The Holy Grail of Hybrid Training.

If you haven’t read my other blogs on the science of hybrid training, and the nuts and bolts of how training for different, multiple goals can be challenging at best and frustingly slow at worst. Then after you have read ‘this’ I would circle back through my other blogs to learn more about the factors that are going to influence your capacity to progress across multiple training modalities at the same time.

This blog, however, is written from a place of experience of applying science, rather than the science itself. What I am hoping is that this style of blog is as easy to follow from a practical sense and that the lessons learned can be considered and applied to your own training.

Let’s really start this blog with what I consider to be my personal Holy Grail of my hybrid training. After around 4 years of training in this manner, I feel I have finally reated a program that allows me to progress in my hybrid disciplines at the same time.

Running ultramarathons

Powerlifting

Climbing

Now before we get into the meat of this training meal, I want to caveat this whole blog with a few points.

• This way of training is not optimal to have the fastest improvments in any one discipline. So, if I had something that required more secialised training, or probably more accurately specialised goals, then this would be tweaked significantly.

  To elaborate on that slightly, what I am talking about here is that my current training is focused around small, incremental amounts of progression across multiple disciplines to be able to achieve general outcomes rather than specific outcomes.

  For example, my current training allows me to get stronger in the gym and on the climbing wall whilst being able to complete ultramarathons of up to 50 miles pretty comfortably. However, if I wanted to run the this distance in a personal best time, then I would 100% have to accept that the volume and intensity of my running to achieve this would eat into my ability to gain strength. In the short term this may even mean that I have to accept some strength losses even when still lifting heavy in the gym.

• My starting point for this training block was after what I would call a reset phase of training. By this I mean that after last years exertions I had a few months of just training to let the body recover. I was still lifting 3-4 times a week, running once a week and climbing 1-2 times per week. I had therefore dropped a little bit of endurance fitness, and strength, but not a horrendous amount.

The reason I mention these points is because I wanted to create a fair representation of the progress I had made over the last 10-12 weeks. What I will say is, that at present, at this bodyweight, my max lifts are all in the ballpark of my personal bests, my running is at around 90% of my best efforts and my climbing is at an all time best. Which in fairness isn’t ‘hard’ because I have only been climbing 12 months seriously and the main limitaitons on performance were pretty easy to identify and fix.

Now the background is set, let’s talk about the biggest issue in making progress for most, normal, not full time athletes, common, garden variety hybrid athletes like me. Time.

If you have time to train twice a day, time to spend hours in a climbing gym, time to do multiple long runs of a couple of hours plus a week and the time to implement proper nutrition and recovery strategies then this would be ‘easy’.. or would it?

The reality is that having more time to train and even with all our recovery optimised, this still doesn’t mean you could handle the amount of fatigue generated with all of your available training time.

Therefore, being time limited can actually be a bonus for people like myself who tend to over do things, as it has made me become really specific in the types of training I am doing to maximise my time training whilst cutting out of the extra volume, that perhaps might help me reach a higher level, faster, BUT more likely will end up with me doing too much work and spinning my wheels.

For hybrid athletes, doing too much ‘stuff’ is often more of an issue than doing too little. If you can accept that less is often more, and use that less efficiently then you can actually be doing yourself a big favour.

So, what approach did I use to become efficient… it started with a needs analysis for each discipline.

Running: I had been doing lots of easy effort ‘base’ work, but had noticed that at moderate and high intensity efforts I was under-performing. I know zone 2 is all the rage at the moment, and without getting into it, if you are already conditioned to running and you are time restricted there are in my opinion better ways to spend your time and get more out of your training.

So most of my work was done at tempo, threshold and higher effort intervals with low effort work bolted on where time and most importantly energy would allow.

Why? If you only have a few hours to run each week, then to create an endurance adaptation then you need to create a stress. Zone 2 runs tend to have to be longer and time consuming to cause adaptive stressors. In elite runners, they do a lot of zone 2 work because they a) have the time and b) most importantly the volume of training they are doing still means a few hours of higher effort work even if 80% of their training is ‘easy’ zone 2.

I suspect, and I cannot prove this scientifically, but zone 2 work is most useful when added in to programs to increase volume with lower fatigue once the hard work is done.

Therefore most of their performance gain is achieved in the higher effort sessions and that my friends is why I think for those short on time their energy should be focused here.

I also do this because running at faster paces increases running economy and efficiency. Even in ultra events where you want to be going ‘slow’ there is such a thing as too slow to be efficient.

So what you might save in short term fatigue you can lose in time because you are moving slower. Understanding where you are most efficient and developing race strategies to maximise this is highly individual.

I am better off running at moderate effort for shorter durations and then taking walking/resting recovery periods than to run at a slower pace but without the breaks… this is how I have run all of my fastest times on ultra distance events and by some margin compared to a more slow and steady effort (as long as I don’t go too hard and play to the conditions)… and believe me when I say I have tried all kinds of pacing strategies over the last few years.

Warning: All running can of course cause fatigue, but higher intensity efforts may cause more, and of different types, to longer slower efforts. Therfore, when I use these kinds of sessions I never go to max efforts, always monitor heart rate and pace efforts and adjust paces accordingly and know when it is time to back off and take rest.

What this looked like to me, was 3 running session per week.

2 x 30-60 minute sessions that were intervals at or above threshold pace. these would bolted on to my upper body strength sessions.

1 x Longer effort session of 90-120 minutes that would be based on feel, but mostly a mix of tempo and easy efforts. This would have it’s own separate day, on occasion I would combine this with some ‘fluff’ bodypart work in the gym.

Once every 4-6 weeks I would go for one long ‘mega effort’ of 4+ hours to play with fuelling, race pace strategy etc. I would also take this as an opportunity to have an easier week in the gym lifting and get some more time in the climbing gym.

Lifting: I kept my focus here on the big three lifts (Squat, Bench, Deadlift) and kept the programming pretty simple. I put all of the big 3 in the same session and made sure I had a rest day before and the session after was typically my longer runs session as there was less pressure on this to perform. That session was adjusted to feel in any case as I described above so there was no pressure on this to hit any target paces.

I added only a small amount of accessory work for the quads, hamstrings, glutes, calves and abductors.

Whilst I am on about the use of accessories, I used a technique called Myo-Reps. This is where you choose a load you can typically do 8-15 reps for, perform a set of ‘clean’ no grinding reps, then rest for around 10-20 seconds before performing a second set, then repeat this process until you can only perform a single rep. One set. Done. Next Exercise.

The reason I do this is because firstly it is time efficient and secondly there is a solid amount of research that this promotes strength and muscle growth in an effective manner.

Although it might not quite be to the level of stimulus of a more pure bodybuilding workout of say 3 sets of 5-15 with a few minutes rest in between, you will get most most of the benefit with less time and overall fatigue. I tended to also not take these sets to absolute failure, so no grinding reps, assisted reps or drop sets etc. to ‘intensify’ the workout.

For the big 3 I used a simple progressive model that used 3 working sets. Working up to a heavy single at an effort level of 8-9/10, then 1 set of 3 reps at around 90% of this then a final set of maximum reps (with no grinding or assisted reps) of 85% of the 1 rep load.

On the final set, if I could do 7+ clean reps, I then the next week I increased the heaviest set the next week by the smalles increments available, e.g 2.5kg. If not hitting the 7+ reps I stayed at this load until I could, implementing the myo-rep style above to hit 8 reps.

Upper body sessions were again done in a Myo-Rep style with 4-6 exercises of Push or Pull movements depending on what training day we were on. Using this style allowed me to get through a weights session in 30-40 minutes, meaning that when I bolted on my running intervals this whole session was never more than 90 minutes total.

Is this the optimal way to program training? Rather than an attempt to be optimal, the more useful way to think of programming is trying to implement the best practice within a given context. There is nothing optimal about hybrid training. That’s kind of the point and part of the fun in figuring out how to get the most out yourself given the obvious constraints we have to deal with.

Climbing: Being a relative begginer to climbing, and having a scientific mind and an ability to use YouTube, I pretty quicly figured out the 2 key areas that were holding me back from going from a V3 to V5.

These are both intermediate grades, but the step towards V5 puts you on the limit of being advanced and in the realms of people being aware you are a decent climber!

These areas where finger strength and single arm shoulder stablity and back strength.

Finger strength was trained progressively using a portable grip board. These are pieces of wood that often come in pairs, with different depth grooves cut into it. You can attach these using rope to either pull up bars/frames or loop around dumbells to add load in a downwards hanging position, which was great for me as too much pulling work irritates my elbow tendons… in fact since doing this I have noticed massive improvements in pain and flare ups even during back workouts.

I used this downward hanging position to focus on one hand at a time and progresses through each grip type holding each for 5-10 seconds.

Once I could complete the smallest groove (10mm on my YY Verticle board), I added a small amount of weight.

This is what I am talking about… obvs.

The reason I chose this method was simple. Like any improvement in human performance there needs to be a sufficient stimulus that is challenging enough to cause the adaptation we want but not so much we get injured or aren’t capable of performing the work.

This is something that I noticed from trying to improve during sessions in the climbing gym. I felt the grades I could do weren’t challenging enough that I would have to spend hours to get the right stimulus, or so hard on the climbs that challenged me that I couldn’t get the stimulus at all.

Now, I do believe that time on the wall is essential and is 100% a way to improve all aspects of climbing that pure gym work can’t replicate. But remember here I do not have the time or energy to be spending hours in a climbing gym.

This method allowed me to do a lot of good work, 3 times per week and in only a few minutes added on to my strength sessions. And this 100% transitioned to performance on the wall even though I was climbing once every couple of weeks hitting most V4’s with some time spent working out the climbs and some styles of V5 climbs that suited me.

However, I have to admit at this point for the last 6 weeks I haven’t hit a climbing gym so I have no idea where I am. Life and other business priorities have gotten in the way. I have got stronger for sure but how this transitioned into climbing remains to be seen.

My second biggest issue was a lack of shoulder/back strength and stability, in my left shoulder in particular. This comes from a lot of injuries from rugby, wrestling and lifting.

To build strength and trust in both shoulders I started with simple double arm hangs, progressed to weighted hangs then to single arm hangs and finally weighted single arm hangs.

At 90kg in bodyweight I can now hang on my ‘bad’ arm for 10-15 seconds with an additional 20kg of weight. I’ll take that for sure and most importantly my shoulder health feels the best it has in a long time.

I combined this with assisted single arm pull-ups. One day I would loeve to be able to do an unassisted single arm pull up. I’m just not sure that will be possible at my current weight. Even if I can get in the ball park of this, this will 100% take my climbing grade up a signficant amount.

I can’t wait to get back on the wall to test this soon. Of course I will write a blog on this.

How my program typically looked:

Session 1: Push + 30-60 minute intervals.

Session 2: Pull + 30-60 minute intervals.

Recovery & Mobility Work

Session 3: Full Power + Leg Accessories.

Session 4: 90-120 minute run + Fluff

Recovery & Mobility Work

So, that’s it. Hopefully you can see some method to the madness and understand how and why I have implemented this approach.

Ultimately, what this comes down to is ripping back your performance to the 2-3 key things that will give you the biggest benefit rather than trying to improve everything all at once. It may look on paper like that’s what I have done, but in reality there is much more taken away than has been added.

For hybrid athletes, this highlights the need to be super focused on the goal and the things you need to do to get you there. In the words of one of my childhood heroes Bruce Lee

““Absorb what is useful, discard what is not, and add what is uniquely your own.”

Understanding Fatigue & Why it is the Key to Unlocking your Performance Potential.

Current Winter Feels.

If you had read my last ‘monster’ of a blog on what are the performance limitations of a hybrid athlete in terms of maximising adaptation to both strength and endurance training fundamentally comes down to how well, we handle and recover from fatigue.

Having conflicting training goals is one thing but trying to smash together ‘elite’ training programs for both strength and endurance is a recipe for a fatigue-based disaster.

If we accept that the fatigue, we can handle is the limiting factor on our ability to keep pushing our performance boundaries, which we should because it is. The perhaps if we understand fatigue a little better then maybe, just maybe, we can use that information to delay it, recover from it and even prevent excessive amounts of it whilst we still sneakily ramp up our training volumes to infinity and beyond.

So, if we are going to stand a chance against the ‘delights’ of fatigue, let’s a dig a little deeper and figure out what fatigue is.

What it Fatigue?

Fatigue, as with most things’ physiology is complex and isn’t simply one thing. But it can be summarised, at least in the context of exercise as a reduction in our capacity to produce force.

We, whoever we are, break fatigue down in to two main types.

Peripheral fatigue: This process happens in the from the nerve ‘level’ into the muscle an involves the reduction in signalling ‘power’ at the interface between the nerves and the contractile fibres of the muscle and disruption of the signalling within the muscle fibres themselves.

Central fatigue: This process happens in the central nervous system, from the brain, down the spinal cord to the point at which the nerves get to the muscle to trigger movement.

Different types of exercise cause different types of fatigue some tend to create more central than peripheral fatigue and vice versa.

Strength training causes fatigue by repeatedly contracting the muscle, typically with as much force as we can generate on each rep. At we go through a set this capacity to produce force gets lower and the velocity we move the load gets slower. This reduction in velocity is in essence our real-world representation of fatigue come to life.

In other forms of exercise, we are contracting the muscle sub-maximally for much longer durations of several minutes, this would be more in line with low load, high rep range training, not quite what we might call circuit training but on the upper end of bodybuilding rep ranges and a but beyond is a nice way to visualise this.

If we stretch this out even further, to when we take very low levels of muscle contractions over many, many hours over many, many steps during an ultramarathon then we need to consider that this falls outside the spectrum of much easier research to implement in the lab setting… so let’s start with what the science says about the ‘easier’ types of fatigue to measure!

Fatigue after lifting heavy loads to (or near) failure.

If you were to start lifting with as much effort as is possible and tried to maintain this. Within as little as one minute the force you can produce can be reduced by over 50%.

To measure this in a lab requires specialist machines that create variable resistance as a response to the force you put through them… this is called an isokinetic dynamometer and is a piece of kit I am familiar with as I used it as part of my PhD research. This allows you to try as hard as is possible with each rep until you hit some pre-determined cut off threshold.

Part of the fatigue caused here is ‘central fatigue’ but this longer lasting form of fatigue is less prevalent in this type of activity and peripheral fatigue is definitely the dominant force.

Muscle strength recovers relatively quickly within a few minutes to around 80% of it’s maximum. This is one of the reasons recommendations for strength training is to take longer durations of rest of 3-5 minutes between sets to restore most of the strength lost due to short term fatigue so that we can maintain, within reason, high levels of strength.

The central ‘brain’ component system seems to switch back on fully within one minute, showing that this type of fatigue occurs predominantly in the ‘peripheral’ muscle itself.

With enough volume (sets in this case), peripheral fatigue eventually spills over much more significantly into central fatigue and our ability to produce force drops, no matter how much rest we take in a session.

Let’s say we were being a bit silly and did 20 sets of 5 reps of heavy squats. We are 100% going to get significant amounts of both types of fatigue in the short term but also plenty of muscle damage the needs to be recovered from.

This is why for strength training for hybrid athletes we need to consider what is known as the stimulus to fatigue ratio. We need enough stimulus to grow muscle/get stronger, but not so much that not only we are screwed for endurance training, but we might struggle to even recover sufficiently to make progress in our next strength training session even in a strength only program.

How we can avoid this from a strength programming perspective is simple if we follow these three key principles.

1.       Rarely train sets to failure. The last few reps don’t cause the same level of stimulus as the earlier reps, so we don’t have to obliterate ourselves every set.

2.       Limit the number of sets to no more than 3 for each exercise in a session. Each set causes less and less response and so sets 4 and 5 create diminished return on investment relative to the fatigue caused.

3.       Have a lower in session training volume, but higher training frequency to hit 10+ sets per week per muscle group.  

This is a controversial one and has a lot of conflicting research, much of which is centred around strength and hypertrophy training in its purest form.

In my (selfish) case, I am looking at this specifically through the lens of a hybrid athlete and my experience in managing fatigue with professional athletes that need to train across multiple disciplines.

As a thought experiment, ask yourself this question…
What do you think will more likely affect your capacity to get the most out of your training week as a hybrid athlete?

It’s Monday and time to throw down some heavy ass squats. You can choose to do 3 sets of heavy squats, then repeat these 2-3 three times per week, or just fit them all in on Monday, 6-9 sets? The fatigue is simply different, as is the carry over into the following days. This may not matter as much to single modality strength sports, but to ‘us’ it does, and this is where I am planting my flag that frequency does matter.  

Imagine you now had a run planned after that session, or even the next day. How productive is that going to be after 9 sets of squats? 3 sets may still have an impact, but I will bet my left earlobe that the session won’t be nearly as heinous and much more productive.

Fatigue after sub-maximal efforts.

Here we’re not quite into the realms of endurance as we know it, but we are on the end of the spectrum of high-rep bodybuilding training, and sports that require lots of moderate effort for long duration. In my world, climbing would be an example of lots of sub-maximal efforts that can last longer durations, and this spills over from strength training into the world of muscular endurance.

During this type of activity there is less recruitment of those muscle fibres that are required to lift force maximally. Over time, and with fatigue, eventually (depending on the load being lifted) this will recruit all the muscle fibres, even our ‘strength’ fibres, to maintain force output even at a lower level of load.

Testing in the lab at this kind of load can go on from several minutes to over an hour. If you have taken an educated guess, it will come as no surprise that this causes more central fatigue than peripheral. This type of central fatigue takes much longer for the body to re-calibrate itself and despite ‘feeling’ like the muscle has recovered to get back to anywhere near full strength will take much longer.

How long is determined by the duration of the fatiguing protocol, and maybe be well over 30 minutes to recover to the same level of maximal strength that occur in as little as one minute when the focus is those heavier loads that cause more peripheral fatigue.

What this tells us is that exercises that causes us to fatigue that last over a couple of minutes are going to cause a lot of fatigue and we need to consider this in our programming especially if the type of training we are doing in this style is recruiting lots of big muscle groups.

This may also spill over into some endurance style training, like interval training, and other high intensity training or ‘functional’ fitness or circuit training.

So, although these may be a time efficient way to train and may work in a more complimentary fashion to strength training than ‘pure’ endurance training, we do need to pump the breaks on how long and how hard these sessions are.

Much like the strength training ‘rules’, if we are balancing different training modalities, then we need to be careful about taking these to the limit too often as this fatigue can carry over significantly and amplify strength training fatigue, especially if done in the same session.

