As we all start to consider the ways in which we can improve our performances after 2024, I think it is really useful to consider the role that sleep plays. More and harder training is often the first resort for many athletes seeking improvements in fitness. What if you were to do similar training to the previous season, but explored ways in which you could make that training more productive? Like a rising tide that lifts all boats, more or better quality sleep improves everything. In fact,...

What do you think is the toughest triathlon in the world? Ironman Lanzarote, Norseman, ICON Livigno? They are all tough and have a legitimate claim, but what about this one?   Enduroman, also known as Arch to Arc. The athletes attempting this will run 87 miles from London to Dover, then swim at least 21 miles from Dover to France (distance could be more depending on currents/tides), and finally bike 181 miles from Calais to Paris. There have only ever been 59 finishers!   The latest to...

"If you want to run faster, move better." That's the advice of several top running coaches I have spoken with. It’s particularly important for us older athletes, because as you might already know (and be experiencing) lack of mobility is part of the aging process. Fortunately, today's guest Tim Anderson from Original Strength has a solution to the mobility loss, he calls it 'Pressing Reset’. As humans we are designed and born to be strong and healthy throughout our entire lives, and in our...

Gravel biking is growing really fast, and as much as I like being on my road bike, I find gravel riding much more fun. I discovered gravel riding during the pandemic, which is also what happened to this week's podcast guest. She is professional gravel racer Danni Shrosbree, and she races globally for the Felt UN1TD racing team.  She was UK National Gravel Champion in 2022, runner-up in 2023, and has finished 4th in the world famous Unbound Gravel race in Kansas. What makes this conversation...

Kay Bretz is an ultra-runner and corporate leader from Australia. Kay has a passion for inspiring the magic, and shares his life lessons in his book Turning Right.   Kay thrives on embarking on quests which appear impossible. He was already accomplished in the corporate world, before going on to seek personal growth by entering the world of ultra-running where he learned to master the inner game. He began a challenging journey of emotional development where he learned to let go of his...

In last week’s podcast about recovery, our guest Natalie Brown told us that there were 3 key elements to good recovery - sleep, nutrition and stress management. One area which many athletes (and non-athletes) are keen to explore is a plant based diet. There is certainly plenty of anecdotal evidence about how it can improve health and performance. In his book, Eat and Run, Scott Jurek attributes a change to plant based eating as being instrumental to his success in the ultra running...

Building fitness in the long term is quite a simple equation. You workout, and then you recover. If you get the balance of these two right, you should see a steady upward progress over time. Most folks I know and work with are pretty good at the training part, but maybe they could do better on the recovery side. I don’t know about you, but over the years I’ve come to appreciate the recovery part a lot more!   Fortunately, my guest today is an expert in recovery. Dr Natalie Brown (who you may...

Regular listeners will have heard me talking about turning 60 in February of this year, and how it has sharpened my mind and prompted me to adjust my focus around training and life habits. I’ve also become a lot more curious about how others are tackling life post-60. Are they just waiting for the inevitable, or are they being proactive and doing everything they can to continue living life to the full? Today's guest, Jason Dunn, is doing the latter. His book Unlimited: The art of being...

The Paris Olympics start this week, and I have clear memories dating back to the first one I can remember: Munich 1972.   Every 4 years we witness amazing performances and emotional moments. Hopefully, 2024 in Paris will be the same. For our podcast guest this week it will be a magical moment, when he steps onto the pontoon for the Men's Individual Triathlon next week.   Sam Dickinson is a professional triathlete based in Leeds, and he is one of 5 who have been selected for the GB Olympic...

On the podcast this week, we have Kyle Smith! Kyle is a professional triathlete from New Zealand. Raised in Blackburn, UK on a diet of motocross and modern pentathlon, he moved to Taupo in his youth, found triathlon and set about becoming one of the best in the world.   He is often first off the bike with blistering swim and bike splits, and this year he's been backing that up with solid run performances. As you’ll hear, he prefers the middle distance events such as T100 and 70.3, but he's...

If you struggle to find a reason to insert regular strength work into your training plan, maybe the motivation from entering a HYROX event will help. HYROX is a relative newcomer to the mix of indoor events combining strength and endurance. At first glance you might think it’s similar to CrossFit, but actually it's quite different. To help you and me to understand what HYROX is all about, I have 2 guests to help.   Andy Sloan is a 39 year old former triathlete who competed twice at the IM...

When you're getting close to the day of your big event it’s natural to feel some nerves and even a little anxiety. It happens to everyone, even the very top performers. In fact, if you felt no anxiety or nerves at all, that would probably be a bad thing.   It’s one thing to feel a little anxious, but to get to the point where you feel unable to make a decision or you're so uptight that it has a negative influence on your event, that's another matter altogether.   Today we have sports...

