So much respect for your ambitions, not just London Marathon but to join the Marines. I wish you every success on this journey.

Running is a good metaphor for life. You put in the work, you get the results. No excuses. The majority of the runners I work with are great. They just get on with. On Tuesday they smashed out hill reps in the pouring rain. Some might ask how is that fun? But when 2 of them clocked PBs today at parkrun and left feeling proud of their efforts, it’s worth it.

The point being, it’s simple. Turn up, tick off the sessions and you’ll make the improvements you desire. There’s no secret formula and it takes time at first. Same logic applies to your gym work but if you’re consistent week in week out, in 6-12 months you’ll be a different person fitness wise.

So it’s all very simple really. Slowly building up your mileage through the winter months and doing your speed work each week.

I quite like the idea of getting you along to a Monday track session to see how you fit in with that group. The main reason is simply it’s a larger group, which means more stronger runners. Having quicker runners around you can help push you and make gains quicker. Entirely up to you though. You can stick with my Tuesday group if you want or just mix it up from one week to the next. As long as you get that efforts in you’ll continue to make gains.

I’d also be encouraging of entering races. Great South might be a little too soon but if you’re very keen to run it, I can tweak the plan to try and get you ready.

But adding in races breaks up the plan, keeps in interesting and avoids it all becoming a bit repetitive.

In terms of the S&C, at the moment I’m happy to leave that in your hands. But given your ambitions I would certainly seek advice and PTs within the gym are normally very happy to help with a routine.

If you want me to get involved, I am happy to assist. Once you have that routine I’m more than happy to add it to your dashboard, this would mean you’ll have all the exercises on your phone and also that extra accountability to get it done.

Feedback is one of the best benefits of working with me as a coach. It really helps if you can keep leaving feedback. It can be short and sweet. Even a 👍 is better than nothing. Always be honest as well. If you had a shit run or you didn’t like the session I set, tell me, that way I can change it going forward.

Given the ratings you’ve presented me with you have a great deal of room for improvement which is very exciting and as the plan unfolds we can potentially discuss going for a specific time at London, but that’s a discussion for another day.

The plan is always flexible and adaptable. At times I’ve had to completely rewrite training plans midway through to adjust to injuries or runners who progress quicker than expected. So if you do check out the plan on the spreadsheet, there’s no need to pay too much attention to that just yet.