Fatigue After Endurance Exercise 

You may be thinking at this point, what is the difference between the above types of exercise and say running, cycling or swimming?

The fact is that that the above ‘may’ stress the same systems in the body as endurance but not to the same extreme. As the stress shifts more from the muscles capacity to produce into a place where the metabolic demand is placed primarily on the cardiovascular system and higher overall metabolic outputs, with fuel and electrolyte depletion being primary mediators of fatigue. This is a key point to mitigate fatigue we will come back to.

As anyone who has ran at an ‘easy’ effort will tell you, the ease of this effort is only relative to the duration of the run. After a while our perception of effort to maintain the same speed increases as does muscle activation levels and cardiovascular response. This increase in heart rate is known as cardiac drift.

This is a pretty useful thing to measure to determine when our long runs are long enough. As with other forms of training as a hybrid athlete the game here is to stimulate not annihilate across most of our sessions, so when we notice this ‘drift’ in heart rate (or perception of effort at a given pace) then we can probably guess we have done enough work to say it is ‘long enough’.

The extent at which we fatigue at different speeds, durations, terrain etc. will largely determine our level of performance.

Something I have battled with constantly is the idea of trying to find a sustainable pace over say 10+ hours. Is it better to push hard for say 5 hours and make good time, to then slow, recover and then run when you can for the duration. Or to slow down take it easy and take a more even-handed approach to pacing.

Although the science in endurance sport points towards an even paced, slower, strategy, it isn’t quite that clear cut (at least in my case). The reason for this, I believe, is that there are speeds at which we run that are just more energy efficient relative to the speed we are travelling. Running slower might be more sustainable in theory and may be causing less total fatigue, but more fatigue relatively due to lack of running efficiency.

It is always hard to compare events, but my fastest times on distances over 50km have always come when I have pushed a bit harder (but not too hard) in the early stages of a race. HOWEVER, conditions play a huge role for me in this. If it is cool, I will push a bit more, if it is hot then this can be a recipe for disaster… I do not do well in the heat (this reminds me, a blog on heat acclimation is on my to do list).

The counter to this may be, that running slower more often will create more efficiency at lower speeds. This may be true, I have tried this, but I just honestly didn’t notice any improvement, in fact I feel like I got slower at all distances.

The main advantage I did find however was more to do with controlling eating, hydration and regulating sweating, which is obviously hugely important. That is why I do persist with a more regulated pace when out running anything over 50 miles.

This may make for a slower, but more pleasant experience, with less risk of falling off a performance cliff which has 100% happened to me before. That is the trade off between playing it safe and getting it ‘done’ versus pushing hard, getting a time you feel happy with but risking it being a bad day at the office.

I guess that is where experience comes in. When to push, when to back off, when to reign it in and when to go full bore renegade.

The extent of peripheral versus central contributions to fatigue still depends on intensity and duration of the activity. Peripheral factors dominate after short-duration high-intensity exercise like interval training, while central fatigue is more prominent following longer submaximal exertion.

However, the amount of central fatigue also seems more dependent on duration than intensity since muscle output declines after longer trials with similar (lower) intensities. Importantly, central fatigue can persist longer after endurance activities versus single-joint MVC exercise - extreme endurance events can cause fatigue lasting hours or days.

Running, especially downhill also uses considerable amounts of eccentric muscle contractions which causes high levels of muscle damage, delaying strength recovery for days or weeks.

It is in an interesting observation that athletes I work with that kick my ass on flat runs, cannot live with me in the hills. The up hills might be fine, but the specific demands of downhill running ‘breaks’ people after a few kilometres for those who are not used to it. This has definitely been a benefit of strength training for a long time for me before taking up running, my muscles are (to a reasonable extent) used to these kinds of movements and that allowed me to ‘cheat code’ some of my training in the hills.

In any case, what really matters is what causes this fatigue and how we can limit its effects during training and competition. The problem with this kind of fatigue is that it is highly complex, on one hand this means understanding and preventing it difficult but on the other, there is plenty of opportunity to implement strategies to limit the amount and onset of fatigue.

Factors causing prolonged central fatigue following endurance exercise are currently uncertain but may involve neuromodulation or homeostatic disturbances in temperature, breathing gases or metabolism.

To finish this blog I want to give you some very brief take home messages to try to help you perform better, recover faster and ensure that you can do the fundamentals to maximise your training output and performance.

Each of these takeaway points could be an article within itself as to the how, why, what, where and when they are important.

Nutrition & Supplements to Prevent Fatigue.

- Properly fuel before, during and after exercise with carbohydrates to maintain blood glucose and muscle glycogen stores. This preserves central drive to muscles.

- Hydrate adequately to avoid dehydration-related declines in cardiovascular and thermoregulatory capacity. 

- In longer or sweatier sessions use electrolytes to prevent depletion and keep central and peripheral function

- Consume sufficient daily protein to support muscle protein synthesis and adaptive remodelling.

- Creatine supplementation helps maintain excitation-contraction coupling and intracellular phosphate stores to preserve muscle performance.

- Caffeine can help offset central fatigue by blocking adenosine receptors.

- Dietary nitrates may boost nitric oxide levels, improving muscle blood flow and oxygen delivery.

- Anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids may quicken recovery following eccentric muscle damage.

-Vitamin D (especially in the winter months) regulates many functions important to performance and recovery.

Therapies to Prevent Fatigue and Promote Recovery.

- Active cool-down after intense exercise may help clear waste metabolites and inflammatory molecules.

- Hot baths and contrast with cold may also offer some benefits (I prefer heat as it doesn’t limit adaptations to muscle growth that cold potentially can).

Lifestyle Factors

- Prioritize sleep, which is critical for tissue growth and adaptive responses to exercise. Lack of sleep hampers recovery.

- Allow enough recovery time between vigorous training sessions for muscles to regenerate. Excessive training hinders supercompensation.

- Stress management helps recovery by lowering stress hormones and creates a better environment to support our adaptive, recovery processes.

The most effective strategy likely involves proactively addressing fatigue through a combination of training periodization, nutrition, and lifestyle optimization rather than just reacting after fatigue sets in.

Implementing several recovery modalities concurrently also provides greater benefit than any single intervention alone.

So, that’s it. Hope you enjoyed the read and I’ll be back with you very soon.

The Science of Hybrid Training: What we know… and what we don’t!

The ultimate hybrid… The Rhinoshark

In one of my earlier blogs, I talked a bit about the challenges of training for both strength and endurance. Although this blog is meant to be more experiential laced with a dash of science. I do feel that it is worth having the odd ‘piece’ looking in a little more depth so to give you a little more insight into the why and how I structure some of my own training.

Largely, as you will see, this is an exercise in fatigue management combined with some (hopefully) clever programming.

Before we get into that, let’s dig into a little history of training theory. The visionary coach Yakovlev came up with a theory that revolved around the idea that each training session or period imposes a certain degree and type of stress on the body, and this is what caused specific adaptations.

This has now evolved into a deeper understanding of what types of training cause the right types of adaptations to get the performance outcomes we desire. It just so happens that some of the mechanisms that link training to outcomes have the potential to interfere with each other.

Although as we will see, this ‘interference effect’ may not actually be the most important limiter to maximising both endurance and strength performance.

Spoiler alert. There are the obvious reasons why bigger athletes will be slower than smaller endurance athletes. More weight = more work to maintain the same output.

There are also other strength specific adaptations that may impact on endurance performance, some of which we will discuss here. But in relation to the idea of an athlete maximising endurance performance and strength at a given weight, assuming they are ‘done’ with muscle gain, then this is where our (my) real interest in this topic lies.

Do the types of training interfere enough with each other on a molecular level? And what else might be limiting the ability to maximise your performance in the pursuit of dual goals, and at what level that might take place?

Researchers have delved deep into the intricate world of training-induced adaptations, uncovering a complex network of specific molecular pathways stimulated during training. In the context we are interested in, activities can be broadly categorized into endurance based or strength-power based training.

Endurance training sets in motion molecular pathways linked to mitochondrial protein synthesis (the creation of cellular power plants), angiogenesis (increases in blood vessels) and changes in fibre type all increasing endurance capacity.

In contrast, resistance training primarily stimulates myofibrillar protein synthesis (increases in muscle fibre size leading to hypertrophy) which are governed by other pathways. There are also other neural adaptations to strength training that increases the ability to ‘access’ the muscles full force potential.

The potential problem:

The pathway, or at least part of the adaptive pathway, triggered by endurance training has a down-regulating ‘dimmer switch’ that impacts on muscle growth.

However…

How much dampening takes place and under what conditions?

What if we aren’t interested in gaining muscle, just maximising strength?

There are clearly factors that influence the impact of endurance on strength, what are they? I’ll come back to that later.

I think it is important to note that this interference, whatever causes it, is bi-directional.

That is to say that trying to maximise strength will affect endurance training output, and trying to maximise endurance will affect strength.

This relationship though is slightly leveraged in the direction that endurance affects strength more than strength affects endurance (assuming we are conditioned to strength training).

This is because the volume of training required to maximise strength, is much lower than it is to improve endurance performance, especially if we are talking about long distance events. To maintain strength is even ‘easier’.

If you want to really train to maximise both, I do believe this is possible given enough time but the caveat has to be that the endurance events needs to be relatively short in duration, for example 5-10km.

Longer than this the relative increase in volume required to maximise performance is going to increase fatigue & recovery demands to a level that it will interfere with strength training and hard strength training will carry over to impact on endurance performance. Especially in heavier, more muscled athletes. Although as we will see, this is less likely to occur in some types of longer distance endurance events than others.

Hybrid Training Effect.

In real-world scenarios, combining resistance and endurance exercises within a training program promises an array of health-related benefits. The nature of programming for extremes in performance is a side issue for those who want to be healthy without a BIG performance goal. 

The real world… allegedly.

These advantages encompass, improved insulin sensitivity, enhanced glucose and lipid metabolism, favourable alterations in lipid profiles, and enhanced body composition.

Remarkably, these benefits hold true regardless of age or gender. Moreover, this dual approach simultaneously fosters gains in muscle strength, power, and endurance… to a point. It's important to note that many sports require a blend of these attributes, and even long-distance runners or cyclists can elevate their performance through the incorporation of strength training.

The scientific research in this area provides interesting and often conflicting results. Some suggest that muscle hypertrophy, strength, and power gains are hampered with concurrent training, while others argue that resistance training improvements remain unscathed. In fact, some studies go a step further, proposing that endurance capacity may even flourish with concurrent training.

The reasons behind these diverse responses are not yet fully understood, and a range of factors, such as exercise characteristics, muscle contraction type, training history, the specific muscle groups involved, and of course genetic and individual variability, all play a role in the extent of interference.

The molecular pathways underpinning adaptations stemming from each type of training, and the extent of muscle damage, also add complexity to this equation. It's worth highlighting that endurance training prescriptions can significantly influence the magnitude of this effect, likely in a way that aligns with volume, intensity, and frequency.

The Role of Volume, Intensity, and Type of Endurance Training.

In the counterintuitive world of Hybrid training, the volume, intensity, and the type of endurance training occupy a pivotal role in influencing the delicate balance between endurance and resistance exercises. The molecular mechanisms at play shed light on the ramifications of different endurance training approaches.

Tenuous volume related image.

The main adaptive mediator in balancing this hybrid equation focused on in the literature is AMPK.

This is a key cellular energy sensor, known for inhibiting the AKT-mTOR pathway, which is crucial for muscle hypertrophy.  When there's a low energy availability or an elevated energy deficit, this triggers AMPK phosphorylation and effectively halts mTOR signalling.

This interplay between AMPK activation and endurance training load, volume, and intensity appears to be dose dependent. In other words, higher loads & longer durations correlate with heightened AMPK activation.

AMPK activation may also set off protein breakdown mechanisms, which, in turn, activate molecular pathways responsible for muscle protein degradation.

It's the endurance exercises with high volume and long duration coupled with moderate intensity that tends to amplify this interference signal. Just to reiterate at this point, although on a molecular level this is a neat and tidy mechanism to explain the issues of training as a hybrid athlete, this is not shown in every situation.

Regardless of the pathways involved it is common sense that at some point, whatever the mechanism(s) that there is only so much training fatigue a person can handle before performance tanks.

There are some endurance training strategies that can help minimise this molecular interference effect.

In contrast, low-volume, short-bout, high-intensity interval training (HIIT) or sprint interval training (SIT) emerges as a more favourable approach for minimizing interference.

The lower energy demands of HIIT and SIT result in either lower or transient AMPK activation, which reduces interference with resistance training adaptations. Furthermore, PGC-1 activation, a key player in endurance adaptation pathways, still experiences a significant increase after HIIT or SIT.

The kind of SIT I prefer.

This underscores that hybrid training incorporating HIIT and SIT is more conducive to bolstering resistance training adaptations.

Before we get too excited, we must remember that this is looking at metabolic pathways and not overall systemic fatigue. HIIT/SIT causes more fatigue in other ways unless the duration and frequency are very low and then we are going to be performing sub-optimal amounts of endurance volume to maximise the benefits.

We may make solid gains initially using this approach, but eventually it appears that no matter how we structure our endurance sessions that something will have to give and we need accept the limits of our training capacity no matter how we break this up especially if we are working  to a competition calendar with a fixed performance date… we need to turn up the dial on one and down on another if we want to be at our relative best.  For some people, this may even mean sacrificing strength and muscle mass in the short term.

Therefore, what we have to do, especially in advanced athletes, is to structure our training into blocks that allow us to focus on different modalities of endurance training and strength training that are least likely to interfere with each other and this may mean that with certain endurance goals we have to digress in one area to perform in another.

For example, if the goal of an 8 week training block is muscle growth, our endurance training might be low frequency, short duration HIT/SIT with a focus on a strength block with muscle building rep ranges and intensities.

When we switch to a more endurance performance focused block, let’s say an ironman prep, then we may switch to more long duration work, with a focus on lower strength training volumes, but with higher intensity (more load) with a focus on clinging on to strength and muscle for dear life! 

Finally on this subject, research also hints that cycling is a superior choice when it comes to mitigating the negative effects on resistance exercise-induced adaptations, especially in terms of strength and power. Cycling, it seems, outperforms running in this regard and for heavier athletes also allows lower impact on the body. Making cycling a great way to build endurance volume whilst limiting fatigue and interference.

This effect is likely caused by the different contraction type differences between running and cycling, this also seems to apply to swimming. This points towards triathlon and iron man training ‘perhaps’ being more manageable than the equivalent duration events that focus on running.

Not just spreading the work of a 10+hour event between muscle groups, but also a large proportion of the event not using muscle contraction and loading patterns that cause much greater levels of fatigue… I will come back to causes of fatigue another time. That is an opus all to itself.

The Role of Training Frequency and In-Session Exercise Sequence.

The order of exercises within a single training session, whether endurance or resistance comes first, has the potential to significantly impact the adaptive outcomes from a hybrid training session.

This is an area of research that is still evolving, and the results remain somewhat mixed.

Some studies propose that the sequence doesn't wield a substantial influence on acute molecular responses.

Others argue that the exercise sequence has a notable bearing on molecular interference. Particularly when endurance training takes the lead in a session, it frequently compromises muscle hypertrophy, strength, and power adaptations.

This could be attributed to reduced performance during resistance training, subsequently leading to diminished molecular responses and resistance training-induced adaptations… or it could just be fatigue.

Despite this, some studies indicate that the intra-session exercise sequence may not be a substantial detriment and, in certain scenarios, could even enhance resistance-induced adaptations for strength and power.

The ideal order remains a point of contention, with several factors, including sex, age, training history, and the specific muscle groups involved, potentially influencing the outcomes. It's also noteworthy that women seem to exhibit superior resistance training-induced adaptations when resistance exercises take place before endurance training.

SeQUENCE, not SeQUINS.

 The separation of endurance and strength training into distinct training sessions or days could pave the way for heightened adaptations in endurance capacity, muscle hypertrophy, strength, and power. Athletes, in particular, tend to reap the benefits of having a 3 to 6 hour gap between the two types of training to maximize the adaptations in both domains. This space between sessions helps avoid overlap in peak activations of myofibrillar and mitochondrial protein synthesis pathways.

In scenarios where resistance training adaptations hold paramount importance, a specific frequency ratio of resistance training to endurance training (e.g., 2:1 or 3:1) may further elevate resistance training-induced adaptations. This ratio is going to be influenced by the volume and fatigue accumulated in each sessions and at present there is no solid recommendation on what this ratio should be or how it might work the other way around.

The best advice here is to play around with different programming ideas until you figure out what works best for you, whilst focusing progress on 2-3 key outcomes that have the least amount of ‘clash’. This now starts to creep into the realms of periodisation models, but that is not what we are here for and this is again another ‘chapter’ all to itself.

To summarise this as briefly as possible, the sequence of exercises within a single training session should be chosen with a view to the desired training outcomes. If the goal is to maximize muscle mass, strength, power, and enhance body composition, resistance exercises should take precedence before endurance exercises.

When the primary aim is to boost endurance capacity or when resistance training adaptations occupy a lower rung on the priority ladder, endurance exercises can assume the lead position.

For the best chance at maximising both adaptations from both endurance and resistance training in a hybrid training program, it's prudent to separate the training sessions, ideally with a rest interval ranging from 6 to 24 hours. Depending on the training objective, and frequency ratio biased towards the most important goal we are trying to achieve.

The Problem with Short-Term Studies and the Role of Training History.

This interference phenomenon is not a one-size-fits-all issue; rather, it dances to the tune of an individual's training history and years of systematic training. Novice participants often display a blunting of acute responses in anabolic signalling, particularly in the promotion of myofibrillar protein synthesis with hybrid training, yet other studies seem to suggest that similar adaptive responses may be witnessed when compared to single-mode exercises.

Training experience and inter-individual responses emerge as substantial determinants in the potential for interference.

Trained or athletic individuals tend to display lower activation of molecular pathways that drive both myofibrillar and mitochondrial protein synthesis. In novice athletes, the increased disruption of cellular homeostasis seems to cause a more substantial training-induced ‘trigger’ to adaptive pathways.

This does open the possibility that although more experienced trainers may not get as much interference, that their already diminished adaptive potential is ‘easier’ to interfere with. For example, an experienced strength athlete needs as much ‘adaptive energy’ available as possible to squeeze out further adaptations in strength and this energy may be diminished by adding endurance training.

By adaptive energy, here I mean both the ability to support adaptive pathways, but also the ability to perform training with sufficient effort to promote further adaptations.

