Change 52.7

13/10/2026

One of the hardest decisions for a committed athlete can be choosing not to train.

When training is part of your routine, resting because you’re genuinely unwell can feel like losing momentum.

But fitness isn’t protected by completing every session regardless of what your body is dealing with.

Sometimes the most useful decision is to remove the training stress, recover properly and return gradually when you’re ready.

A few missed sessions rarely undo months of consistent work.

Trying to force training through illness can cost considerably more.

Rest isn’t a failure of discipline.

Sometimes it’s exactly what good training looks like.

28/09/2026

One session that felt difficult does not mean you’ve lost fitness.

You know the session; a run that feels harder than expected. A bike where the numbers are down. A swim where nothing seems to click (🙋🏻‍♀️).

The session is giving you information. That's all.

Maybe you’re carrying fatigue. Maybe you didn’t fuel enough. Maybe life has been stressful. Maybe you just had an off day.

The useful question isn’t “What’s wrong with me?”, it’s “What is this session telling me?”

Good coaching is partly knowing when to act on the data and when to simply collect it. One session is a data point. Not a verdict.

02/09/2026

I love data. I use it all the time in coaching.

But I also want athletes to know what easy actually feels like. What comfortably hard feels like. When they’re working harder than they should be and when they’re having one of those days where everything just clicks.

Pace and heart rate give us useful information. RPE gives us another piece of the picture.

And sometimes with hills, in heat, carrying fatigue, and on race day, feel is the most useful guide we’ve got.

Learning to listen to your body is a skill. And like any skill, it gets better with practice 👌.

21/08/2026

Because life changes. Work gets busy. You sleep badly. Something hurts. A session takes more out of you than expected. Or sometimes you’re flying and can do a little more.

The plan matters, but following it blindly doesn’t.

Good coaching is knowing when to push, when to hold and when to change course.

12/08/2026

A little bit of professional housekeeping completed — my IRONMAN U coaching recertification is done for another two years. 🙌

Most of the assessment was common sense, but revisiting the course material was a useful reminder that good coaching is about so much more than writing a training plan.

Understanding the person, their goals and the life they’re trying to fit their training into is the bit I enjoy most.

Anyway, recertified until 2028 🏊‍♀️ 🚴‍♂️ 🏃‍♀️

28/04/2026

London Marathon weekend always brings a bit of reflection.

I wrote this after working with two very different runners recently. It’s a reminder that training rarely goes exactly to plan; and that’s not always a problem.

The training plan is useful. But it doesn’t take into account human behaviour, life, stress, or the inevitable curve balls that come with all of that. On

23/04/2026

Thinking of everyone doing the London marathon this weekend… I was looking back at a couple of blogs I wrote in 2019 and 2024…..

https://change52-7.com/the-london-marathon-2024-42-2k-our-way/

The Tale of the Training Plan and The Runner. Marathon Runners. We all know one. They tell us soon enough. I’m one. I can actually now say I have done

14/05/2024

Most people I work with talk about their mental health and the positive affect exercise and physical activity has on it.

Sometimes they don’t even appreciate the impact movement has until it is taken away or reduced, for example through injury, illness or just life. For others new or returning to a regular exercise programme, they notice very quickly how much better their mental health is as a result.

But there are another group of people who aren’t sure where to start with physical activity. If this is you, you are not alone. Quite often if we struggling with our mental health for whatever reason, we can get in our own way and feel bogged down with what everyone else is going and end up doing nothing at all.

You don’t have to be doing what everyone else is doing.

Start small and be compassionate to yourself. Go for a walk, soak up the sounds of nature or listen to a podcast. A 10 minute walk to one might provide exactly the same mental health benefits to a 10 mile run for another. You do you.

When life feels hard movement matters. It can help us see we are not in a cave but in a tunnel and if we keep putting one foot in front of the other, we will see light.

26/04/2024

For anyone interested especially those that donated to MOVE Against Cancer Charity, I have written a short (ish!) blog about our 42.2k Our Way. Enjoy ☺️🤓✍️

I am lucky. I have ran the London Marathon twice. The first time was in 2019. I had a time I believed I could get and so I trained well and raced it.