Nick S – Valencia Marathon PB 2:56
Nick had only been running competitively for a couple of years when we started working together, but he had already run an impressive 3:09 for the marathon. He had been training relatively high volumes already, so I knew it would be a challenge getting him to improve. We focussed on high quality sessions, reasonable volumes of training and race specific long runs. His hard work paid off with a 15minute PB at Valencia, running an amazing time of 2:56! Nick also managed to bag a 5k and 10k PB of 17:48 and 36:46 during the build-up. Well done Nick!
Nick S testimonial:
I enlisted Ben after reaching a plateau in my training, having previously developed my own training plans and achieving reasonable race results. With Valencia marathon a few months away I wanted to take my training to the next level and see where I could improve relative to prior efforts.
We had a thorough discussion about my goals, abilities and training schedule and Ben outlined ways we could work towards said goals, being clear about what he felt was realistic.
Ben proposed a tracker in the form of a shared spreadsheet where he would publish a weekly plan and I would mark off and make notes against each session. While he remained flexible to tailoring the tracker, I found no need to do so and liked the simplicity of it while making each session feel just a little bit more connected.
While we had a regular catch up Ben also made himself available via Whatsapp to address any issues and answer any questions (of which I had many!) throughout the week. No questions were off the table and I found Ben’s answers thoroughly informative and clearly based on years of experience. His passion for running also came through in our discussions and I learned a great deal through our conversations combined with a tailored and well thought out training plan.
The plan itself was tailored around my schedule and included a good mix of workouts. While being focused on my goals, we remained flexible in moving sessions around commitments and adjusting to accomodate for niggles, recovery and races. For example, early on we switched speed sessions to hills while nursing a niggle. Later on, we adjusted tempo work to snappier intervals when Ben noticed fatigue creeping in, bringing back some running mojo and putting some spring back in the legs.
Ben explained the reasoning for the plan he put together which I found educational, but some elements also “clicked” later on, when I’d realise in hindsight “so that’s why we were doing those sessions in that block!”.
Things don’t always go to plan and I found Ben to be both encouraging and accommodating and always there to provide support and advice when things went wrong. In my case we worked through an injury, a bout of Covid and some mixed 5k, 10k and half marathon results. Ben remained supportive while making sure we keep moving forward, drawing from his own wealth of experience of dealing with setbacks.
Trusting the plan and Ben’s approach paid off spectacularly when I unexpectedly achieved both 5k and 10k PBs during the marathon training block. The going got tough towards the end of the block but Ben seemed to sense just the right balance to get the most out of training on the way to an ambitious goal while leaving just enough room for recovery.
I walk away from this training block with a grand prize of a sub 3 hour marathon in Valencia, comfortably achieving my sub 3 goal and a large PB of 2:56:41. I wouldn’t have done it without Ben’s support and guidance and cannot recommend his services enough. His experience, good nature and passion for running really came through and I look forward to working with him on another adventure. Thanks Ben!
Run Coach Ben 