This also means that for experienced athletes from one background but a novice in another, are still going to get a large upregulation in the ‘new’ pathways being stimulated and causing, at least initially, an increased disruption in the ‘experienced’ training domain.

In other words, a cross-talk phenomenon becomes apparent when well-trained individuals engage in training stimuli that are less familiar, leading to distinct adaptations based on their training backgrounds.

That’s one theory anyway!

For our novice hybrid athletes, a single bout of either endurance or resistance exercise can trigger significant upregulation of both relevant molecular pathways, culminating in gains in muscle size, strength, and power as well as endurance.

There is interference, but both signals are turned up to such a high volume that despite the overlap reasonable levels of adaptation will likely take place… although as I write this, I am not entirely sure of what reasonable means, perhaps ‘some’ is a more appropriate yet equally as ambiguous word.

Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, in the long term we all transition towards the experienced response even if we are a ‘pure’ hybrid athlete. At least if we accept that these metabolic pathways are the main drivers of our ability to progress in both strength and endurance at maximum rates.

Can you tell I am not entirely convinced this is the real issue?

I am not in denial that one goal is going to interfere with another, I am just not convinced that these interference pathways are the major force that stops us from maximising strength and endurance, when more well evidenced and ‘common sense’ mechanisms do the job with less ‘ifs and buts’.

However, I do think we can extrapolate some useful ideas that we can apply to our training programming:

Generic lightbulb image to symbolise an idea.

Manage fatigue levels from both modes and include as much rest as possible between sessions to minimize overall fatigue.

Adjust the training volume for each regimen in concurrent training to reduce muscle fatigue and energy expenditure… basically, you can’t simply smash two different training programs together from each discipline and hope for the best.

Incorporate low-volume, high-intensity HIIT or SIT endurance exercises to limit AMPK activation especially when trying to maximise strength gains.

The addition of cycling as a way of endurance training can allow for greater volumes with less fatigue. But remember that if the goal is running then there are ‘mode’ specific adaptations where cycling just won’t cut it.

When the goal is maximizing muscle mass, strength, and power, perform resistance exercises before endurance exercises.

When the emphasis is on enhancing endurance capacity or when resistance training adaptations are of lesser priority, conduct endurance exercises before resistance exercises.

Separate training bouts by 6 to 24 hours, if practical, to optimize the training stimuli.

Consider the frequency of each training stimulus. To emphasize resistance training adaptations, use a ratio of 2:1 or 3:1 (resistance training sessions per week: endurance training sessions per week). For improved endurance capacity, a ratio of 1:1 or 1:2 may be more suitable.

It's crucial to recognize that training experience and background are significant factors affecting our adaptive potential. It tends to be more pronounced in experienced individuals and less impactful in novices. Therefore, training plans for well-trained individuals should align with sport-specific requirements and evidence-based suggestions.

What don’t we know… yet?

What is the significance of acute molecular events following an initial training session for longitudinal training adaptations?

How do molecular mechanisms change over time in response to concurrent training?

Is there a critical time point in a training intervention where any interference becomes stronger?

What can we learn from intra-individual molecular responses during hybrid training?

What are the characteristics of responders and non-responders to hybrid training?

What are the effects of combining power and endurance training?

What are the effects of hybrid training in well-trained endurance, resistance-trained individuals, or athletes?

… and on that note, you will be glad to know we are finished.

Until next time, you renegades.

Mastering Mental Toughness: Inside the Mind of a Ultramarathon Running Hybrid Athlete

Ironically, eight is worth nine points.

Before we get into my personal experiences with mental toughness, resilience, and inevitable failure. I want to state for the record that I am not a psychologist. Well, not in the qualified sense.

I am in the sense that everyone in the fitness industry thinks they are… a mixture of actual education (if you’re lucky), pop psychology and the odd recycling of a motivational quote. So not at all.

SCIENCE.

I do however have a somewhat unique perspective for a couple of reasons. I have personally used a psychologist myself, both in relation to my personal and professional existence.

I also am also fortunate to have friends who are sports and clinical psychologists that are operating at elite level who I can discuss some of these things with and figure out what works for me.

That being said, this blog is a mixture of some of those conversations, mixed with a little practical ‘solid’ psychology and my own personal experiences with these tools to ‘test’ them in the cold, hard, reality of athletic suffering.

Training and Pain Thresholds

Ultramarathoners undergo a rigorous training regimen that significantly impacts their pain thresholds. Like a physical adaptation to training making us fitter, stronger or faster, training also helps us get ‘comfortable being uncomfortable’.

Look how happy I am to finish.

This isn’t just us learning to suffer. Training has been shown to damped down perceptions of pain. Not to mention the fitter you are, the more prepared and practiced you are the more you can avoid pain, or even if you can’t avoid it come race day you can at least make sure it is there in reserve for when you have to push hard, or in the latter stages of a race… let’s call it delaying the suffering fuse..

Of course, the ability to suffer, and tolerate the ‘pain cave’ making it bigger, more illuminated and less scary also means for some athletes that they can embrace this pain and bathe in it, much like adjusting to a hot bath. But like a hot bath we do need to have the experience to know when tolerable pain turns into potential stupidity. This is a line I have flirted many times.

On this note, this is one reason why I absolutely hate those ‘I ran an ultramarathon on with zero training’ videos. This isn’t just stupid; it is actually dangerous. Training will never reduce all of the risks, but encouraging people to run ultra-distances, often in awful weather and challenging, wild terrain is going to get someone seriously hurt. If it hasn’t already.

I digress. But let me just say this to finish this little section. If training is hard, it does get easier. if training hurts, it does get easier to cope. But not all training should be balls to the wall suffering.

Why? Training stress accumulates. Do you know what destroys will power faster than anything? Being in a physical and mentally stressed state all the time.

"Ultramarathon training is a process that mutates discomfort and pain into physical and mental endurance." - Me, Just now.

Strategies to deal with Pain: Accept Pain, Embrace Pain or Distract from Pain?

There are many different coping strategies for dealing with pain once it does arrive, which in every case it will at some point. It might be a blister, an old long forgotten injury that decides to say hello, even an insect sting can all add to the fun that is the base level of suffering experienced during an ultramarathon for most people.

This is especially true for athletes like me. I float around 90kg, of what is largely useless amounts of muscle for ultramarathon running. There might be for ‘you’ but there is no such thing as an ‘easy’ 3+ hour effort in training or in a race. It might not hurt, but it will be at a minimum uncomfortable.

This does however come with some perks. If this is how long training sessions feel, especially on tired legs, then I am getting plenty of mental practice at doing things when my body doesn’t really feel in tip-top shape.

For me personally, I have never been the kind of person during events that goes ‘feral’ and can use some deep-down anger at myself or some imagined foe to keep going. I have, on occasion had an emotional explosion of this sort, and as useful as this is to get right down and dirty and dance with the pain devil it is not, for me personally an approach that I get much milage out of.

For others it might not be anger at someone or something or themselves, it might be the opposite emotion of pride, connection to a positive emotion that becomes the catalyst to endure the pain. Thinking of loved ones, making them proud has never, not once entered my head during a race as a strategy for coping. I can completely understand why that might work, but it’s not for me I’m afraid.

If this makes me at best seem like an emotional robot, or at worst a self-centred egotist out for his own glory, then fair enough. All I can say to defend myself here is that I do this for me, no one else, I don’t expect a pat on the back for my successes, or an arm around my shoulder to soften my failures. And this applies to most areas of my life.

There is nothing wrong with that.

That’s not to say I don’t enjoy the feeling of a bit of moral support and congratulations, it just isn’t my ‘why’ that gets me out of bed at 5am in the middle of winter to blast out a 50k training run. If anything, the motivation in relation to doing it for ‘others’ is more to do with providing an experience to learn from, to encourage others to do their hard things, not matter what it is.

But if it doesn’t help or inspire someone, or no one ever reads this blog. That’s cool. I write this as a reminder to myself of what I am capable of, what I have learnt along the way and what I can do better in the future. A form of cheap therapy if you will.

Anyway, back to the scheduled viewing.

’My victories are mine to own, as are my failures. If other people learn from them or find my experiences entertaining then great, but if not, at least I have a reminder to myself of how to be better next time’.

OK. So that approach doesn’t really work for me. So, what does?

Like the stages of grief, acceptance is the strategy that works best for me. Within reason of course.

Acceptance of what exactly?

Acceptance that it was always going to hurt, so don’t act surprised now it does.

Acceptance that pain is my body is under stress or discomfort. No shit Sherlock.

Acceptance, or rationalising, that pain is a biological signalling process that is not (hopefully!!) and that it is not bad in the catastrophic sense.

That accepting pain and bathing in it, is much easier than fighting it. It takes less energy.

Knowing that pain is often transient, so learning to sit with it whilst it passes can be a transformative experience.

If you want to know where I really honed this ability, look no further than the tattooist’s chair.

You cannot fight pain for 4+ hours of increasingly intense suffering. It takes up too much energy and for me personally eventually heightens the pain response.

Back in Black

Try sitting in pain, processing it, relaxing into it, you might be surprised at how much less intense it becomes. Of course, you can ‘blend’ this with some positive thoughts, a nice mantra or whatever other tricks are in your bag.

But isn’t the pain what we are here for? In suffering there is growth. Or some other pseudo-philosophical nonsense that justifies the self-inflicted suffering.

At this point I think it is important to state that I am not some kind of enjoyment suffering monster. I have DNF’d twice. Once was an injury, a bad hip injury, at around 100km into a 100 mile race. The pain wasn’t the exact reason for stopping as such, my body going into shock and being able to move only slightly faster but with less coordination than a toddler was. But this isn’t the type of pain we are talking about here.

Genuine injury, and ploughing through it, especially when there is capacity for serious long-term damage might be tough, it might be brave but it is also a bit stupid. And yes, I have also had a stress fracture, caused by my stupid ability to suffer to show for it. So, as they say, I have this t-shirt too.

The second, I was medically withdrawn after missing cut-offs, a freak occurrence but one which my poor mental state definitely contributed to and is the inspiration for the next section.

Just before we jump two footed into that topic, the final of my three methods is to distract. Music, scenery even calling friends and family have all played a minute part in dealing with the pain. However, real pain, nagging pain and fatigue to the point you are hallucinating or falling asleep standing up, you cannot distract from. Sometimes you have to give in to these things. Just stop. Take stock. Fix what you can. The accept that from this point on it is you versus the next step.

Other ways to improve your mental resilience?

I am not going to go into the science of stress. It is far to complex and nuanced to fit into this little dalliance into the world of mental toughness. But what I will say is this, unless you are truly in a life-or-death situation your success or failure in ultradistance running is likely to be determined not just by your capacity to endure discomfort it is also to be as prepared and as realistic as possible.

The reason for the careful usage of the word realistic is that because for some people, blind optimism and blagging it will work... to a point. But the reality is that when you know what to expect, and you are prepared with a plan, and a plan for your plan, when your plan goes wrong. Then events are going to be much harder than they need to be.

This is because when you are already under physical and mental stress, having to problem solve, having to deal with shifting expectations, bad conditions, taking a wrong turning and anything or everything else that can and will go wrong. That if you are already carrying a lot of stress in your life. Poor sleep. Poor nutrition. A job that stresses you out. Financial or any other ‘lifestyle’ issues is not going to make life any easier.

Now I’m sure people run to escape some of these things. Some people use these as fuel to furnace their fire. But honestly, this isn’t an approach that in the long term is going to lead to anything but bad news. Especially if you are planning on doing multiple events and these life’s stressors are chronic in nature.

That brings me back to why I failed, in part, my attempt at the 184 miles of the Thames Path.
The accumulation of a tough years training, a horrific 100km race and a lot of stress in my personal and professional life had already chipped away at my mental reserves.

Combining that with horrific weather, and my body reacting badly to a bite, created a perfect storm for my accumulated years of reliance to melt away as if I had no resolve what-so-ever.

I did go out on my shield. Being medically withdrawn and I did 100% empty my tank. But that tank was already leaky, and emptied quicker because of things going on in my life at the time.

I know enough about myself now to ‘trust’ that this was the reason for my performance falling apart and I also know that the ‘weakness’ of both my body and mind, although my responsibility and in my control should have meant knowing myself that I never even stepped onto the start line.

We live.

We learn.

So get your house well in order. Make sure you are in a good place not just physically but mentally and prepare for the worst. Our brains thrive when our expectation meets reality.

I have seen people quit on ultras for no other reason than this. They expected a dry sunny day and an unexpected downpour, created a stressor they weren’t expecting, and they quit. I would bet that if they had been mentally prepared and expected the rain, they would have been fine.

Going off track by a few km, not moving at a pace they have done in training, gettign a blister when they normally don’t get them, food not going down like normal. I have seen them all. I bet most people on reflection would say they let that get to them more than it should, which for the record is normal when everything is viewed through the lens of 12 hours on your feet.

What to do when the thought of quitting hits you hard?

One strategy some people use to great effect is to stay present. Not thinking about the past suffering or the future suffering to come. This seems like a good approach. But I’m not exactly sure what it means in reality.

In any case, when you are falling apart physically and possibly mentally, it seems like one of those bits of advice that sounds good on paper, very ‘spiritual’ and ‘at one’ with the experience, but for me, much like communism, in reality, it doesn’t work very well.

Perhaps it’s the way my ADHD brain works, but I much prefer to use a reflective approach. Bu this what I mean is asking myself one simple question. ‘Do I feel as shit as I did half an hour ago?’ usually followed by ‘can I do anything so that in 30 minutes time I will feel better than I do now?’

This works great for me because at rock bottom, I am usually able to keep myself moving forward for 30 minutes and most of the time it might not have gotten better, but it seldom gets much worse. This ability to lie yourself through the next hour or so combined with the experience that many things can, in fact, get better with a bit of food, hydration and good sit down.

I think that is what we would call experience.

I’m sure it comes as a shock that when you feel completely empty that not only do you have more in reserve than you would think. That things can, and often do get better.

Obviously, you aren’t likely to be moving as swiftly as at the start of the race. I have however, been 60+km into an event, feeling like I can’t run, then out of nowhere you get the urge to run, it might be 500m, it might be 5km, who knows. But until you have ‘give yourself an hour’ (a common phrase in the ultra-world) then you won’t fully understand what this means until you have experienced it and how remarkable it can be.

Finally, although it is a simple bit of advice it is actually pretty effective. Break things down into distances that seem more reasonable. For some reason, even with a marathon or more left in a race, just getting to the next checkpoint doesn’t seem so bad. Focusing on the next landmark and creating many of these is a huge mental boost, grounds you in achievable reality and gives you something to focus on.

Just a marathon left (I’ve already done 1 and now we’re on the home stretch).

Only 2 check points to go (I’ve done 4 already).

Now just 20km to go, a half marathon, I’ve done 3 already, it’s only 4 park runs. You are basically done.

What’s funny is now I now know (unless something horrendous happens) that although it might be the slowest 50km I’ve ever done, once I get inside this distance it is my home straight. It will get done. The reason I (possibly naively) believe this is because I have ran that distance several times, both in an event and during training under every possible circumstance.

Awful weather. Horrific blisters. Even (stupidly) with injuries that have been there before the start line. Have all been present with ‘50km to go’ and they have all, without exception, been finished to this point anyway.

To anyone reading this it might sound absurd to have such a seemingly arbitrary cut off.

But let’s be honest, when it comes to ultra running this is hardly the most absurd thing about it.

What Trail Running Shoe Should Heavier Runners Buy in 2023?

What are my favourite brands?

I have to admit that I have been pretty loyal to the brands I have tried so far.

That means I am going to write this blog from two angles. Firstly, what brands I have I used, trusted and am excited about their new ranges (spoiler alert, this is the range I have settled on for my next purchase).

Secondly, what brands have turned my head and I am seriously considering buying this year if things don’t go to plan with my more biased choice.

I have been fairly faithful to Nike in this regard, jumping on the Pegasus Trail 2 & 3 band wagon and sticking with the 3 even when the 4 was released. Why you don’t ask?

The pretty Pegasus Trail 4: Less ‘heel’ than the 3, but still a little much for me.

Well, if it isn’t broke don’t fix it and I’d rather save £60+ on an old range than the latest model. You might think that next year with the 4 being an older shoe and coming down in price I might go for this as my next purchase.

But it won’t, for a few reasons I will come back to but one quick word of warning about having your favourite shoe brands is that I have to admit this loyalty has come at a cost. That cost is falling into the loyalty trap that has meant that I have been blinkered to trying a potentially better performing shoe.

For example, earlier this year I stumbled upon a Pair of the 2022 North Face Vectivs and thought I’d take a punt on them as they seemed cushioned, but a bit firmer and with a bit more ‘spring’. I figured that these would be fine for shorter trails and I wasn’t expecting much from them from what were OK, but hardly rave reviews.

However, after my first run I was hooked on them. The only real downside? I bought these in my ‘True’ Size, and as someone with a wider and swellier (not a word) foot, this meant that despite bounding along at a quicker pace than normal I wouldn’t want to do anything super long distance in them.

I did infact do one 50 mile training run in them, and they were great. However, the toes were a little beaten up by the end, so my initial thought on sizing was probably correct.

My 50 mile training run in the North Face… sweeping the ‘GB Ultras Chester 100 miler’.

The other important lesson here is that by experimenting with this shoe it changed my thought process about what to look for in a shoe as a heavier runner.

What you should look for in a shoe as a heavier runner?

Your first thought might be ‘cushioning’. This was mine too. The problem with this is that typically the more cushioned a shoe, the more potential energy transfer is lost and the more unstable they are.

This is why if choosing a cushioned shoe, try to ensure they have a ‘reactive plate’. For example, some of the North Face ‘upper’ end of the range shoes have a carbon plate. This is great especially if you run a lot of road, or trail to road. There are other materials that do a decent job at energy conservation, even in more ‘stacked’ cushioned shoes.

The biggest argument against these expensive carbon plates in trail shoes is how useful are they really when you are in the middle of a bog, or on brutal rocky terrain when grip, responsiveness and possibly (in the lattter situation in any case) a rock plate is going to be enough to do the job of protecting the soles of your feet.

I do agree to a point. However, for me personnally I run a lot of road to trail and summer trails which tend to be hard, so I need as much help as I can get.

One of the trade offs with a more cushioned shoe as a bigger runner is that these then tend to lose feel with the ground and have less stability. Again, for the types of trails I run this is not an issue 99% of the time. However, if I was on some steep technical mountain sections then I would be serioulsy considering if the trade off in cushioning was worth it.

