Ryan Stirton - Online Coach.

Earlier on this year I set a goal to go sub 3 in the marathon, and in reality everything had to go absolutely perfectly in the prep to get there.

It did not go perfectly, at all.

Race day = the wheels came off.

I had the best 32km of my life. 4:15 average nailed.

Then a hell of a last 10km that hurt very badly.

I dug it out and finished in 3hrs 20 mins.

And my instant reaction was thinking I’d failed.

Now this goes beyond just appreciating how far I’ve come,

It goes back to accepting that progress takes time.

Not just a few months.

Years.

Especially in endurance sports.

If you want the big X time goal.

You might need to be very very patient.

I needed more time.

And so do you.

So that comes back to the fact, that each time you get better, you beat your PB, you’ve one upped your day 1.

My had to crawl my first half marathon.

But I remember being happy at the end that I’d finished it.

So in reflection, should you not still be so proud of how far you’ve come today in comparison to day 1.

Not every race will be perfect either.

So start measuring yourself in years, not just race to race.

Coming up on the podcast in the coming month!

Fuelled by Freedom is coming on to talk about her journey over the past few years. It’s one that so many woman will be inspired by.

Kieron Day is coming on after he gets back from his travels to talk all things backyard ultras and I’m gonna hopefully dive into the psychology of the event.

Then Andrew Findlay is gonna tell us all exactly what it took to do a full iron man while being a dad of 2 and holding down a full time job!

Excited to get on some local people living the pure 9-5 athlete life 🔥

One fun fact about me is that from 14-23 I done about a million different jobs.

I was s**t at pretty much all of them until I found coaching.

Can’t do DIY.
Can’t pour a pint.
Can’t make a coffee.
Hate nightshift.

I just could never find my way in any of those other things.

So pursued the one thing that felt right = coaching.

I’m so glad I got made to work when I was younger ( a dying art) even though I hated pretty much all of those jobs.

Working 5 weeks of the summer holidays to be able to buy FIFA 10 when it came out.

Making spare cash when I was at uni.

Interning and volunteering at coaching.

Then thinking screw it, I’ll go try a completely different job on the other side of the world. 🌍

👇🏻

Making your own cash, doing tough jobs, out in the freezing cold, early mornings, has definitely instilled a hard working mindset in me and an appreciation for how much I love my job now.

I suppose this is also a shout out to say, I’m not just a personal trainer who’s not been where you are, I’ve felt it.

I know how hard it is to work on your fitness and performance while holding down a 9-5. I’ve been there.

I get the struggles of trying to go to the gym after a 12 hour shift.

I know what it feels like to do 3 12 hour night shifts then try go to football training.

I understand when yous seriously cba but you need to find the motivation to get it done.

In another life I’m giving the nod down a water flume somewhere in Australia.

But I’m happy with how it turned out.

Some absolute savages doing some absolutely savage things this weekend.

3 first time full iron man’s.
2 x 80km ultras.
1 x HM.
2 x 10km races.

And a whole bunch of others just taking care of business with their training.

Got to pinch myself sometimes when i remember this is my job. Helping people achieve mad things like this.

Team 9-5 on top.

❤️📈

Here’s a few of the main reasons I see people blow up badly in races (inc me)

Pace/HR Zones/Understanding Effort 📈

This varies race to race, so let me explain the most popular ones.

You can’t expect to red line a race straight from the start line and get faster as the race goes on. That’s why it’s important to understand what your threshold pace/effort is. If you go over this too early your body pulls on too many resources and metabolic bi-product builds up faster than you can clear, the race gets very hard, very quickly, and then it’s about how long you can rely on grit and determination, not what fitness you have at that point.

The longer the race, the more that pace and effort will change for you from 5km to ultra distance.

Fuelling ⛽️

If that tank isn’t full. Or you have fuelled it with the wrong things. Then the race can get pretty uncomfortable. Race efforts pull on carbohydrate to fuel the high intensity effort required, so without being well topped up, you fade quickly and lose your “punch”

Don’t let just not eating some more carbs be the reason your race went badly.

Ego 🧠

This one is maybe the hardest. I’ve made this mistake more times than the others. You should really have a rough idea of what sort of pace you should run, a rough idea of what time you’ve got in the tank. So don’t get pulled in by what your mate done last week at park run and try and beat it, if it’s way faster than what you’re currently capable of. Even worse don’t judge your capabilities off of some random online.

And then even worse, you go running off with a faster pack on race day, and you get 2km in and see 198BPM on your watch 😅

Big mistake!

There are certainly a few other things to consider when it comes to nailing race day. But that’s the main things I see people do wrong!

Last weekend was a massive success for the team on the running front 🔥

There were loads of PB’s. First 10km’s, first half marathons, first events!

There were some that maybe didn’t get that massive W. But still put themselves out there in far from ideal conditions and raced anyway!

Unlike me who sat back and watched 🐈

We coach runners from 3:45 splits to 7:00 splits.

You don’t have to be smashing ridiculous times.

You just have to be in the game of improvement.

And be willing to go again when it doesn’t go your way!