I have been a runner for over a decade now. I have been fortunate enough to train with some the UK’s best athletes, from Olympians to Commonwealth Games representatives to European Medallists. In this time period, I have also been fortunate to travel to some incredible places such as Colorado Springs and Font Romeu.

From these places and with these people I have learnt a lot. Below are my key takeaways from these ten-plus years of experience.

Elite athletes are ordinary people

This one is often hard to believe, especially when we see the athletes perform at such a hih standard on television. Some of the performances they produce are incredible, but they are also human. They also like to eat pizza, drink the occasional beer and have fun. They themselves experience feelings of “not wanting to go train” or “not wanting to foam roll”. But they do it anyway. This is to say, there's not much of a difference between you and I, and them.

Recovery is more important than the workout

If you’re one of my athletes that I coach or follow me on Instagram (@makorunning_ btw) you will know that I stress this one, A LOT! It was probably the biggest mistake I have made as a runner myself and one that is easy to make. We think the only way to improve is to train harder and more frequently. This is not true, physiologically, we need time for adaptation to occur and this comes when we recover.

Nail the basics

Again, this links back to the previous point. Make sure you are sleeping 7-9 hours a night, drinking lots of water and electrolytes and eating nutritious meals. These three aspects will trump any of the latest recovery tools that have just arrived to the market.

Consistency above all

Doing one flashy workout that garners 20 kudos on Strava may make you feel like you’re on top of the world, but that’s not what will get you there. What will get you there is solid, consistent work over a prolonged period of time. Often it is just about ticking boxes and staying within yourself that will allow you to stack these weeks up

This was a quick and brief article today, but I hope it helps share some of my own personal running experiences to help you improve as an athlete

Take Care and Happy Running :)