I am also very aware, that my issues with joints have been absolutely minimal. I put this down to appropriate increases in training volume and my strenght training.


That being said, I know super minimal shoes are not for me over such distances.

However, that’s a different blog for a different time.

Anyway, I have, on occasion, been very grateful for my softer more comfortable shoes once the body is battered and the feet need a little extra softness in their lives.

I suspect to prevent getting to this stage is more to do with protecting the bottom of the feet and blister protection from hours of motion and rocky surfaces. Than is necessarily about cushioning alone. This is something I have changed my mind on... for now... I’ll let you know next year. Theh good thing is that you can have both.

So, where does that leave us?

For me, I want a shoe with medium to soft cushioning, a moderate stack height and my preferred heel to toe drop range of 5-8mm. Here I am fine and don’t suffer the issues of lower drop shoes.

The wider in the toe box the better and a good heel lock down is essential as this is where if I get too much movement I get blisters. Oh, and a toe bumper. I love to kick rocks.

This is actually the reason I am stepping (pun intended) away from the Nike range. I feel they are built for comfort, which is great, but they lack something in the traction and ‘zip’ department and their heel lockdown isn’t enough. There is also something about the shape of their heel that also doesn’t feel quite right and with my running style seems to cause my heel to slip and blister… makes you wonder why I bought so many pairs.

I guess they weren’t bad, I am now just being increasingly fussy now my eyes have been opened.

What brands should you consider?

If I had to only pick 3 shoes to try aside from my actual ‘pick’ which we will come to shortly these would be the Hoka Speed Goat 5, the Brooks Cascadia 17 and the Innov8 Trailfly Ultra G 300 Max.

Why you ask? Let me tell you what my research has found.

Hoka's Speedgoat 5.

This trail running shoe has been reported to show significant improvements over their predecessor, the Speedgoat 4, which was already a decent shoe.by all accounts.

The Speedgoat 5 now offers a lighter and more responsive experience, with the ne CMEVA mid-soul. This makes it appealing for runners seeking speed and extra cushioing and the new Vibram Megagrip outsole with redesigned lugs, proves what looks like spiderman levels of grip on even the rockiest, wettest terrain.

Speed Goat 5’s.. Loving the colours!

Despite the focus on performance, the notorious comfort of the Speedgoat range remains. However, the high cushioing stack height can take some getting sued to and add extra instability that needs some practice especially for heavier runner.

While it isn not a pure racing shoe, for my kind of distances it seems to tick all of the boxes I would want. In fact, if I could have found the wide version in a store to try, these would probably have been my next shoe.

Brooks Cascadia 17

This shoe appears to be a versatile trail running shoe designed for all terrains. But is it a jack of all trades and master of none… and does this even matter?

One thing I have found is that although the Cascadia 17 is very rarely the top shoe in ‘best of’ type reviews, it does appear in those lists frequently. The reason for this is that the shoe is a robust sheo that balances grip, fit and cushioning with enough responsiveness to feel you are connected to the ground with their Trail Adapt System, providing enhanced control and stability.

The shoe fits my drop range, with an 8-millimeter drop, pretty deep lugs and seems to perform well on all surfaces.

The way to think about this shoe is as a reliable, comfortable range rover, which has enough speed to keep things interesting but it isn’t a purebred racer. Just so happens that comfort, grip and reliabillity with a little speed is just what I was looking for, but not quite what I was willing to part my cash with.

Innov8 Trailfly Ultra G 300 Max.

The Inov-8 Trailfly Ultra G 300 Max is a trail running shoe that has built an awesome reputation fot its performance during long and ultra-distance runs.

Scouring the internet for feedback, the main theme is how the shoe offers a surprisingly smooth ride, provides a comfortable and efficient running experience.

It is described as ‘super-fun’, cushioned yet responsive, which makes it suitable for various distances, including ultra-distance runs and fits into my ‘drop’ category with a 6mm drop.

The Inov-8 Trailfly Ultra G 300 Max has had rave reviews for its durability, making it a good value for runners, despite its relatively higher price tag, you can find some decent offers on some sizes, but if not the price will drop signficantly entering the back end of 2023 for sure.

Getting some Godzilla vibes.

This shoe is specifically designed for ultramarathon distances, offering all-day comfort and support on various surfaces, making it versatile for different terrains and running conditions and this was one of the main reasons this makes an appearance on this list.

The North Face Vectiv Range.

Now we have the appetisers out the way, let’s get onto the main course and desert. North Face are the brand that turned my head away from Nike. With the reviews this years versions of the Vectivs had got, combined with how well they fit my criteria and my other North Face Experience put these firmly on my menu.

What are the specific shoes in the range? Just before we dig into this course, it is important to note that their are some other models, and variations or models, that can make figuring out what model to buy confusing.

What I have tried to do is to focus on the more pure ultra-distance shoes and the ones I have either tried, or have enough reveiw material on them to make a in informed decision.

The Summit Vectiv Sky

The shoe's upper combines breathable engineered mesh with TPU overlays in high-stress areas for durability. It transitions to a robust ripstop material near the collar, featuring a gusseted tongue and offset laces for a secure and debris-free fit. The 3D Vectiv technology in the midsole, combined with dual-density EVA foam and a carbon fiber plate, offers comfort, support, and energy return.

Black versions are available for those terrifed at the prospect of taking these out in mud.

The outsole boasts Surface CTRL rubber with 3.5mm lugs for excellent traction on diverse terrains, though more suited for dryer less slick conditions.

The shoe's rocker design, which I have enjoyed in earlier versions promotes a smooth and efficient stride and just makes you feel like you are moving fast, which you probably are. The great thing with this range (and the rest of the shoes in this years armoury) is that the fit around the mid-foot and toe-box seems to be a bit more forgiving where it needs to be.

The Vectiv Sky impressed the reviewers with its lightweight design, cushioning, stability, and versatility across various terrains. However, its higher price tag is defitnitely something that is puttign me off buying on my budget even if the price did come down significantly it won’t be cheap.

The Vectiv Summit Pro Artist

Another pure racing shoe with a pricetag to match. The North Face Summit Vectiv Pro has a clean design, and comfortable fit.

The unique lacing system, though initially unusual, proved to be effective in keeping the shoes secure during runs. The shoe again features a noticeable rocker sole that encourages a natural and smooth running gait. The lacing system, as mentioned above in this range, seems to accommodate various foot shapes with a simple adjustment.

The reviewers have tested these shoes on a wide range of different terrains, including flat runs and technical mountain trails, and all, pretty much without exception highlighted their excelelnt performance.

This is largely attributed to the rocker midsole provided excellent propulsion and a comfortable cushioning experience.

Some very funky colours available!

The foam cushioning absorbed energy with each stride, creating a sensation of gliding along the terrain. These shoes were described as "fast and lightweight" and are arguably most suitable for long races on hard-packed terrain.

The North Face Summit Vectiv Pro was praised as an excellent trail shoe for long-distance mountain running. While the price point may seem high, the shoe's responsiveness, cushioning, rocker design, and stability and speed provided by the carbon fiber plate make it a worthwhile investment for distance runners looking for a premium option for upcoming race events.

The Vectiv Infinite II

This is the shoe I have been most excited about being the more affordable shoe and the newist version of the shoe I currently have on my feet whilst writing this!!

The upper is constructed with breathable jacquard mesh fabric, ensuring superior airflow and moisture management, especially in hot and dry conditions. The tongue includes soft "wings" for comfort and to prevent debris from entering the shoe.

The midsole of the Vectiv Infinite II provides a comfortable and cushioned feel, thanks to EVA foam and a Pebax insert in the forefoot, which enhances energy return in replacement of carbon fibre plate in the higher end shoes.

Again, the standout feature is the VECTIV 2.0 midsole rocker technology, providing a springy and propulsive stride. The shoe also boasts stability features, such as a forked heel design and a TPU plate, minimizing the risk of twisted ankles on rocky trails.

The outsole is equipped with a Surface CTRL rubber outsole with longer than the other shoes, 5-millimeter lugs. Offering excellent traction on various terrains and reports are this shoe is incredibly durable.

Overall, the Vectiv Infinite 2 impresses with its comfort, durability, and versatility. It requires no break-in period and is suitable straight out of the box for both daily training and racing.

The shoe represents excellent value for money, balancing weight and durability effectively and when it comes down a little more in price I will (probably) be buying this as my main training shoe for next year.

Vectiv Enduris III

I hadn’t originally thought about adding this to my list. However, after stumbling across a number of rave reviews, I could not leave these bad-boys of the list.

While the Vectiv Pro and Vectiv Sky incorporate a groundbreaking carbon fiber plate, the Enduris 3 opts for a more affordable TPU (firm plastic) plate. The focus of the review is on the Enduris 3, catering to the average trail runner.

The Enduris 3 is considered an exceptional choice for those seeking comfort and support during long-distance runs. The shoe features an updated lacing system from previous versions to accommodate various foot shapes, tongue wings for secure and comfortable fit.

In terms of cushioning, the Enduris 3 maintains a dual-density foam midsole, providing both support and rebound. With a stack height of 31mm at the heel and 25mm at the forefoot, it strikes a balance between cushioning and agility, giving a 6mm drop. Right up my street.

The shoe's TPU plate contributes to its firmness and stability. Reviews suggest, that while it may feel solid initially, it softens after around 20 km of running, offering a comfortable yet supportive experience. The rockered midsole, the hallmark of this range, enhances the natural running gait.

The SurfaceCTRL™ grip pattern on the outsole provides excellent traction, and like with the Infinite, it appears to be a highly durable, responsive and grippy shoe.

Would you swipe right or left?

Like the rest of the North Face range, the Enduris 3 is available in vibrant colorways, catering to both those who seek attention and those who prefer a more understated look.

The Enduris 3 is a top-tier trail shoe that offers a balanced combination of cushioning, support, and stability with affordability.

So what did I go for…

That my blog reading friends is still up for grabs. I am going on a shoe hunt in a month or so’s time once I start ramping up my running volume again after I am recovered from this years exertions. But I will promise you one thing, I will update you as soon as I get them and give you my first impressions.

Race Review: Race to the King 2023

The Squad

Before we get into my thoughts around the race, let me share with you how it went.

Not. Great. It was a hot, humid day and my body does not do well in these conditions.

Which begs the question, why do I do ultras in the middle of summer? Probably because that’s when most are, mostly because we had a crew of people doing the event over the 50km and 100km distances and it was a nice chance to get together as a team.

I ran the 100km ‘straight through’ course, which (as you will see below) is a figure of 8.

This makes up 2 loops of around 50km. These loops are the 50km courses for the two individual 50km events ran on the Saturday and Sunday, and also the 100km event that is split over 2 days.

The start and end of each loop and basecamp is at Goodwood racecourse (not the race track… very confusing I know).

My time was 18 and a half hours. Of this 15 and a half hours was moving time according to my Garmin and this was prior to the event my tenuous prediction for how long it should have taken (the 15 hours, not 18 hours).

But the conditions and a bad day at the office meant I ended up spending A LOT of time at checkpoints trying to get fluid on board, cool down and get my head back in the game for the next leg.

Even into the night it was humid, and a thunderstorm off in the distance welcomed myself over the finish line with an amazing woman who had been my moving (running would be pushing it) buddy for the last few hours.

Time had gone out of the window for both of us, so we chatted, fed and moved the final few hours through the night at a reasonable tilt considering that I was a mess for the previous god-knows how many hours.

What was the course like?

The first 20km was easy, a little log jam at the first little climb as is standard, but as we left the basecamp down towards Chichester harbour, the course then levelled out and was mostly road, mostly flat and mostly lulling me into a false sense of security in the relative cool of the early morning.

After this, the course got tough in a way I hadn’t experienced in an ultra-before (but I have since). Heading down towards the harbour you hit some overgrown grassy single-track trails which caused a few problems and was surprisingly draining on the legs trying not to get caught up going to fast through fear of creating a blockage, as well as having to watch foot placement and navigate those who were moving slower in front very carefully.

Not a day for the grass pollen haters.

Getting out of the way and overtaking made it difficult to get any rhythm and this was sapping and frustrating in equal measure.

After the 30km mark you left this kind of ‘stuff’ and hit the first of a few spikey hills, with some moderately challenging terrain. On any ordinary day this would have been fine but as the heat of the day had kicked in, above 25 degrees peaking at 33 degrees and staying in this range until late into the evening, it made things increasingly tough. But it wasn’t just the heat. You could feel the humidity.

Elevation Profile.. Deceptively deceptive

A lot of people and I were already struggling badly.

A few people had fallen and hurt themselves on these sharp, flint trails on the short downhill sections including one of my crew, which basically put an end to her race and any hope of reaching 100km.

Approaching a checkpoint at around the 35-40km mark I was struggling. Hot, dehydrated and I was not the only one. The conditions had taken their toll on those who had gone out too hard. I was on the cusp of being one of these people, but not quite.

The final few uphill km to this check point, I slowed to help a man in real difficulty. By the time we reached the checkpoint, and I escorted him to the medical tent he was finished and was correctly (and willingly) medically withdrawn.

There I sat and chatted to his partner and kids who had been waiting for him worriedly and tried to offer some reassurance. He was, after a short while, fine.

I was in no rush to continue as I took on some food and fluids and started to feel better under the shade of a tree chatting to a couple of other people who were having their cool down moment.

Hotter than an otters pocket

From here it was a ‘short’ 10km or so back to basecamp. I started to feel a little better and ran some flat and downhill sections but as I approached the last 5km and the uphill that awaited a brisk walk seemed a more reasonable proposition.

Heading into basecamp I felt ‘ok’. Feet were battered from the spikey rocks, and I definitely had underestimated the ‘easy’ first half of the course. As I sat, ate some pasta with bread rolls and guzzled back some fluids I knew I was going to continue onwards, but I also knew with the more challenging second half ahead and the conditions. It was now only about focusing on ticking off each kilometre to the next check point. Refocus, refuel, repeat.

The next bit of course, if I recall was the only really enjoyable bit of the day in terms of running what felt like proper trails. Through some woodland, but this didn’t last.

At around the 60km mark I really started to struggle, like seriously. So, my recall on detail and checkpoints gets a bit hazy.

I do remember one absolutely awful hill at around the 70km mark and by the time I got to where this picture below was taken, I was not doing well.

One is not amused

This wasn’t the check point but more of an unscheduled help point where I managed to find some shade and fluid.

The good news was that there was now a solid downhill section and then some flat along a river for maybe 5-8km passing the beautiful Arundle Castle before the next check point.

At this point, excited for some flat terrain, I was very disappointed. As is typical of river/canal towpaths that aren’t main thoroughfares. These were overgrown, ankle breaking terrain of cracked earth that offered no real respite.

Hitting the next check point I did feel marginally better. A bit tired, as in sleepy, but generally better and I knew I was going to finish unless something awful happened.

Taking my time knowing that there was only one more checkpoint after this then the home stretch. I munched on some Jaffa Cakes, got a nice cool spray and was enjoying the drop in temperature, if not humidity.

I waited here a while, but not too long. Then decided to crack on with the longest section of continuous hills with what felt like endless false summits. This seemed to last forever, it was 7-8km of this ‘nonsense’.

Entering the final checkpoint, I felt ok, I had been able to run some of the flat, occasional downhill and even some slight uphill sections leading into it. The change in temperature had made a huge difference.

As I sat eating some soup with bread and whatever else I could cram in me and preparing for the inevitable next 3 hours of mostly uphill. I nearly fell asleep. Jolting awake, it was time to load up one last time and get it done.

It was leaving here that I found my nighttime buddy. We walked, jogged, chatted and the time went by fast. Every corner seemed like it should be the last, but it wasn’t.

Finally, entering a small village with a few houses it seemed like we were close, and this is where I encountered a woman having an existential crises due to the thunder rumbling in the distance.

We had spoken earlier in the day leaving the previous check point, where she had sped off. But now, with no worry of racing or time we walked slowly and then her partner, who had walked back from the finish line. Came to support her as we moved off at a slightly faster speed. It couldn’t be that far now, could it?

We all agreed the course was crap.

Up one final hill, along a road and onto the racecourse for the ‘sprint’ finish. Crossing the line with a Ronaldo (R7) celebration. For no reason what-so-ever, and into the hugs of my crew. Most of which had ran the 50km and one woman who had suffered the 100km but finished an hour or so ahead of me.

So, was the course actually crap?

Apparently, this year they had changed the course and it wasn’t nearly as easy or fun.
It is always difficult to judge a course in such harsh conditions but trying as best as I can to set that aside. The course was ok.

There were some nice views from the hills and the Castle at Arundle. But the start being mostly road, followed by crappy overgrown trails and then mostly farmers tracks and fields it wasn’t an awe-inspiring run or one that I particularly enjoyed.

I spent most of the day looking down trying not to trip over and so it was hard to enjoy the limited views available.

This is typical of most ultras in the UK. It is I guess mostly farmers tracks, single track river or canal towpaths unless you get right out into the wilds of Wales, Scotland or in our National Parks or Woodlands. Which is something only handful of races do for understandable logistical and safety reasons. Especially with larger events.

But having done several courses with this typical UK terrain profile. I have to say this one was particularly ‘meh’, frustrating to run and I think most people I spoke to agreed.

For the record this doesn’t make it a bad event. I just didn’t enjoy the course but for someone wanting to have a crack at their first 50km ultra it wouldn’t be bad. Not too brutal and certainly the 100km course would be an achievable confidence boosting nice step up from a 50miler... if the conditions were more favourable at least.

How good was the organisation & support?

The organisation prior to and on the morning of the race was great, the check point support was ‘fine’ and the variety of foods was pretty standard.

I thought it was awesome that because of the conditions they had some extra water stations along the course that were definitely helpful in getting my heavy ass around the course in one piece in those conditions.

The medical support was the best at any event I have been to in terms of both quantity and quality of medical aid.

Not that I spent much time there to enjoy it, but my impression was the atmosphere at the basecamp was great and with music and ‘fun’ activities available people who had finished earlier in the day appeared to have been enjoying themselves from the feedback and pictures I saw.

Having a cold beer waiting for me at the finish line was great and the food was decent. Although at that point, I was so hungry anything warm and covered in melted cheese would have tasted amazing.

My only minor criticism was that there was no drop bag access at halfway, which when you consider the figure of 8 layout would literally have required no extra logistical effort. On a day like that it would have been hugely helpful to be able to change socks, footwear, and any other bits of extra footcare, lotions and potions to make the second half a bit more comfortable.

How hard was it?

