More about Gav

 

My husband Gav has been running continuously since the 1980s and has almost twenty five years of coaching experience. Gav coached me to the finals of every major championship and I also won all of my championship medals whilst being coached by him. He was named the British Milers Club national coach of the year in 2014 and was previously a coaching consultant to UK Athletics between 2004 and 2008.

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In the 1980's I enjoyed some junior success winning various national titles and setting an age group British record at 1500m. However, following an operation in 1990 I was unable to run at international level for the period 1991 to 1996. I ran throughout this period trying to make a come back but I continually had set backs and I couldn't train at the required level to race. It was only when Gav took over the coaching during the winter of 1996/97 that I was able to make a come back. After missing so many years it was an emotional moment to line up again in a British vest.

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Gav was able to help me return to running at this level due to his very detailed approach. The key was that he was able to set training I could cope with and this became sustainable and enabled me to train consistently and only then could I make the gradual progress back to competing at a high level. He had rescued my career! 

 

Some of the key things that he did was to more than half my volume and temporarily remove many of the higher injury risk components to my training. This was only temporary as over the next few years he gradually added these components back and slowly increased the volume, intensity and frequency of my running. This was done with amazing patience over many years. His forward planning meant that my volume gradually progressed from 35 miles per week in 2000 to a peak of 125 miles per week in 2008 whilst alongside this the quality of my running progressed. 

 

Gav’s attention to detail is what made the difference and he attended all of my medical appointments so that he could make fully informed decisions about the training he prescribed. The aim was to set training that matched my current status, current level of conditioning whilst taking account for all of my many injury concerns.

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Another key factor to our approach is motivation that is founded upon the joy of running and having fun. When you run without joy it becomes a chore. Gav and I believe in learning to embrace all aspects of running including its discomfort!

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Gav's approach is one of constant communication and feedback so that on a daily basis the training is scrutinised to ensure it is appropriate and optimised. This is why we don't provide automated online coaching and it's why the numbers of runners we coach are very limited.  

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Whatever your ability, if you want to achieve your running goals working with someone who is extremely passionate about running then please get in touch →