at Leicester Coritanians Athletics Club. I progressed quickly and secured a scholarship to the University of Nevada. Health problems prevented me running for a few years and taking up the scholarship. Instead I obtained a BSc in Economics and post-grad in Psychology from the University of Manchester. After leaving university, I started running for Salford Harriers.
	1990s – Returned to running, slowly. Studied for a degree in Physiotherapy in Bristol. Mentored by another great British coach – Mike Down – at Bristol A.C.. I made significant progress in my running career in this period. In 1994 I earned the first of 25 international vests for England and Great Britain. I also finished 4th in the Inter-Counties Cross Country, and ran a debut half-marathon of 64’14” in Bristol.
	1997 – Signed my first professional contract with Asics. I relocated to Torino in Italy to work with world reknowned coaches Renato Canova and Luciano Gigliotti. This lead to further improvements in road and track P.B.s from 5,000m (13’51”) to half marathon (63’20”). Of all the coaches I’ve been mentored by, Renato Canova probably has had the biggest influence on how I coach distance runners today.
	1998 – Trying to make ends meet in European distance running in the late 1990s was tough to say the least. Almost by accident, I came across a strange sport known in those days as ‘mountain running’. I won my first few international races and immediately became hooked! I moved to Chamonix in France to learn more about how to train for this unique sport.
	2000 – Arthur Lydiard is one of the greatest athletics coaches of all time and is credited with popularising the sport of running and making it commonplace across the sporting world. I had the privilege of working with him whilst training and racing in New Zealand. I’ve been lucky to have some great mentors over the years.
	2001 – Every professional athlete needs a Plan B. I resumed my education and studied for a BSc in Sports and Exercise Science University of Bath, along with post-grads in Exercise Physiology and Nutrition & Dietetics. I obtained a UK Athletics Level 3 Performance Endurance Coaching qualification and coached my first group of athletes at Bath. I was mentored by several world class coaches, including sprint and hurdles coach Malcolm Arnold. This was the start of over 10 years of volunteer coaching.
	The 2000s – Dividing my time between studying and mountain running, I raced regularly through the summer months. Highlights during this period were winning two WMRA Mountain Running World Cups, 2nd in the Jungfrau Marathon, 3rd at Sierre-Zinal, and 4th in the World Mountain Running Championships. I also stepped up in distance and won my first mountain marathon – Graubuenden in Lenzerheide, Switzerland – and ran my first ultra-marathon – The Kepler Challenge in Te Anau, New Zealand.
	2014 – I’ve raced 400 times in my running career. At the age of 45 it was time to call it a day as a professional runner. I started a new chapter as a full-time coach with the creation of this business, VO2max Coaching. Scottish mountain runner Robbie Simpson was one of the first athletes I first worked with on a one-to-one, full-time basis. I worked with him for 10 years and he remains one of the most sucessful professional athletes I’ve worked with. His record at Sierre-Zinal is unsurpassed by any British athlete.
	2016 – ALTIS is a globally recognised elite track and field training education institution founded by John Godina, best known for speed, power, and strength coaching. ALTIS provides arguably the finest coach education in the world. I believe that continued progressional development is crucial in coaching. In 2016 I completed a number of courses including the ALTIS Foundation Course, Performance Therapy, and Coaching the Endurance Events. The aim was to fill in any gaps in my knowledge. The experience changed the way I look at speed, endurance, and strength development.
	2018 – Motivated by a desire to understand the differences between Western and East African distance runners, I’ve spent extensive periods living and training in Kenya. Visiting Kenyan schools, villages and training camps and talking to athletes and my former coach Canova, I’ve come understand the reasons for Kenyan dominance. This is built on a massive, years-long aerobic foundation rather than brutally intense interval training.
	2020 –  The exciting thing ultra running is that, when I started working with ultra runnersin 2014, there was no coaching history to draw from. It was simply a matter of figuring it out as I went along. After her BGR record of 14:34 in 2020, Beth Pascall summed up what my job requires: “[His] role as my coach has extended far beyond telling me what training to do – he has acted more like my friend, general PA, weather forecast checker and mentor. Above all, he gave me the confidence to embark on something that I did not believe was possible.”
	Now – When I started mountain running in the mid-1990s, no one predicted how the sport would evolve. Today ultra-trail dominates the mountain running landscape and to date I’ve coached over 100 ultra runners. I’ve always made a point of never advising athletes to undertake training I haven’t done myself. So as more ultra runners came to me for coaching, I’ve focusing on ultra-trail myself, to understand better the unique demands of the sport. I ran my first 100 miler at age 52.