I mean, I would hope that with my description of the course and the conditions and the fact that it took me 3 hours longer than expected (based off other events with similar distances and elevation gains) it would appear to be very hard. Isn’t every ultramarathon?

For context, in March with a stomach bug, I ran an 80km with similar terrain in around 12 hours and finished feeling fine… I ran the next day. At the 80km point in this event I was around 15 hours and not in a good place. I certainly wasn’t running the next day.

I guess the real question in that case it was the course harder than I expected it to be if we could magically take the conditions out of the equation? The answer to that was yes, probably, based off my initial course analysis using the elevation profile and a bit of researching on the internet about the trails etc.

If anything, the course was harder than expected because on paper it lulls you into a false sense of security, underpinned by a very easy first 20km where it tempts you into going off too fast followed by flat sections that were still challenging to run which you can’t see on a map.

If you imagine an equation where course difficulty and chance of not finishing (DNF) = distance x terrain x elevation profile x conditions

Then without really knowing the terrain and ideal conditions I would on paper have given this a 4 out of 10 chances of DNF with where I was in my training and health on the day. I was very confident, but not complacent.

However, now knowing the terrain this would increase this component to a 5, possibly 6. The conditions pushed it to an 8 or 9. I say this because it would only have taken one more thing to go wrong and I think getting to the finish line would have been very, very difficult.

Was it value for money?

I would say on the whole yes. My only gripe I have had with Threshold is that their refund and transfer policy isn’t great, in terms of when this can take place. When you consider how hard a race like this is, then I don’t think it is fair to close transfers so early. Injuries happen, so all you are leaving some people with is the choice to lose a not insignificant amount of money, or to have a go, run injured and hope for the best.

Doesn’t exactly smack of athlete welfare especially for such a huge event, where I know for a fact people would snap up places on offer. I am sure there is some defence of this that makes ‘sense’ but to me, having ran with other organisations, this falls a little short (or at least it did at the time of writing).

Overall, it was a well run, challenging but not not too brutal course. The conditions made it incredibly sapping and the type of trails wasn’t that pleasant to run… but are they ever?!

Would I do it again, probably not. Not for any reason as I feel like I got everything I could out of the course and it certainly took something out of me. Trail running for me is all about exploration, especially if I have completed and event so I don’t feel like I need some kind of weird revenge. So next year I’ll do something else. Another Threshold Event? Maybe. I wouldn’t rule it out and I think that says it all really.

Choosing the Right Gear: Essentials for Hybrid Athletes

My strongest look to date…

What kind of gear do you need to consider?

If you haven’t read my blog about becoming a hybrid athlete in ‘2 easy steps’ here then you may be asking the question what is a hybrid athlete and what kind of crazy gear do these cross-pollinating athletes use.

Well the answer to that my curious friend is as broad as the definition of hybrid athlete itself.

With that being said, I am going to look at this from the perspective of where I first started. Dabbling in a TINY bit of triathlon type training and then from there the more specialist equipment that you MAY need if you are going to go from hybrid athlete trainer, to hybrid athlete competitor to hybrid athlete Thunderlord.

What weightlifting kit do I need?

I hate to go all ‘it depends’ on you.. but it depends.

If you are venturing into the gym for the first time which I suspect you might be if you don’t know the answer to this question, is simply this. Some good sturdy footwear that has a good amount of grip and little to no cushioning.

Why no cushioning?

Well lifting, whether that’s for bodybuilding, powerlifting or any other kind of resistance training you really want to be able to feel the floor and cushioning by its very nature creates instability under your foot.

It ‘disconnects’ you from the ground and when you are lifting heavy as hopefully you will progress to do. Then any movements where you need a strong base under you are going to suffer as might you.

My first pair of real strength shoes were converse and these are very popular with powerlifters for the above reasons. On my last visit to the deadlifting platform I wore Jordan One’s… I wasn’t the strongest deadlifter by a mile, but I was the most stylish.

Cool and Powerful... Like an Iceberg

Weightlifters of the Olympic variety usually like a slight ‘wedge’ under the heel (this is for mechanical reasons I am not going to go into) for their ‘oly’ lifts and I too have a pair of very pretty Adidas ‘Adipower II’ lifting shoes.

These are not cheap, but mine have lasted me years. I use mine for squatting because they work well with my mechanics, but in my opinion if you are using Oly lifting shoes so that you can squat, as you can’t hit appropriate depth (for powerlifting standards) without them. Then you probably should work on your lifting technique and mobility before shelling out pennies on something that you may only need if you are trying to eek out a few more kg on your total on a powerlifting competition.

Powerlifters may use their converse style trainers, deadlifting ‘socks’ which as the name suggests are basically socks with a thicker and grippy sole to deadlift, but not their Oly shoes. This is for mechanical reasons, so if you do squat and deadlift in the same session then choose to use Oly shoes for squats and get used to carrying a giant bag around with you…

and that doesn’t include the other potential lifting kit you might need.

Not my feet.. but they are my shoes, well, not literally.

If you’re tagging on an endurance session as well, then you might need a bag approaching this size.

I have also used some cheap Asics I found in a discount store and they were just fine. At the end of the day your lifting shoes past a certain point aren’t going to make or break your performance so don’t get caught chasing the perfect shoe. If your squat sucks, it’s probably your squat technique, muscular strength or even worse bad genetics… not your shoe. Sorry.

Now the rest is really optional IF you want to compete some day.

Me personally I have an A7 single ply IPF standard singlet. if you don’t know what this means then in summary: I compete in powerlifting in ‘raw’ categories. This means that your ‘suit’ cannot offer assistance you your lifts and that also means that aside from ‘regulation’ wrist supporting wraps and approved weight lifting belt. I don’t use any other specialist kit like knee wraps, knee or elbow sleeves or special ‘suits’.

All the gear, some idea.

This is something you might want to start reading around if these things interest you, but if you just want to get ‘gym strong’ then the shoes, some wrist supports for heavy pressing and some lifting straps (please for the love of all that is holy learn how to use these properly) that help your wrists take the load off your grip for heavy pulling movements should do the job.

In powerlifting you can’t uses wrist straps to compete, but they are still a great training aid to save the grip when pulling, rowing or just holding heavy loads especially for higher reps, on sweaty days or if your grip simply isn’t caught up with the rest of your strength yet (if it ever really will). Plus it means not getting chalk everywhere and pissing off the gym owners.

Speaking of grip/chalk I love using liquid chalk, it can be a but harsher/dryer on the hand than you good old fashioned chalk ball, BUT it is so much cleaner on you kit, in the gym and in your bag.

I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt here and say that for the rest of your ‘kit’ shorts and a t-shirt are fine… no speedos or three-piece suits or dress shoes in the gym.

Finally, I know a few folk who sweat by minimalist or toe shoes like Vibram’s. I have no dog in this fight I just know what works for me. I do have an issue when people tell people to jump into running in these kinds of shoes especially if a person is used to running in more conventional trainers.

This is a silly idea. A very silly idea. I am not going to discuss in depth now but what I would say is that for running and general ‘getting about’ flat, minimalist shoes can be useful if used correctly to help strengthen the feet, but they are not some magic injury reducing garment… unless that is you want to much slower than you can.

I can tell you from personal experience that even a subtle change in drop (drop is the height change from the heel of the shoe to the toe) and cushioning can be a fu$King disaster if you are not careful with how you make those changes. What is crazy is that even now after a few years running I can tell you within 1km of running that the drop of my shoe is different to what I am used to even by a couple of mm and I suspect the bigger and heavier the runner you are this is likely to be amplified further.

And no Crocs don’t count as suitable footwear.

What endurance Kit do I need?

I am going to work in reverse order from ‘easiest’ to hardest on this one.

Running shoes for hybrid athletes?

We have touched on some of the key points above but the major decision you have to make on running shoes is this.. are you going a) going to be running on the road or treadmill, or will you b) be hitting the muddy hills, mountains or trails.

I am not going to go into a huge technical debate around drop height, stack height, lug depth, carbon plated, outsole and midsole construction and every other bit of shoe jargon you can get lost for hours in. What I am going to say is this and after talking about minimal shoes earlier, is that these may be for you BUT…

Go to a decent running shop. Try on a few pairs for feel (see if they have a treadmill to run on), get some advice and give them a try. I am assuming at this point you are a beginner so you do not need to break the bank. Just something that feels stable and of course look cool AF.

Trail running is my bag so that’s about all I have to offer on road shoes. But regardless of terrain I do tend to pick up last seasons discounted shoes in a range to try if I like the look of them and their reviews. Then if all goes well on my test run, I might upgrade to the latest version if the old ones serve me well and the budget allows it.

Only once in all of my ultra-distance runs has footwear been the major issue for me struggling more than I should have. So take from that what you will. Lessons from this will follow below!

These still might not be cheap, and I don’t think you need to be super obsessive about shoe choice as a beginner or just recreationally running short distances. However, if you are intending on doing something further, faster and with more suffering the extra pennies can be worth it… but hopefully you have time to work up to that.

Again, I can only talk about my experiences as a big guy runner, who heel strikes when running fast and mid-foot strikes when running slower and who has weird, wide and very ‘swelly’ feet that means I usually have to shop half a size up from my ‘perfect’ fit and look for brands with a wide toe box ESPECIALLY for distances of over 25km.

My road shoe of choice was my first and only love. The Mizuno Waverider. I have had every version of this, with a pair of Asics somewhere along the way. I even did a 135km trail ultra in the Mizuno (bit of a mistake on my part) but they did hold up well to the beating and provide enough cushioning for me to absolutely leg it on the road with no issues.

My 24 hour endurance run kit… (the socks are Rundawear).

In terms of trail shoes I am a ‘reasonably’ big fan of the Nike Pegasus trails. I’ve had versions 2-4 in both normal and gortex versions and I really like how cushioned they are and keep the feet pretty cool on a hot day. They lack grip in slippery conditions, but for summer running they are great and I get a lot of milage out of mine, over 300 per pair which is impressive for the abuse I give them.

Pegasus Trail… 2 I believe.

One downside I have found is that because they have a big sticky out cushioned heel. Over longer distances say 50+km, especially if lots of flat terrain is they ‘exaggerate’ the heel strike of my running causing my heel to slide and have more ‘rub’ in my shoes, so if I don’t tape my heels properly and get my sock and lube game on point this can lead to a very uncomfortable last few hours… well more so than they should be anyway!

I have also had Topo Mountain Racer 2’s and I have to say that the cushioning was ok, the grip was immense and the toe room was great. BUT I was disappointed with the durability and my achilles tendons hurt like hell any time I ran any ‘reasonable’ distance in these.

THE Topos.

This was partly a ‘drop’ issue as mentioned earlier but I think this was also compounded by the mid-sole cushioning compacting way too soon and this absolutely ruined a 100 mile attempt of mine and I do believe was a trigger to me getting a DNF that day (only 1 of 2 I have ever had… the other I have blogged about here and that was a freak occurrence!).

I do have to take all of the responsibility or this as I should never have started the race in them in the first place.

I am now on to the North Face Vectiv Range (they have 3 types and I have tried them all) and I really, really like them. They all have their slightly different trail advantages but all 3 did their jobs perfectly and I had a blister free ultra for the first time ever in Vectivs. They provide good comfort, great grip, excellent toe protection (I am a serial rock kicker) and good energy conservation and bounce.

Of honorable mention are Innov8. I did have a pair, possibly my first pair, of trail running shoes. I cannot for the life of me remember what model they were, but I do remember them being decent. Unfortunately, at that point I wasn’t running ultras or long trails so I can’t say for certain how good these would have been… but they were recommended to me by someone I would trust.

They also have a rounded heel ‘rocker’ which suits my running style perfectly.

Back to Socks. Oh socks.

You only have to go onto any ultra or running group to find swathes of questions about socks.

My honest opinion is much like shoes. You have to kiss a few frogs before your find your sock puppet prince.

Again, starting out and not running much distance then any decent running sock will do. But if you are blister prone then the brands I have found most effective are Rundaware (duel layered socks if you need more comfort) and Injinji Toe Socks.

The Injinji are a little weird to get used to and the pairs I have are ‘one layer’ which helps keep my feet cooler in summer and helps with ‘hot spots’ that may cause blisters.

They don’t offer as much comfort as other socks I have tried but the fact you have separate toe ‘garages’ has helped with some areas I am prone to getting blister with my weird feet (aren’t all feet weird).

Oh. And if you are running trails, ankle socks are NOT the one. Always go for long or mid-length/calf socks unless you want a whole host of wildlife biting, stinging and pricking your ankles (leggings are a good weapon against this even in summer if you can bare it in the heat).

Of honorable note in helping solve the ‘Big blister mystery of Dr Paul’ is climbing and one of the reasons I do not do any foot strengthening exercises or feel the need to wear minimal or ‘barefoot’ shoes to improve my foot strength and stability. Again, there are other people infinitely more qualified than me who have done loads on this on YouTube.

I will do a blog on my experiences as a beginner climber but if this interests you for your first few sessions your best bet is to go along to a climbing gym, do an beginner introduction session and politely bother the climbing instructor about foot ware and other bits of kit.

I do still get blisters in some areas and especially if I go ‘kicking’ rocks (currently have no big toenails on my right foot, or little toenails on either foot… this is a badge of honour for ultra runners). But I am getting close to solving the problem as far as I think is possible in order to hit some mega-big distances without this being too big a limiting factor (I will do a blister blog at some point).

Finally, get some decent anti-chaff legging or underware.

Next easiest on the list, for me was swim gear, at least as a beginner.

I rocked up to my local Decathlon, found a pair of what looked like decent “Jammers” (swim trunks that end just above the knee), a cheap cap from adidas and some standard Speedo swim goggles from ‘somewhere’.

I think all in all these cost me about the grand total of about £30.00 and more than did the job for my needs.

My Jammers.

Now of course there are more upmarket gear to buy. But trust me in the first 6 months you swim you are going to make more progress in technique and fitness that underpins your massive speed improvement infinitely more than the latest and greatest swim tech will. As long as it fits well and is appropriate (you know what I mean) then you’ll be golden.

Aside from these basics, I also has a pull buoy, kick board and some hand paddles to help with technique work.

I wouldn’t say these were quite in the ‘essential to buy category’ as most pools have some kit you can borrow, but I do have to admit using these for certain drills definitely helped and I got great use out of my own.

The brands I used I can no longer remember and I am too far away (and lazy) to go rummaging through my old kit storage boxes to find them, but I know they weren’t super expensive and were in my opinion worth the cost... especially the pull-buoy (a float that fits between your thighs).

Past this there are kick fins, types of snorkel and then if we get into the realms of outdoor swimming and wet suits are another thing altogether… but we are getting WELL ahead of ourselves.

My outdoor swimming was limited by access where I was living at the time and of course COVID. I was really into my swimming at this point and it kind of killed my momentum.

I am far from an expert. What I do know is that my Zone 3 wetsuit fitted great (go and get a proper fitting) and I will get some good use out of it again, at some point.

Scuba Paul

The complicated one ‘the bike’?

Surprisingly perhaps, for the most complicated section this is by far the shortest. The reason for this is because in all honesty my knowledge and experience of bike brands is limited to watching ‘Le Tour’ and reading some of my very talented Triathlon and Ironman friends social media post.

My first and only road bike of note was built for comfort rather than speed as I was under no illusions that I was not in a position to worry about going ‘aero’ and I wanted to just have something I could use day to day and for touring about the countryside initially whilst ‘thinking’ about my Ironman goals... To get to the finish without any care for time.

I did have clipless pedals (the ones with special shoes you have to click your heels like Dorothy from the Wizard of OZ to get out of) and fell over with myself still attached to the bike on my very first lap around the block and then on my very first long ride.

Do not be put off by this. I made rookie errors. Namely, I did not practice with these and IF you choose to use them and get the release tension nice and easy to begin (I did not), but as a beginner and whilst you get comfortable on the roads then pedals with or without toe straps ar are fine.

My only, and honest advice here and much more so than any other section so far is to go and get a proper bike fit, figure out what a reasonable budget is for you and get a bike that you will get use out of as a beginner. There is no point spending 6 grand on a TT bike you can’t hold a position in, and will be useless for anything else but racing which you are relative light years away from being able to make the most of anyway.

I had a Bianchi and it was one of their entry level models for around £750.00 and it was perfect and I was sad to sell it. I am currently bikeless as I don’t use it being away so much and when I do have time to jump on the bike I have a Wattbike Atom to do all my training on.

My Precious…

If you want to take your cycling a little more ‘seriously’ then I would invest in a ‘turbo’ for training at home especially during winter months, you can get decent ones for a few hundred quid that give live power/speed etc. feedback and you can use with training apps and cycling ‘games’ like Zwift (I loved swift).

Other cycling kit includes ‘shoes’ ‘bibs’ ‘jackets’ and a range of helmets. Again I just used basic kit but I did do some research and invest in decent cycling shorts (also called chamois) and used plenty of special cream to prevent chaffing as the Wattbike seat I trained on was brutal on the butt and even on the road bike, as any cyclist will tell you, will takes time to condition.

The dreaded Wattbike Atom... much suffering.

To summarise

Obviously all this kit can be expensive. However, if you are unsure about what kind of Hybrid Athlete you want to be and are a beginner on a budget. There is nothing wrong with buying some kit second hand, borrowing off friends or clubs you join and just starting with one discipline you want to focus on and invest in and then add in bits of kit in other areas IF you decide to take these a little more seriously.

Even the weight training doesn’t need any real specialist kit if you want to just get in shape and build muscle using machines and free weights that don’t demand lots of stability. I was already pretty jacked and strong before I even contemplated any specialist lifting kit.

The 5 Best Supplements for Hybrid Athletes in 2023 Recommended by A Registered Nutritionist…

Vitamin D? Omega 3? Want to know more, keep checking in with me! (Poet and I KNOW it!)

Why should you listen to my opinion on this subject?

I get it, another blog with more affiliate links trying to get you to buy whatever product will make you the most money. I could (easily) be accused by the prosecution of doing the same. I am the director of two supplement companies after all.

I would like to present my case for the defence before you read on.

I am a registered nutritionist under SENR.. this is the Sports & Exercise Nutrition Register a branch of the Government Regulated British Dietetics Society who are responsible for maintaining standards across dieticians and nutritionists under their umbrella.

My obligations to SENR as a member are many, but in relation to this topic I am ONLY supposed to recommend supplements that are backed by strong scientific evidence and under the contexts under which those supplements will (likely) be of benefit.

Judge me, I dare you.

So what are my top 5 recommended Supplements for Hybrid Athletes… and Why?

