Your calories are on target.

Protein: nailed it.

Carbohydrate: exactly where you wanted it.

Fat: within a couple of grams.

So that means your diet is good… right?

Not necessarily.

Tracking calories and macronutrients can be genuinely useful. I use it with clients when it gives us information t...

You can run the pace.

You’ve done it in training.

Maybe you can comfortably run a few miles at your target half-marathon pace. Perhaps you can hit marathon pace during a long run. You might even be able to run faster than race pace during intervals.

Then race day arrives.

The first few miles fee...

We can track almost anything now.

Calories. Protein. Body weight. Steps. Pace. Heart rate. Sleep. Training load. Recovery scores.

And tracking can be genuinely useful.

I use it in coaching. I use it myself. There are plenty of situations where having an objective number gives us information we si...

Do you need carbohydrate during your run?

For plenty of runs, the answer is no.

If you're heading out for 30 or 40 minutes at an easy pace, taking a gel is unlikely to make any meaningful difference.

But as the run gets longer, harder or more important, carbohydrate becomes more useful.

The prob...

You go to the toilet before leaving home.

You start running and everything feels fine.

Then, ten or fifteen minutes later, you suddenly feel as though you desperately need another wee.

Sometimes there is only a small amount when you stop.

Sometimes your bladder genuinely is quite full.

Then,...

Introduction

It's all too easy to misinterpret abdominal pain when running as being the dreaded stitch but there are a number of other problems that can feel like a stitch.

Summary

• The stitch runners can experience when running does not yet have a conclusive explanation (in last week's blog, we
...

Introduction

The technical term for a stitch is Exercise-related Transient Abdominal Pain (EATP), and although a significant amount of research has been carried out over the last 2 decades, the exact cause is still unknown.

Summary

• Getting a "stitch" is one of the most common complaints amongst
...

Introduction

If you've ever experienced a soft tissue injury, such as a sprain, strain, or a pull; you have probably been advised to follow the R.I.C.E. protocol. Or at least, the "I" component of that, which stands for Ice, i.e. to put ice on the affected areas as soon as possible and at regular t...

Knowing what to eat and drink before a run can be a concern for some runners.  Some of the typical questions I get from running clients are:

• Should I eat to have energy for a run, or is it better to run “fasted”?
• Could eating before a run give me a stitch?
• What’s best for performance?
• What’s b
...

Originally published May 2022. Updated July 2026.

I first wrote this article a few years ago. I’ve now updated it with a better explanation of why running can make you need the toilet, what you can do about it, and when repeated bowel problems might need checking.

There are some running problems...

We've already mentioned it in the previous blog post "6 Alternative Reasons You're Not Already Running At Your Best" where we briefly covered training smarter, not harder!

The 7 Core Pillars of Running are what we believe to be the absolutely fundamental elements of a successful running program.  Y...