The first triathlon in the UK was 1983. I did my first event in 1987 and while the sport continued to grow for the next 15 years it didn't really take off until the start of the Brownlee era from 2008.   Having said that, there are a significant number of folks who I consider the legends - the Triathletes, coaches, and administrators who were instrumental in building the foundations of British triathlon. Since I started the podcast in 2017 I have spoken with many of these legends. Great...

As you might have been able to pick up, I’m really getting into strength training at the moment. I feel like I need to share all of my lessons with you, because this type of activity is arguably your best antidote to aging. Dan John is back again today to help me with this.   Dan and I discuss the importance of strength training for endurance athletes, particularly those in their 50s, emphasising the need to focus on hypertrophy and explosive lifting to maintain lean body mass and mobility....

"There are no solutions, only compromises" In last week’s podcast Lexi Kelson and her colleague Emily Arrell from Precision Fuel and Hydration spoke with 3 SWAT athletes to help them create a viable race day hydration and nutrition strategy.  This is all very well, but race days don’t come around that often and in between there are many days of normal living and eating. But even then not everyone has things so straight-forward. What if you are one of the folks who have stomach or digestive...

As the race season gets into full swing, I know that many of you are thinking not only of your performance goals but also how you can support these with a good race day hydration and nutrition strategy. Some of the key lessons I have learned over the years are:   1) without a good fuelling/hydration strategy you are unlikely to hit your goals, especially on the longer events. 2) there are 3 pillars to focus on - fuelling, hydration and electrolytes. 3) your strategy must change with every key...

Someone once told me that good coaches never stop learning. This is a philosophy that I have carried with me ever since I started coaching, and one which I share with other coaches whenever we are delivering workshops.  Reading books and speaking with podcast guests probably forms the majority of my learning these days, although not all. I still go to conferences and in person workshops. Today’s guest ticks two of the key learning boxes for me and I hope it does for you as well.   My guest...

Have you watched the Paralympics? What about when you are taking part in or volunteering/spectating at  a running event or a triathlon? Have you ever observed the wheelchair triathletes? For them, it’s swim, to hand cycle, to racing chair. Everything is about the upper body, and I’ve always been curious about how they take care of their shoulders, and what constitutes a rest day.   Today I’m chatting with Bret Crossley, a paratriathlete who lives in the Leeds area. Bret has been involved in...

The female monthly cycle and how it impacts training and competition is a conversation that athletes and coaches should have. The reality is that it can be awkward for both parties, so to avoid awkwardness it usually gets pushed aside. Which means that female athletes can feel isolated in navigating this part of their life. We should also include perimenopause and menopause in that conversation as it will affect most females at some point.   As a coach I do believe that we need to have these...

My guest today is Jim Vance  There are few individuals in the world with the teaching background, elite athlete experience, and coaching experience with elites, amateurs and juniors, as well as knowledge of training and a passion and understanding of tech. Jim has been the coach to US pro triathlete Ben Kanute for 8 years. He has also written 2 triathlon books (details of which you can find in the show notes) and is a consultant to several tech companies in the Multisport space including...

Lucy Gossage has been around on the long distance triathlon scene for a long time, and she's instantly recognisable with her blue Erdinger kit and infectious smile. If you don’t know Lucy, she has 14 Ironman victories to her name including IMUK, IM Wales, IM Lanzarote and Patagonman (basically all the toughest ones). In 2019 she stepped back from IM racing to focus more on her work as an Oncologist in Nottingham. You’ll get a sense of how Lucy likes to challenge herself with that race resume,...

Triathletes like to call themselves multi-sport athletes. In a manner of speaking, they are. They have generally mastered 3 disciplines and combine them all in one single race. Today's guest, Dougal Allen, is a true multi-sport athlete of the highest order. He’s won the NZ Coast to Coast twice (run/kayak/MTB), had many victories and top 10 finishes in both IM & Challenge events, and completed many multi-day adventure races around the world. As well as running and cycling, these events...

"The RED-S project is a club for sustainable performance. And sustainability to me brings up a few different words, I think about fueling and enjoyment. And no, no process is sustainable unless it's enjoyable. And for me, if I was to get close to a recreational race, and I started to think about race weight, that wouldn't tie in with enjoyment for me."   In this week's episode of the High Performance Human, our guest is Alex Vendittelli, a RED-S Ambassador and a recreational runner. We...

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is gaining more traction in our lives. It's been here awhile, but the launch of Chat GPT has really accelerated our awareness of how it can simplify our lives. AI will be a part of our athletic lives as well, certainly for the way we plan our plan, analyse, and adjust our training to get the best results.   Will this benefit athletes and coaches alike? I don’t have enough knowledge on the subject to answer that but today’s podcast guest does! Prof Paul Laursen...