I am not going to get into some of the more technical aspects of the ‘physiology’ of how these supplements work (I will link out to other bits of content I have written where appropriate, or write something useful at some point.

For now, let’s just cover the What & Why & How as briefly as possible so you we can all get on with our lives.

The what…

1. Vitamin D3 at around 2000-5000 iu per day especially between October and March in Northern Europe

2. Omega 3 at 1000-3000mg per day depending on oily fish intake.

3. Creatine Monohydrate 5g per day.

4. Multi-Vitamin & Mineral

5. Electrolytes (with or without carbohydrates) especially during endurance sessions of 60 minutes or more.

Why do I Recommend Vitamin D3?

Vitamin D is actually more of a pseudo-hormone than a vitamin and as such it does loads of cool sh&t in the body. Those cool things include:

• Creating hormones that regulate a boat load of processes in the body.

• Regulating our immune system.

• Promoting nutrient absorption into tissues, especially important for bone health.

• Muscle contractions.

It should be pretty clear to see why these things are important for everyone… not just athletes.

The reason I recommend it as a supplement is because we do not get enough from food and we make most of our active Vitamin D from sunlight triggering processes in some clever cells and from this magic, like a meat plant, we create Vitamin D. Science.

In these cold northern climates lacking sunlight for many months of the year this becomes in my humble opinion and ESSENTIAL supplement.

What is suuuuuuper interesting about levels of vitamin D in the body is that even for those who get a decent amount of sunlight, levels can be sub-optimal In fact, my own levels, despite spending hours outside trekking about the place and running in summer without Vitamin D supplements were only just in normal ranges.

This is one of many reasons that for anyone, but especially athletes training hard, with high training stress that regular blood work (every 6-12 months for most people) is useful to help not just detect potential insufficiencies in key nutrients but also to then see how effective supplementation is.

The doses can be tailored to you, to work out exactly what you need over time…. but 2,000iu per day, or one high strength 10,000iu tablet per week is a usual staring point (or 20-80iu per kg of body weight)

Vitamin D Calculator.

The calculator here reports in both iu (international units) and μg (micrograms) as you may find one or the other on packaging labels! 

Vitamin D Supplementation Calculator

Enter your weight in kilograms:

Calculate

What is so good about Omega-3?

It just so happens that I have written and absolute monster of a blog on Omega-3 here.

But to summarise, Omega-3’s are involved in:

• Inflammation Regulation.

• Gene Expression and Transcription Factors.

• Cell Membrane Fluidity and Signalling.

• Ion Channel Regulation and Nerve Transmission.

• Immune Modulation.

• Neuroprotection and Brain Health.

• Metabolic Regulation and Lipid Metabolism.

• Regulation of Oxidative Stress.

Although you can get Omega-3 from oily fish and some seeds. Most people, especially those who are vegetarian or vegan do not consume enough, and enough of the right types of Omega-3 to truly optimise their health.

Consume a lot of Omega-3 from oily fish.. then probably supplementing 1000mg on none-fishy days will do the job.

Consume little or no Omega-3 from oily fish, then 2000mg-3000mg with a blend of EPA & DHA is strongly advisable. Higher quality supplements tend to be packaged and ‘capsuled’ in a way that prevents against ‘spoiling’ with protective ingredients like vitamin E. This is because exposure to oxygen and ‘time’ degrades the quality of the Omega-3 into other ‘end products’ and although not established to be harmful, you are going to miss out on the full benefits, so do some research about brand and product quality.

Omega-3’s are involved in:

• Inflammation Regulation.

• Gene Expression and Transcription Factors.

• Cell Membrane Fluidity and Signalling.

• Ion Channel Regulation and Nerve Transmission.

• Immune Modulation.

• Neuroprotection and Brain Health.

• Metabolic Regulation and Lipid Metabolism.

• Regulation of Oxidative Stress.
  
  
  

What’s the fuss with Creatine?

Creatine is seen as a muscle building supplements and rightly so! But this ain't just a one trick pony.

Because of how creatine works, creating more molecules of our super fast energy source phosphocreatine and allowing it to recycle faster, this means for any high effort, high intensity training we are probably going to see some benefits.

The only downside? Because it also ‘pulls’ in water into cells (hellooo hydration) it can increase water weight a little bit.

The good news is that if you have an event/competition where you need to be as light as possible (think power to weight ratio over long distance cycling or running) then you can remove creatine a week or so before and problem solved.

5g per day, taken ‘whenever’ will do the job, but you can load with creatine at higher doses (15g split in to 3 x 5g doses) for 3-4 days if you want to reach your saturation point that little bit quicker.

Other potential benefits include cognitive performance and recovery from concussion/head injury as it is an important fuel in your noggin especially under times of high physical and mental stress.

There are loads of different types of creatine, but the only one you need is Creatine Monohydrate Get it in you.

Do you really need a Multi-vitamin & Mineral?

This is the most controversial section I'll write because on my moral food related compass as I always point to a ‘food first’ approach.

Obviously, our essential vitamins and minerals we can get from having a nutrient dense diet.

But, two things.

1. Most people don't, at least not consistently enough to reap the full benefits.

2. Even when people eat a ‘textbook’ performance diet I have seen enough blood work to know this doesn't quite cut it to optimise levels of several vitamins and minerals.

This means a multivitamin might not be top of our essentials list, but I would chuck them in their as a solid safety net.

I have, despite being a skeptic, become a fan of greens powders for a couple of reasons.

They are also packed with nutrients, they also aid in hydration and the better brands have some added extras that help with a whole host of things from gut health to cognitive performance.

This is why these are my ‘always in my bag when I travel’ essentials in particular, as life on the road isn’t always ideal to get in the good stuff.

Why electrolytes are an essential bit of kit?

Electrolytes as the name might suggest, carry an electric charge (ions). These ions, and the minerals they are attached too, play crucial roles in various physiological processes and are vital for maintaining overall health and proper bodily functions… here are the main roles that we are concerned with.

• Nerve Function.

• Muscle & Heart Function.

• Hydration, Blood Pressure, Kidney Function and Fluid Balance.

• Heart Function

• Nutrient Transport, especially carbohydrate uptake in the digestive system.

An image of something electrical to break up the article… yes, this is the intended caption. Seriously.

Electrolytes recommendations can vary depending on factors such as the intensity and duration of exercise, individual sweat rates, and environmental conditions. Here are the main players we are interested in for performance and although we can get these from foods, electrolyte tablets or capsules in our water (often contained in sports drinks with water and simple carbohydrates) are usually the most efficient and effective way of insuring we are getting enough during exercise.

Sodium (Na+): Sodium is arguably the most important electrolyte lost in sweat. For moderate to high-intensity exercise lasting longer than an hour, aim for around 500-700 milligrams of sodium per hour.

Potassium (K+): Potassium is another essential electrolyte. The recommended intake during exercise is typically lower than sodium, around 150-300 milligrams per hour.

Magnesium (Mg2+): The recommended intake during exercise is approximately 50-100 milligrams per hour.

Calcium (Ca2+): Recommendations for calcium intake during exercise are around 50-100 milligrams per hour. Dairy products and fortified plant-based milk are good sources of calcium.

It's important to note that individual needs can vary widely, so these recommendations are just very general guidelines. Sweat rates and electrolyte and fluid losses are effected by a wide range of performance related and environmental factors. Additionally, be mindful that certain medical conditions or medications can affect your electrolyte balance, so make sure you consult with an expert if you have any concerns.

With experience most athletes can tell ‘what’ the issue is when they feel performance tanking and how to prepare for these conditions is why we train how we perform. This means we need to replicate these conditions as close as is reasonable and collect data where possible to create our competition plans.

Anyway, that’s the end of this blogs shenanigans… buy them, don’t by them… I don’t (sniff) care.

But if you do want to grab any of these supplements and get some blood work, click the links in the article, for CSN Supps, use code DRPAUL for a nifty little discount courtesy of yours truly.

YOU. ARE. WELCOME.

From a Beginner to Hybrid Athlete in Two Simple Steps: Using AI to design a Training Program.

How to be a hybrid athlete in 2 easy steps.

Step 1: Start resistance training.

Step 2: Start endurance training.

And there you have it folks, all you need to call yourself a hybrid athlete.

Thanks for reading.

Okay, Okay.. if you insist I will elaborate slightly on this definition for three main reasons.

Firstly, this blog also offers you a way to program your training using AI so I have to tell you how I came to the prompts that will help you build a program.

Secondly, I am a believer in principles over processes. This is very much a give a man a fishing rod type mentality. I want to show you concepts, thought processes that can be applied to designing ANY training program for any goal.

Finally, as with all my blogs it gives me a chance to show off how much I know about training combined with some of the mistakes I have made trying to apply this practically.

So without further ado, the concept of hybrid training is one in which we are performing concurrent training. This means we are using (usually) heavy resistance training to cause some strength or hypertrophy (muscle growth) adaptation combined with some endurance adaptations.

So what is the problem with Hybrid Training?

Now what I am going to present here is in fact very complex, nuanced and therefore I want you to understand that firstly if this is true, when this is true and what it means for our innate biology. It is for our purposes pretty much irrelevant because it is NOT going to be a limiting factor for beginner programs (and I would argue even advanced programs.. but that’s a different article for a different time),

This ‘problem’ is called the interference effect. This means that training for endurance, particularly with high volumes and high intensities triggers adaptive processes. This issue here is that these complex metabolic pathways ‘block’ or more appropriately inhibit the pathways that are triggered by muscle growth. The closer too and more aggressively the endurance pathway is triggered theoretically this will limit the strength muscle growth response.


However, this is unlikely to have an impact especially for beginner hybrid trainees for one simple reason. There is a lot of growth and endurance potential. This mean that firstly, that even if there was an interference effect it isn’t going to fully blunt our responses and strop any gains.

The amount of stimulus we need to create the stimulus is relatively small so that we don’t need such high volumes of strength and/or resistance training to see progress.

This is exactly why more advanced trainers, with big ‘long distance’ endurance goals may have to accept that only some facets of strength might improve or the best we can hope for is to hold on to strength and size whilst we build endurance or we may need to put our endurance training on low volume mode as this accumulates more fatigue than strength training if we want to make some serious strength gains.

Ultimately, this comes down to fatigue management and that comes down to training hours & effort versus recovery and this is why we can’t just smash a full-on strength program into a full on endurance program without some potentially catastrophic effects.

Fatigue management in a cup.

Who is this blog for?

With that being said this blog is for a beginner hybrid athlete… not necessarily a beginner to exercise.

That means in this definition of beginner you are probably one of the following.

1. Have done some recreational exercise or sports that combines strength and endurance but never followed any real strength or endurance program.

2. Have been training strength for a while, following a program, but have done very little to no structured endurance programming.

3. Have been following endurance programs with very little or no focus on strength.

4. What’s a program!!!!!

This is for all of the above a process of goal prioritization, time management and once the program is designed monitoring training and then adjusting the variables up and down as we see fit.

Before we let AI do the hard work we have to do some thinking at least in order to make sure that AI is creating something in the ball park of what we are expecting to see.

Meet Carlos.. my AI child.

What are the building blocks of any Hybrid Program?

Training Time:

How much time you have to train, can handle physically and recover and progress from is going to be highly individual. BUT to begin with we don’t need to think about this idea of maximising our time training, what we need to worry about is creating a just big enough stimulus.

The good news.

If you have done very little endurance training you can make some serious newby performance gains with as little as 1-2 hours running per week.

Strength training can be exactly the same for endurance athletes.

So what we are looking at here to start is around 4-8 hours of training to make progress depending on your current fitness and training bias. What I mean by bias is that if you are endurance athlete already training 8+ hours per week then the body is already used to high work volumes, so to maintain endurance and still build strength most people in this category can still comfortably handle 4-6 hours of endurance training and still make strength gains… at least for a while. And remember this is a beginner program.

This should give plenty of time for recovery as long as every session isn’t too destruction, which it won’t be if you follow the guidelines below.

So, we then need to figure out what days and times we can train and make a plan to fill that time appropriately from there.

Background & Goals:

Now this is where things can get a little confusing.

If you are super strong, followed a strength program as your primary training modality and want to get even stronger despite the fact that you now want to do some endurance training then we might be ‘fine’ by adding in as little as an hour of easy effort endurance training per week if we are smart with this programming.

This could be done in one 60 minute effort of 3 x 20 minute relatively efforts and you would still see some good results over a several week program.

Once you can do an hour of ‘endurance’ at an easy pace without feeling exhausted, then we can start to move on to more intermediate programs.. which I will touch upon briefly, but not go into any detail as that is another article for another time.

At an intermediate level we want to start to think about 3 types of run. One long easy effort, usually of 60 minutes or more, one harder effort where we are at what we would call tempo or threshold of 30-60 minutes and a higher intensity interval style session with an interval duration typically of 2-10 minutes with sessions lasting between 30 and 60 minutes.

If the above paragraphs makes zero sense then do not worry, as a beginner you have have plenty of time to learn what these things mean (insert link to future blog here when it is written).

For the record, the type of endurance training will also have an impact on the amount of training we can handle and recover from. This is for complex reasons I am not going to get into here. But what I will say is that with cycling and swimming we tend to be able to handle more volume, largely due to the fact they are lower impact on the body.

After our start point we might be able to increase the duration of these endurance modalities a bit quicker without as much fatigue assuming our other tissues can handle it (ligaments, tendons etc. also need to be considered not just muscle ache and energy levels). Although if you are using swimming as your thing then technique and getting your breathing correct will be a limiter on your ability to sustain even short durations of effort rather than your fitness as such.

Advice from my experience, get a few private swimming lessons or join a coaching group. It improved my swimming from not being able to do 50m to completing my first 1km swim within a couple of months simply by developing these areas.

With running we are going to struggle to be working hard for even a relatively short duration, even easy efforts for any time will cause significantly more fatigue both in the muscles and other tissues and systems in the body if you are not used to it.

For absolute beginners to running I would suggest breaking this running time down into run-walks of 20-30 minutes. Following the first few weeks of a couch to 5k program would be an ideal starting point for most people to build their running confidence and would not impact on their strength training.

If you have done some running, but now want a specific goal, let’s say a sub-30 minute 5k then the first few weeks of this program should still hold true in terms of approach to keeping sessions of an easy effort for duration up to an hour.

I would take an solid bet on people who can build up to run at a comfortable pace for an hour would be able to complete a 5k in around 30 minutes. Don’t ask me why, just a hunch ;-)

However, beyond this and after ‘x’ number of weeks of training, something is going to have to give in your strength training if we want to keep progressing endurance training. Especially if we have more specific endurance goals like running much faster or further. So my advice is to pick one or two strength priorities and leave the others ticking along in this case.

This means that you may leave those lifts or muscles involved in your program, but you will train them with a few ‘reps in reserve’ (RIR).

RIR is a concept that is useful for hybrid athletes from all backgrounds and with all goals to keep the body progressing but also prevent excessive fatigue. This, simply put, is not training to failure, and we measure this in how many repetition we think we have left in the tank. Let’s say I have a set of squats and I do 8 reps and feel like I could do 3 more reps before hitting failure. This would be 3 RIR. If i have 5 reps in my program, then I want to be able to do 7.

I would suggest that for Hybrid Training we only need to get to 1-2 RIR to build strength and muscle. For muscles we are looking to maintain, or may effect our endurance if to fatigued, we may want to keep 3-4 RIR to maintain muscle but without the ‘damage’ pushing closer to failure brings.

It is important to note that most of the benefits we are after are in this 1-2 RIR, so yes pushing to failure (0 RIR) might give some additional adaptation (debated!!) but it isn;t worth it for us when we are trying to juggle many training modalities.

RIR can be difficult to gauage for beginners and especially during higher rep sets. It is possible that people think they are close to failure, when they are not, they simply haven’t learnt to train hard enough yet. So this concept needs time to dial in unless you are already an experience trainer with a few months consistent hard training.

This is also a great measure of when to progress. If after a few weeks our perception goes from RIR of 1 to 3, then we can pretty confidently increase the load we are lifting.

Now and again it can be useful to test this on an exercise to see how close we are. Go to when we think we have 2RIR then see how many reps we can really squeeze out… oh, always use a spotter.

The good news is that we don’t need to train THAT hard to keep what strength and muscle we have.

The exact same is true, but reversed, for endurance athletes. We can add in strength to an existing running program and make serious muscle and strength gains initially (we might even see some running improvement), but soon our luck will run out and we have to make some decisions.

This is what me might consider a 70-30 program depending on what we want our bias to be.

If you are already pretty jacked and strong or a super dooper endurance athlete, then the number 30 is pretty important as this is the approximate percentage of your maximum training volume you need to maintain performance in your primary discipline.

This means if you are happy with your strength/endurance and you want to put this on hold to make some ‘opposite’ gains then you can back off to 30% of your previous straining volumes.

I am going to assume that if you are at this point that you know what I am talking about by volume in these modalities and what 30% would at least roughly look like to you in terms of duration’s, frequencies and intensity of exercise.

If not, then I would suggest that perhaps you are not at that point and that a more balanced program will still allow you to see gains in your primary discipline and the one you are introducing to implement a more hybrid style of training.

For everyone else who wants a truly balanced program the decision is actually much simpler.

We want to split our time between the 2 disciplines 50-50.

Unfortunately, that’s not strictly true.

That’s because although time spent doing an activity is related to the fatigue it causes, it is also related to many other factors such as effort level (intensity), muscle contraction type, frequency of training, time between training sessions and a few others that we’re leaving well alone right now.

This means that whatever program we design has to be an acorn from which a mighty hybrid oak grows and the way to grow this Oak is to start with low volume & low intensity and add in volume and intensity over time especially with endurance modalities… so that is exactly what we will do.

This means that our endurance, however we split our time will be to build a ‘base’ this means a good chunk of slow easy endurance training for ‘longer’ durations.

The great news about strength & to an extent hypertrophy training, is that it is much simpler to factor in and progress without causing too much extra fatigue as long as we don’t do anything too silly in our programming, which we won’t to begin with anyway.

Skill Acquisition:

Whatever category you have fallen into so far, one thing is fro certain is that as a beginner in any discipline some amount of time is going to have to be given to technique in order to perform an activity safely and above all else efficiently. We don’t want to be inefficient because that is effectively wasted performance and energy.

As we increase our training volume, mix up our types of training with different intensities we want to make sure our technique is solid... for both strength and endurance. That means a lot of your beginner training needs to be controlled, deliberate and reflective on what you are ‘doing’ and how it can be done better. Time to break open your tripod.

