Kate demolishes target time at London Marathon 2023!

I had the pleasure of working with Kate for the last 2 months or so. She came to me with little time to spare before the London marathon. Her training was not quite going as she wanted it to and she was fearful of not hitting her target time of 4 hours and 40 minutes. I always say to athletes that I need 12 weeks minimum to really make a difference to them so I was well aware that in the time Kate had given me to help her things could get tricky.

After a good chat on the phone about how much spare time Kate had to train with and a good analysis of her current training I quickly set about writing a plan. Kate was apprehensive at first, as with nearly all runners she ran too fast too often and she found slowing down tough. However after a few weeks it was clear that Kate is a much better runner than she gives herself credit for. Day in day out she showed an excellent ability to not only bang out my sessions but also hit them at the correct paces, as a result Kate quickly improved. It became apparent to me that Kate was more than capable of hitting her 4 hour and 40 minute target. However, the marathon is not a distance to be messed around with and due to Kate's very limited marathon experience I stressed to Kate that she must stick to her target pace, especially early on when I knew it would feel easy to her. Only towards the very end did I permit her to accelerate if she felt she could.

I am very pleased to announce that Kate executed a fantastic race and came home in a superb 4 hours 35 minutes and 35 seconds! This was well inside of our target time but being honest I was aware in training that Kate had more in her. But as I always stress to athletes, you have to be very careful with the marathon distance especially first time because we never know for sure how our bodies will react late on in the race.

It has been a real pleasure working with Kate and I am really hoping we can work together again in the future. It is obvious that Kate is well capable of continuing to improve so watch this space for further reports!