Blog
Evidence-based writing on trail and ultra running.
Training, racing, and fueling guides written the way I'd explain them to an athlete - specific numbers, real trade-offs, and no filler. 34 articles and counting.
All articles
Racing
How to Train for UTMB: A Coach's 24-Week Framework for 174 km
The UTMB is two nights, ten big climbs, and a lot of walking done well. Here is the 24-week structure I use to prepare a runner for the full loop.
9 min readRacing
How to Train for the OCC: A Coach's 16-Week Framework
The OCC is the fast, steep race of UTMB week - a mountain 50K for people who can climb. Here is the 16-week structure I use to get a runner ready for it.
7 min readCoaching
Trail Running Coach Certifications, Explained
A certificate tells you a coach sat through the material. It doesn't tell you they know what to do when your calf tightens up in week nine.
5 min readCoaching
When to Hire a Human Coach Instead of an App
I built an app that competes with my own coaching. Here's the honest version of when it's the wrong tool for the job.
4 min readCoaching
Online vs In-Person Trail Running Coaching: What Actually Changes
My athletes are scattered across four time zones. None of them has trained with me in person, and that's mostly fine - here's the part that isn't.
4 min readCoaching
How Coaching Changes When You're Injured
The hardest conversation I have with an athlete is almost never about training. It's about telling them to skip the race.
4 min readCoaching
Group Coaching vs 1:1: What Trail Running Squads Actually Add
I don't run group programs, so I have no reason to talk you out of one. Here's what they're actually good for.
4 min readCoaching
What a Full Season of Coaching Actually Looks Like
The first month is calibration. The part where coaching actually pays off is the part almost nobody writes about, because it happens in month six.
5 min readTraining
How to Train for Your First 50K: A Coach's 16-Week Framework
The 50K is the most forgiving ultra you will ever run, and the one most people still get wrong. Here is the structure I use with first-timers.
9 min readTraining
How to Heat Acclimate for a Trail Race
Ten days of deliberate heat exposure change a hot race more than the last fortnight of training volume does. Almost nobody programmes them.
7 min readTraining
50K, 50 Mile, or 100K: Choosing Your First Ultra Distance
The question isn't which distance sounds achievable. It's which one you've already earned the right to attempt.
6 min readTraining
Back-to-Back Long Runs: How to Use Them Without Getting Hurt
Two long runs on consecutive days train the actual skill of ultrarunning: moving well on legs that are already tired. Most runners either never try it or overdo it immediately.
5 min readRacing
Night Running and Headtorch Strategy for Trail Ultras
The night section rarely breaks people's legs. It breaks their decision-making, at the exact hours their body is least equipped to make good ones.
6 min readTraining
Returning to Trail Running After an Injury
Re-injury doesn't usually happen during the injury. It happens in the six weeks after it, to runners who returned on a calendar instead of on evidence.
6 min readTraining
Where to Trail Run Near Lecco and Lake Como
Every route below is one I've actually sent an athlete to, matched to what their training that week needed - not a list assembled from a map.
6 min readFueling
GI Distress in Ultras: A Troubleshooting Guide
Prevention has its own guide. This one is for the moment it happens anyway, at kilometre 60, and you need to know what to actually do about it.
6 min readCoaching
What to Expect in Your First Month With a Running Coach
The plan is the part people picture. It's the least important thing that happens in your first month.
6 min readTraining
Altitude Acclimatization for Trail and Ultra Races
Arrive two days before a high mountain race and you get the worst of both worlds - not acclimatized, and past the window where you'd have raced fine on sea-level fitness alone.
6 min readTraining
How to Structure a Recovery Week
Not the taper. The other unload - the one that repeats every three or four weeks, all block long, and that most self-coached runners quietly skip the moment they feel good.
6 min readTraining
Cold-Weather and Winter Trail Running
Winter doesn't just make training colder. It changes footing, visibility, warm-up needs, and how much fluid you actually need - and most runners only adjust for the first one.
6 min readRacing
Blister Prevention and Foot Care for Trail Ultras
A blister is rarely bad luck. It's a predictable mechanical failure, and the runners who never get a bad one aren't lucky - they just stop for the hot spot.
6 min readTraining
From Road to Trail: What Actually Changes
Your marathon fitness transfers. Your pace expectations do not. Here is what changes when you take a road engine onto a mountain.
7 min readTraining
How to Train for Vertical Gain
Vertical is a training load with its own budget, its own progression rate, and its own set of sessions. Most runners track neither.
8 min readTraining
Downhill Running: Technique, Training, and Why Your Quads Blow Up
Climbing is fitness. Descending is skill and tissue tolerance - and it causes far more late-race collapses than any climb.
7 min readTraining
Zone 2 on Hills: Why Heart Rate Lies on Trails
Your heart rate on a climb is describing the hill you were on thirty seconds ago. Here is what to steer by instead.
6 min readTraining
Strength Training for Trail Runners: What the Research Supports
Two sessions, thirty minutes, heavy and low-rep. It improves economy, protects your descents, and the evidence for it is unusually solid.
7 min readRacing
Trekking Poles for Trail Running: When They're Worth It
Poles are not a crutch and they are not free speed. They are a piece of equipment with a technique attached, and most runners never learn it.
7 min readRacing
How to Taper for an Ultra: A Three-Week Protocol
Three weeks out, your fitness is finished. Everything after that is about arriving fresh - and it is easier to ruin than to improve.
7 min readRacing
How to Pace a Trail Ultra
Almost every blown ultra is a pacing error disguised as a nutrition problem, a heat problem, or bad luck.
8 min readFueling
How Many Carbs Per Hour for an Ultra?
Sixty grams an hour was never a physiological law - it was a limit of single-sugar drinks. Here is what the transporter research changed.
7 min readFueling
Hydration and Sodium for Trail Runners
Both ends of this spectrum will end your race. One of them can also put you in hospital, and it is not the one you expect.
7 min readCoaching
How Much Does a Trail Running Coach Cost?
Between 100 and 400 euros a month, depending almost entirely on how much of the coach's actual attention you get.
7 min readCoaching
Do You Need a Trail Running Coach? An Honest Checklist
Written by someone who sells coaching, and designed to talk roughly half of you out of buying it.
6 min read
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