NOTE: Seeing terrible lifting technique is standard in almost every gym. What is less often considered is that running is also a skill and needs working on especially for us larger folks.

Now before people get too hung up on this, as someone with an actual PhD in actual biomechanics, setting me apart from the self-proclaimed biomechanics experts of Fitness Land.

There is an inherent variation in movement mechanics due to a wide variety of reasons, so what we again should be looking for here is some basic principles to follow in terms of our movement, regardless of activity rather than seeing someone and trying to entirely replicate their technique. It may not work for you, but I would bet that with the odd exception, there are patterns and principles that are useful to identify.

Think of this as more of an envelope of function you need to fit inside, rather than a pin head you need to balance on perfectly.

Okay, so here we are... how to build the base program, week 1 if you will, of your hybrid journey. A few final words before we dig in. This program does not include warm ups… so we need to consider this.

For strength this can simply be performing a few (2-3) sets at a lighter load, gradually progressing the load to our starting weight. If you don’t know what your starting weight is and are new to lifting, then it may mean that the first few weeks are about ‘load finding’. Taking your time doing several extra sets, to the target reps ranges at lighter loads, increasing the load (with good technique) by small increments until we hit our RIR Goldilocks zone.

For running the same is true. We need to start slow, gradually increasing our speed every 30-60s until we are into a full run over a period of 5-10 minutes. There are some more ‘complex’ running warm ups/movements, but for the beginner. This is perfectly reasonable and effective.

The Chat GPT-Prompt:

Copy and paste this in…

‘Can you create an exercise program that does the following:

1. Be a maximum of 5 hours per week in total length.

2. Be roughly a 70/30 split between strength and endurance.

3. The strength program must be based around the main 3 power lifting lifts and be focused on the 3-5 rep ranges for these exercises and be split between 4 days. Other exercises are to be supplementary to the sessions and be in muscle building repetition ranges. The program must NOT include overhead pressing movements.

4. The endurance program must be broken down into 2 sessions for an absolute beginner to running**

5. The program must include 2 rest days on a Sunday and Thursday and separate endurance sessions as far from strength sessions as possible.

6. I want you to put this into a table that shows each training day, exercises, reps, sets for strength training and information for the running sessions for endurance training based on the talk test with an accompanying talk test guide for beginners. ‘

**If you are an advanced endurance athlete then here you can be more specific to what you know.. for example ‘The endurance program must be broken down into 4 sessions for an experienced runner, with 2 easy effort, 1 tempo, and 1 interval session.’

Everything in bold above is what you can edit to your needs. Try to place these in the context of the whole blog and use those as a guide to set your numbers. This means you are customising how long you can train, how you want to split your training, how many days you want to do each training type, exercises you want to avoid or include, rest days and much more.

Have a play with the above prompts and see if you can refine it further, also if it doesn’t give you the ‘right’ answer hit the regenerate button and it will get there eventually!

How do you progress a training program?

Now we have your base program and a sensible amount of hours have been selected then we need to progress.

For strength, we use our RIR as before aim for 1-2 initially, then when it hits RIR 3 or more, increase the load until it sits back in our target range. ‘Simple’ as that.

For endurance it is a little more complex depending on your level.

For beginners it might be that if you are walk-running (or stop starting your training for cycling or swimming) then the goal the next week is to work a little more and rest a little less until you can complete the entire duration of the session in the required modality at an easy effort.

Start with a 1-1 work:rest effort, then increase 2:1, 3:1, 4:1 etc. until you can work at an easy effort for the full duration.

This is an advantage of cycling over running as for some people any running is hard, however cycling can usually be adjusted to make it easy enough to spin for the entire time. If you can’t run then consider the stationary bike to build a base level of fitness even if running is the goal.

Once we have completed our sessions and as long as we are completing those sessions and have done this at an easy effort using the talk test, then you can increase the duration of the activity by around 10-20%. So if you did a combined hour or endurance, the next week you would increase to 65-70 minutes. Rinse and repeat.

For more advanced endurance athletes, well the same principle in terms of increasing volume applies. BUT in this situation we need to think about total volume not just duration.

This is challenging to measure if you are using different duration’s, types of training and intensity/effort of training. For example, as an ultra runner, it is difficult to measure a long 5 hour run that has hills, a range of efforts and accumulates fatigue even at what started out as an easy pace becomes hideous to maintain after several hours.

Suffering Scale of 1-10… Almost dead.

Genuinely in the top 5 most broken I have ever felt.. could not give less of a Sh!t about the castle or having my picture taken.

So, what I have built is this clever little calculator, to measure or at least get a reasonable estimate of you weekly training volume then we can see how tweaks we make to these session can have an impact on the volume.

To do this we simply input a list of the training sessions (including strength) we have done that week. The duration of the session in minutes and on a scale of 1-10 how hard we found that session.

Weekly Training Volume Calculator

Training Sessions

Add Training Session

Weekly Training Volume

Total Weekly Volume: 0

This concept is used by other training apps with more advance analytics (I will get there one day) but this 100% works well enough for our purposes here. The use of this is 3 fold.

1. Estimate current volumes.

2. Calculate how changes to training potentially effect your training volume.

3. What is your maximum volume you can handle (when you get there!).

To finish, I am not going to go into concepts around maximum volumes. At some point you are going to find your limit, this limit is going to be a combination of those duration’s, efforts etc. mentioned above that push you to a point that even after a gradual progressive program you cannot do any more volume and performance stalls, or even falls.

At this point, there may be tweaks to the type of volume we are accumulating we are performing (remember all types of training fatigue are not equal related to exercise/muscle contraction type) in order to do more work, however it is often more useful to be thinking about how we use this volume more specifically to target our weaknesses and protect our strength.

Think of this as your training salary. Over time, you get more qualifications and more experience and have the capacity to earn more money as our career progresses (we get fitter and more used to training). However, at some point we reach our earning limit and (with out some enhancement if you know what I mean) we have to figure out how we want to spend this money depending on what our priority is.

Learn to spend yours wisely.

Hybrid Training Log 11.9.2023: Fast-Packing Thames Barrier to Walton-on-Thames (70km)

The Start Point… 6/10 lawn keeping skills.

The start..

What was the point of this journey I (don’t) hear you ask?

Well, for those of you who are follow me on social media you may know that around a month ago, my plan was to race the entire 184 miles from the source of the Thames to the Thames Barrier. As it happened, that did not go to plan and I will probably write about that at some point when the wounds aren’t so fresh.

I had actually intended to do the event again juts last week, but under my own steam, fast-packing the entire route to get rid of some of the demons. Failure does not sit well with me.

As it transpired a combination of life, finances and 30+ degree temperature all piddled on my fries, so instead I decided as the weather cooled to a modest mid-twenties to have a crack in the other direction.

By have ‘a crack’ I did intend to go further than this. How far wasn’t really planned. I am not going to make excuses here but the truth is I have had A LOT of stress lately around work and finances (the joys of launching a new business, travel and all that comes with it).

What that meant was my mind was focused on what I should be doing (working) not gallivanting along the Thames. In my Origin Story Blog I talked about how when bodybuilding started taking more from me than it gave then I had to consider my priorities.

Being an ‘athlete’ is cool, makes for some good content but it is a lot of time commitment to do these things. That meant, that I had a feeling of guilt/stress and I dare say strong feelings of anxiety I haven’t felt in a while for even doing this. It was probably a stupid idea to even start, but I had to at least put some demons to bed and have a ‘good' day’ even if that’s all I could give mentally.

Anyway, the plan here was to fast-pack. No pressure. Just get the work done, get through the day, see where I ended up, then make a logistics call on whether I push forward to day 2. I started later than expected due to transport and a couple of logistic (finding a toilet) issues.

Starting out on a slightly grey, not too hot, morning at around 0930, I felt pretty energised. The last few weeks I have struggled with running to be honest, my legs just didn’t seem to want to do their jobs.

The heaviness in my legs from the accumulated fatigue of running (I have ran over 70km x 3 times this year before this, including 2 x 100km + efforts) and the last attempt at the Thames Challenge on a brutally hot August, off the back of a brutally hot 100km in June seemed to be leaving me alone. Which was nice.

2-3km: The hugely unattractive ‘Millennium Dome’. At least it has a good personality.

Swinging around the first bend of the Thames we come face to face with the 02, meh, not much to see here except some bit of building work. Leaving the building behind you become very aware of ‘real London) off in the distance.

Meandering a long you can see Canary Wharf off in the distance, but in terms of landmarks the first big player was the Cutty Sark.

4-5km: The Cutty Sark.. well, some of it.

Stopping briefly to try and get some video content without a student getting in my way, I abandoned this wishful thinking and carried on. Here you move away from the river a bit through some housing areas and it all feels a bit ‘am I getting lost’?

Zig-Zagging between the river and back streets for a few km, getting ‘confused’ a few times and trying to find those pesky acorns (The symbol for the path) and diversion signs of which there were many.

8-9km: Big Shiny Buildings, AKA, Global Center of Capitalism

Eventually, you appear back on the river to the site of Canary Wharf. Then you hit more ‘backstreets’ with intermittent river views until you pop out a few kilometers before Tower Bridge.

The area around Tower Bridge was packed with tourists, shock. So, I took the time to enjoy looking around a little, there;s some cool street food places, old industrial building that have been turned into bars, restaurants and shops and of course the mandatory person filming themselves doing yoga in front of the Bridge for the ‘gram.

12-13km: Tower Bridge… (NOT London Bridge, FYI)

Leaving Tower bridge behind, you head past HMS Belfast towards London Bridge and Westminster Palace, I took a detour through Borough Market which was pretty cool and I will definitely going there to explore in the future (I wish I had stopped to get some food at this point, but on we ploughed)

16-17km: Think I’ve seen this on some films

Somewhere along the way I ‘apparently’ passed the Globe Theater (missed it) and some other big museums and gallaries that I am sure are super important, but I was trying to navigate and I defintely missed some culture. Sorry.

Near Vauxall bridge there was a big diversion and I had to just go rogue on google maps trying to find anything that resembled a river path, which somehow without too much effort and some ‘reasonable’ sign-posting I got myself back onto the river and with one more big diversion back in land, coming around the corner Battersea Powerstation loomed large.

19-20km: Now this place was cooler than I expected!

I honestly had no idea what ‘it’ was. Turns out it is a pretty trendy re-development of the old power station and I have to admit not only does it look cool AF, there was lots of bars, hipster looking eateries and places to hang out that I want to visit again under different ‘circumstances’.

At this point, I had bigger issues to deal with, I hadn’t eaten much (silly me), and that optimism about my legs had disappeared. I wasn’t even travelling fast. I started to feel VERY anxious about my prospects, a bit of carry over from my previous ordeals and a business related phone call made me feel on edge. I had stopped enjoying this.. I was less than 25km in, behind schedule (which will become clear why this was important later) and struggling to process how I was feeling… suddenly overwhelmed.

Stop. Process. Deal with the facts. Get to the next goal. There is always a way out… My anxiety lowered, my hunger did not.

I broke out my bagels (just plain bagels) and munched a couple down, but by the time I had eaten them I realized I was super hungry and was excited to get to my first scheduled stop. As I hit Putney Bridge around 30km, I stopped for around 20 minutes, I should have eaten more than a few packets of biscuits and a couple of pints of Pepsi.

I refilled my bottles (at least I wasn’t over heating or dehydrated) and headed off into the warmest, but not too warm, part of the day around 3pm.

Leaving Putney felt like I was really leaving London. The pavements turned to graveled paths and trails for large portions, still very civillised, with people along the river walking, cycling and with plenty of houses, boathouses and people on the river.

I decided to get out my hiking poles, that I had never used before. Not this brand, or type, I mean I have never used poles. I kind of knew how, but hadn’t had a proper play with them.

Oh. My. Days.

What a difference they made. After an initial faffing about getting them set-up right, they seemed to help more than I had imagined. This coupled with the food going in actually made for a very pleasant next 20km.

Swanning past Kew Gardens at around 40km, where the high walls made it difficult to get any decent pictures, I headed on nice paths and trails at a decent rate, running easily at times past villages along the river, then down past Richmond bridge. Here the first people heading out for drinks and dinner in the upmarket bars and restaurants along the river where settling in and I looked on with envy. This is what life should be like, I think. Nah, where’s the fun without the suffering my internal monologue tries to convince me what I am doing is worth it.

Much of the rest of the Thames from this point until Kingston-Upon-Thames at around 50km is ‘this’… Nice paths, easy to navigate, people playing and having fun by the river, LOTS of people on rowing boats, nice houses, parks and local nature reserves with the odd pub thrown in for good measure.

At 50km I hit Kingston-Upon-Thames. Another picturesque bridge on a pretty bit of river. Taking my leave to my second scheduled stop, another ‘spoons. The town suddenly felt ‘rough’ compared to the idyllic river. It was probably my imagination.

Arriving at 1730, I ordered a couple more Pepsi’s, a burger (which wasn’t bad) and some chips (which were) but they filled a hole. I filled my bottles and then I had a decision to make.


Physically, I felt OK my pace hadn’t slowed. But my feet weren’t in bad shape, but weren’t in great shape either. That was my own fault for being a little complacent and not taping my problem areas properly. I wasn’t dehydrated and food was going down well.

That wasn’t my main issue though. I left at 1815.

The next scheduled stop was meant to be at Staines-upon-Thames at around 72km, but with the earlier diversions and detour to get food this wouldn’t have been until around 75km at the earliest.

Assuming this took me 3 hours or so, that meant arriving there at around 2200 and that in itself would be fine. The problem was after that. Once I left Staines-upon-Thames there was only Windsor at 90+km to get food and water until the 120km mark. And the last place that was open (that I could find) that served food was at 0230. If I missed this I was in a bad place and nowhere really to go, except to push through with what I could carry, or try and find a nook to sleep in.

I made the ‘sensible’ decision to call it a day at Staines-upon-Thames.

However, leaving Kingston-upon-Thames, mulling over my options. I ‘thought’ I followed the Thames Path Signs, but somehow I ended up on the wrong side of the river. Now this wasn’t terminal, but it definitely added some distance to my expedition.

I eventually got back on track heading via some main roads to Hampton, another pretty bridge, a somewhat obstructed view of the palace and more beautiful river scenery. The night was drawing in, and with Staines-upon-Thames seeming very far away at this point to catch a train back to safety. I went to plan C, a quick search of the area on ‘that’ side of the river spotted the bridge at Walton-upon-Thames.

By complete chance I had been there before for a coronation party, I shit you not (ironically of course) and new the station, although a few km from the river was easy to find. There was a McDonald’s on the way… I was craving a McFlurry and it was literally 20 minutes and a short walk on a train back to a shower and a warm bed.

Moving swiftly to avoid rummaging in my bag for my head torch, I made it off the river onto well lit roads around 8pm. As I headed through Walton-upon-Thames, I stopped quickly for a bit t eat. They were out of McFlurry. I was livid.

A ‘wrap of the day’ and a Sprite would have to do, as I had 18 minutes to catch the train, a 20 minute walk away according to Google.

Part running, part eating, part drinking, whilst carrying hiking poles was not ideal and could have cost me an eye. Anyway I made the train, screw waiting another half an hour.

The only injury I ended up with was a burst blister and a bit of indigestion.

Not bad for a days work.

Please give me a follow on Instagram @theperformancestrategist and also @theperformancestrategist where I post my videos and other helpful content

DISCOUNT CODES:

https://www.cardiffsportsnutrition.co.uk DRPAUL for 10% off your order.

Design an Athlete Nutrition Plan in less than 15 Minutes*, using AI.

* Includes reading time!

Why this blog is about AI & Nutrition Coaching?

A few years ago I was asked to speak at one of the UK’s largest fitness events, the Arnold Sports Festival UK. Most of what I spoke about that day was my involvement in large scale coaching, and how various projects I had worked on where very clever people had put ‘my brain’ into apps that took data and created nutrition solutions.

The birth of my man bun.

Back then I remember becoming aware of the potential of AI in terms of short cutting (in the best possible way) coaching practices. In essence most of the process of planning a nutrition approach, monitoring and adjusting programs is (at least in my brain) a systematic decision making flow.

This complex flow of ideas was something I 100% believe could and would be automated and on the front end of nutrition coaching are some very fundamental principles that need to be adhered to when designing a nutrition plan.

Those principles are what we would now refer to as ‘prompts’ in the current world of AI and this blog will show you, the exact prompts you can use in free to access AI to design a solid , first nutrition approach.

I will not go into depth on the numbers used, or too much into my thought processes but this should give you a solid understanding of what ‘I’ am looking at and how to put something usable together to get you off on the right foot.

You will have to trust me, I am after all a doctor.

Why AI isn't the end of nutrition coaching…

I would guess that a few people reading this might be triggered at the prospect of what I am (not) saying.

I am not saying that AI in it’s current form…

Can fully replace coaching.

Coaching requires more than just number crunching it is a complex interplay between the science of the field with understanding the individual on an emotional level. For the person reading this hoping this will solve all your nutrition problems it will not.

Most peoples issues with eating for health, performance or ‘whatever’ goal is that they still need to be educated on the subject to make more empowered decisions, need to deal with habits and behaviours such as emotional eating and figure out how to adapt their nutrition for work, travel and social life alongside the million and one other things that tear up the ‘perfect diet plan’.

This is where coaching and education helps, this is where you need to put in work, this is where AI can’t do the job just yet.

So what is the point of AI Nutrition Programming?

It is in all honesty to answer a question that people ask. For many people they believe having a nutrition plan is the way to success. It isn’t, at least not when you consider the real reasons people struggle to eat ‘well’… what ever that means.

So these prompts are there to show you how we should think about nutrition'; how do we consider energy needs? How do we need to think about macronutrition and micronutrition? What should our meals look like? How can we include or exclude certain foods based on moral, religious or other grounds yet still hit our basic needs.

Why AI only Solves some Nutrition Problems for Athletes…

We need to be careful to not to trust AI… and not JUST for ‘Terminator’ based reasons.

The way to think about it for the purpose of this article is as a very smart search engine. It does not think in the way we imagine, it finds, interprets and creates an answer.

Sometimes it may come up with the wrong answer because the balance of information on a subject in sites it extracts information from is wrong, sometimes it will literally just make shit up.. So we have to fact check our information and we have to understand and make sure we ask it the right questions. The right questions are ‘prompts’ and the prompts I have put together here should be pretty solid.

An example. Ask it for a strength training program for endurance sports and it will give you the average of the information of high ranking sites on the subject.

Unfortunately, most of these sites are not understanding of the subject (as is the overall culture of strength training for endurance sports). The information is likely to be wrong, and the correct information hidden in those pesky academic texts is at present not easily accessible to AI unless you ‘feed’ it the information.

How to Design your own Training Program using AI here!

This means that any ‘numbers’ that are spat out, meal ideas, amounts of ingredients etc should be double checked. I have structured the prompts in such a way as to make this fact checking as easy as possible and so far, when I have ran this, so good. At least for the purposes we need trying to put a basic plan together.

This is also not a specific fat loss or muscle building program (although this might actually happen as a result), these require a few additional steps to factor in some goal specific consideration and tweaks to nutrient amounts mentioned further along in this article. However, in my closing remarks I will touch upon how you can do this and what other things you need to have in place.

Finally, when you have your plan, with the foods and amounts I would always pop these into a food logging app like My Fitness Pal to cross-check for any potential errors. It is also not going to guarantee a perfect all nutrient providing diet that meets every single nutrient need… but it will be a good base, it is then up to you to think about what a diet is ‘missing’ and plug in the gaps (don’t worry I will have you covered in other articles)

The prompts..

Part 1:

Our first set of prompts tell AI who ‘we’ are… the goal is to then use well established equations to estimate our total daily energy needs (calories). Our basal metabolic rate (from well established equivalents) + exercise activity expenditure (using METs) + non exercise expenditure (using step counts as a rough approximation).

METS are metabolic equivalents, these show how many times our basal metabolic rate (BMR) per hour a certain activity burns. So, if our BMR was 2400 per day, 1 MET would be 100 Calories.

It is important to note (as in the following example) that the MET of an activity is the time you spent actually being active, it is unlikely that in a 3 hour climbing session you are climbing the whole time, so you would put this as the 30 minutes of actual climbing you did in our prompt below!

If you wanted to be super thorough you could ask AI to do this for every activity from sleeping to walking the dog for a full 24 hour period.. however, what we are working with here will still give a solid starting point and that is all we are after at this point so it realllly wouldn’t be worth it.

These prompts were created for CHAT GPT… simply copy and paste them in.

Can you calculate the following for me: a male, who is 90kg and 186cm tall, and 42 years of age.

My Training Days are: Monday is Climbing for 30 minutes

Tuesday 1 hour of strength training + 30 minutes of interval running

Wednesday 1 hour strength training

Thursday 30 minutes strength training + 60 minutes of interval running

Friday climbing for 30 minutes and 1 hour of strength training

Saturday 2 hours of easy effort running.

Sunday is rest day

I average 8,000 steps per day My job is sedentary.

Do the following steps.

1. Calculate my basal metabolic rate (BMR).

2. Then Calculate how many calories I am use during exercise on each training day using metabolic equivalents (METS), multiplying the met value by my hourly BMR (BMR divided by 24)

3. Then Calculate how many calories I use each day from non exercise activity (NEAT) from step counts.

4. Then perform the full calculation and show my total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) requirements for each day adding together BMR + Exercise + NEAT.

Make sure you report Monday to Sunday.’

The above in bold you can put in what information you wish, if you don’t want to go to the ‘effort’ of putting in all of this data you can simply replace the daily training logs with ‘exercises for x hours per day’ and it will give you a rough daily estimate, or if you want nutrition for different training days simply put ‘strength and interval days are 1 hour of strength training and 30 minutes of interval running’ and do this for each training day type you have.
In the output below it will then give you the Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) for training days rather than week days, pretty smart, huh?

The output from part 1:

The following images show you the calculations performed by Chat GPT, this is great for a) understanding where the numbers come from so we can understand the process, cross reference or fact check, b) see if and where we need to tweak or add any extra prompts if it doesn’t do exactly what we want. Don’t squint too hard, zoom in, or just do them for yourself and see!

I have built a calculator so you will be able to quickly estimate total daily energy intake now if you wish. Simply add your age, weight in kg, height and gender, then select from the drop down menu’s for exercise and activities of daily living (ADL’S).

Add as many as you like (make sure you put the duration in minutes) and it should do the rest!

NOTE: WHEN PUTTING IN EXERCISE & ACTIVITY MINUTES, IT IS IMPORTANT TO PUT IN THE TIME SPENT EXERCISING. FOR EXAMPLE, IF YOU WEIGHT LIFT FOR 2 HOURS, YOU MIGHT ONLY BE ACTIVELY LIFTING FOR 30 MINUTES. THIS IS THE NUMBER YOU WANT TO PUT IN!

How many Calories do you Need?

Calculate BMR and TDEE

Gender: Male Female
Weight (kg):
Height (cm):
Age:

Exercise Inputs

Add Exercise

Activities of Daily Living (ADL)

Add ADL
Calculate TDEE Reset

Part 2:

Ok, so we have how many calories each day and a range in which we are ‘likely’ to sit. Now what?

We now need to calculate what this energy is going to made up of form our energy providing nutrients, protein, fats and carbohydrates.

Again I am not going to go into detail here, but for protein and fat intake we work on a g per kg basis. 1.6 for protein covers most bases, and 0.8 for fat does the same.

Protein is 4kcal per gram, fat is 9kcal per gram and Carbohydrate is 4kcal per gram.

If you want (or prefer) more fat in the diet then increase this closer to one in the prompt, amounts much above this may sacrifice carbohydrates that are going to be useful for performance.

Carbohydrate intake is calculated from the calories ‘left over’ once we subtract our protein and fat calories and you can see calculation in the output.

This is because protein and fats are essential in the diet, and recommendations are based on daily amounts in relation to body size. Whereas carbohydrates are non-essential, and intakes are in relation to activity and exercise levels.

In this step we are also going to decide how to distribute your calories and macronutrients depending on how many meals a day you want to consume and create your meal plan.

I would suggest three to four meals per day with nutrition fairly evenly distributed and a snack, this will largely depend on a) how you prefer to eat and b) how many calories you need and c) when you train.

The more calories you have the more meals we have ‘tends’ to make sense to not overload the digestive system, and we may need to consume some of our carbohydrates during training, especially if exercising for a couple of hours.

One thing to note here is that if you have super high calorie needs, and you are exercising several hours a day you may need to factor in a intra-training nutrition strategy. You can simply add this as another meal and specify that you want to consume x amount of calories per hour in this meal from specific sources (sports drinks, gels, etc) and it will do the rest.

In the prompts you can change the number and type of meals we would like to consume, again I have highlighted this in bold. We can also state how we want the energy to be distributed across each meal, here I have kept it fairly simple with a preference towards lunch and dinner and stated any specific nutrition requirements.

Ideally, we want protein to be evenly distributed and this is represented in the prompts.

This now gives us our energy and macronutrient intakes for each meal for each day.

We now just need to be clear on the recipe creation and ingredient information/amounts and we can even a shopping list if we desire.

FINAL & IMPORTANT NOTE: Chat GPT can be a little frustrating when it comes to running multiple tasks at the same time unless we are super specific about the commands we give it. It is entirely possible with a bit of tinkering to be able to get it to create a full weeks plan in one go. However, for the sake of it working ‘every’ time keeping it simple running through this one day at a time will make life much easier and keep your sanity intact.

The Prompt..

Remember to write this in the question box following on from the answer to the previous prompt that has given you a range of daily energy estimates.

‘Can you now write me a meal plan that meets Tuesdays TDEE that does the following

1. Gives me 1.6g per kg of body weight protein, 0.8g per kg body weight of fat and the rest of the calories made up of carbohydrate.

2. I want this over four meals, including breakfast, lunch and dinner plus a snack.

3. I want my protein intake to be split fairly evenly across each meal.

4. I want around 25% more energy in my lunch and dinner than breakfast and snack.

5. I want this to be for a vegan diet.

6. When you generate the meals, I want you to calculate and report the amounts of each ingredient and give a detailed recipe guide and cooking instructions.

7. Then create a shopping list’

The output… pretty slick, huh?

And that my pedigree chums is that.

Easy, right?

Just to finish with an important final thought. It is essential to remember that these numbers are based on weight maintenance and are just a guideline to work from. I am not going to go into the specifics of fat loss or muscle gain at this point. That can wait.

So, as with any nutrition approach, you may need to adjust amounts up or down depending on what happens to your performance, physique, hunger, mood or any other important outcomes you choose to monitor.

But hopefully you now have a way to get some recipe ideas and inspiration. The only downside, AI can’t do the cooking for us…. yet.

My Origin Story

I’m guessing if you are ‘here’ then you probably interested in one or more of the following subjects:

Who (or what) actually AM I?

What the hell is Hybrid Athlete?

Are you a real doctor?

Are you sure you’re a real doctor?

How do you mange as a 40 something year old (pretending to be an) athlete whilst owning a business?

What are you going to learn hanging out on this page, following my blog, and what do I hope you can get from ‘this’?

I would hope as the weeks, months and years pass I will add many layers to answers to these questions. But for now, for the sake of brevity, and your sanity, let me answer these questions as quickly as I can.

As with all good origin stories, I have in my life stumbled across my super-hero alias and that my blog reading friends is Dr Infinity.

It is too soon in my blogging journey to reveal where this came from I’ve go to keep the suspense, right? And in all honesty I say this is jest as I am far from a superhero. Just a silly human, doing silly things and hopefully helping a few people along the way.

Who actually AM I?

In the wider philosophical sense, I think it is safe to assume, many things to many people:

To the people I studied my degree and masters with, I strongly suspect that I am a drunkard, rugby playing, wrestling, slightly renegade, loud mouthed ‘idiot’.

To my family and school friends, stretching back in the years before and after my 10 or so years as a student, I am sure I have been many things.

My journey from insecure teen to boisterous student, to stressed out, self-doubting PhD student to stressed out, self-doubting, recently diagnosed with ADHD business owner, has created a unique character plot line but I think at the heart of all of this is one trueism. I can be a self-centered person, but I would hope I am not a selfish one. When I am needed, I am there.

To the women I have dated; well, that’s their story to tell.

I certainly am in no position to know how they would reflect upon who I am, I would only hope that time has been kind to their understanding of some of my less than admirable behaviour.

I would hazard a guess that in most cases the version of me they encountered was probably a fair reflection of the person I was at those micro-stages of my life. I just hope that I have become a better person than the arse I was certainly capable of being, especially throughout my twenties.

SIDE NOTE: I only mention the ADHD here because I think it explains a lot about who I am, why I am the way I am, what I struggle(d) with and now thrive at. This is a topic I will revisit another time as I unpack more the person behind the blog… but for now, I hope that it’s more creative elements contributes to the (hopefully) amusing lens that I now write and reflect upon my life to this point.

One common theme in my life is that I seem to thrive off ‘the next hard thing’ (innuendo for the win).

Not to dig too deep into my psyche, but in a somewhat perverse way, I like doing hard things, really hard things. Even if I hate the thing at the time there is something about doing what others can’t, or won’t, that gives me some kind of perverse pleasure.

I think this stems from some ‘sense’ I have always carried with me that people held the opinion of me that I couldn’t do ‘things’. As I have gotten older and possibly wiser, this reality, I fear, is I suspect largely self-created.

I’m not entirely sure where this came from, it certainly wasn’t because of the lack of love and support of my family. I certainly didn’t have people calling my ‘stupid’ or incapable... I was always told I had potential. Yet, I also had a sense of anger and frustration that I could not put my finger on, at least back then.

Maybe this is a narrative I created for myself to push me forward, that has been fuelled by those little comments and jokes that I have taken to heart about my appearance, my ability, my family, my intelligence, my physical capabilities; and turned those things into some imaginary bogey man that I must battle, over and over again. In every sense of the expression, it really is simply ‘me versus me’.

How can I ever win? I suspect I can’t.

I’m not sure at this point I even know what really winning looks like.

There is always the next thing, the next monster to fight the next limit to find, the next failure. And in all of that difficulty the occasional slaying of this imaginary beast.

To bask in the glory for a moment like the Knights of old standing over the slayed dragon, before the next challenge looms ominously over the horizon.

Maybe I create these monsters to motivate me because I can get bored easily. As I write this, my ‘other brain’ tells me that’s not entirely true.

I do get bored when the thing I am focused on loses it’s purpose, pleasure, or suffering (depending on the context) or I have overcome the challenge in front of me.

This attitude probably explains the appeal of ultra-marathons. There is always further to go, more pain to suffer, more stories to tell.

If ‘the obstacle is the way’ then make mine as big and scary as possible… with a side of suffering if it’s on offer.

Despite the stresses and strains of dealing with ‘myself; learning about who I am and what gives me joy, purpose, pain and how these things often seem indistinguishable. The question on my minds lips is '‘Why do I seem to seek the uncomfortable situations despite the frequently negative impacts on my well-being?’

To summarise the above into the one common thread that ties these together is my love of chasing the extreme.

Academics

Tattoos

Strength

Bodybuilding

Endurance

Ride ‘em till the wheels fall off.

Told you I was extreme…

These are things I have pushed or am currently pushing, as far as I my body and mind will go. Some of these things went very far indeed. Some I have just started the journey.

I did, as most people, have a nice backpack of trauma to carry through my teens and twenties. I lost two of my role models; key examples of how to be a good human and as I write this I can feel my eyes well up, not a good look on a train from Cardiff to London on a slightly grey Summers eve.
Uncle Bert.
Auntie Jo.

These are names I will write about again as they deserve their own chapters in this whole story of my life. But for now, in the jigsaw that is me, these are some of the most important people pieces that have been parts of the ‘edges’ of the puzzle from which all the other bits of me start to make some sense.

I will talk about ‘my brain’, my journey, my life as I perceive it in more depth in due course, but for now it is the physical component that we are here for and that is where we will stay for the remainder of this blog. About getting to ‘this’ point in my existence.

One of my earliest memories, at around the age of 4, was being at nursery school. I was given a picture of the Incredible Hulk to colour in (badly, art was never my strong suit) because I was upset… at what I am not entirely sure.

I am never quite sure if this memory is something which was a key trigger to the person I now am, or in hindsight it makes ‘sense’ through my post-rationalising eyes.

It is always easier to look back and find patterns that tell us who we are, but the truth is as a species that thrives and survives on stories, I can’t tell you for certain whether the map of my life I am about to spell out stemmed from this moment, or if now looking back this is just an attempt to make sense of my obsession with physical culture… being the biggest, the fastest, the strongest.

It turns out as I got older, I was never quite any of those things.

Having this monstrous figure before me, always loving superhero films and growing up during the ‘peak’ of Hollywood muscle-mania, the first person on my street to have Sky with all the trappings of the WWE (WWF as it was then until the Panda’s complaints about trademark infringement).

It was difficult for a child of the 80’s and early 90’s film era to not want to fight aliens in the jungle or single handedly take on entire armies. Most people saw entertainment, I saw my future commitment to becoming a physical freak.

It turned out I was good at the one sport people really cared about in my town. Football.

I played against kids 2-3 years older than me. I was always a quick, tough, physical player.

I enjoyed all sports at school and was a decent all-round athlete, but the truth is I was never quite good enough (insert the usual talk of trials with professional football teams).

Rugby was something I ‘think’ I could have gone somewhere with, but for various reasons it wasn’t a sport I played with any gusto until I hit my late teens/early twenties and by then I was already seriously flirting with another sport, submission-wrestling.

My good friend Dave Ives was obsessed with martial arts. We used to watch, and try and learn from the old BJJ instructionals of the Gracie’s, watching on VHS the old UFC’s and travelling around the country competing (losing) but training wherever we could and frequently kicking the crap out of each other with a rag-tag bunch of friends.

This is Dave… whacking me in the stomach, naturally.

I cared enough to train and compete, but in all honestly, I was dragged along for the journey by Dave at least in my teens and early twenties. At 23 I went to university, and there I played Rugby League at an ‘ok’ level during my undergrad and had lots of fun with it. The beers and friendship that surrounded the sport at that level were a key part of my social education.

On our university induction I vividly remember one quote ‘Don’t let university get in the way of your education’.

I did not.

It was at university I first crossed paths with another David, David Stache who is the driving force behind Nuvictus… I will talk about him again I am sure, but for now back to our scheduled viewing.

I still occasionally trained wrestling in the summers, or at home. However, it was only in my late twenties that I started to train more frequently, got damn big and damn strong and became more dedicated to the sport.

Training at gyms all over the country, coaching at a couple, and starting one-to-one coaching in Cardiff (where I had started my PhD) with a truly elite grappler Ashley Williams.

I was also travelling back most weekends to Dave’s club ‘Chester Submission Wrestling’.

Side note: I also played a year of rugby union in Cardiff but for ‘academic’ and my increasingly aging body reasons, I left the egg chasing part of my existence at around 29.

The funny thing was at my wrestling performance ‘peak’ I never actually competed seriously. After a couple of years dedicated training, a nightclub incident resulted in a broken hand.

The complications that followed, alongside a few other compounding reasons that have become vague in the mists of time, meant that was pretty much the end of my wrestling career… although I still got plenty of ‘practice’ working the doors at such delightful venues as ‘Vodka Revs’ and ‘Walkabout’ in Cardiff where I worked as a bouncer to help fund my PhD.

I had worked as a doorman on and off since my early twenties and those experiences taught me a lot about myself and human behaviour. It also gave me A LOT of stories to tell, but that’s not what we are here for right now.

This is where the next chapter of my physical journey and the interwoven start of the business chapters of my life really kicks off.

Already a solid 105kg, on walking into a local sports supplement store, ‘CSN’ I was confronted with Marc, a 6ft 4, 120kg+ bear of a man, whom I am friends with, and still work with, to this day… from those small store days to a huge online business.

It was in that first conversation that the next love of my life came along. From a general interest with getting ‘jacked’, the bodybuilding culture in Cardiff took over me completely.

I went on to compete in several bodybuilding shows. For the record I was not very good, but in keeping with pushing myself to the extreme, I can say I tried my best with the tools available to me at the time.

At my heaviest I had pushed myself up to a chunky 120kg. To be crystal clear, I was not healthy at this weight. Strong, yes. Healthy, not so much.

I stopped bodybuilding for 2 reasons. Firstly, I simply wasn’t willing to push the limits of my health any harder as I approached my mid-30’s, to be an average competitor at best.

Secondly, mentally both the dieting process and the stress of business at the time meant that the ‘juice wasn’t worth the squeeze’ anymore… pun absolutely intended.

There were several ‘incidents’ in my final year of competing that made me realise that as much as bodybuilding had helped in some areas of my life and launched my first business, it was now taking away from me more than it was giving.

Business, personal life & my mental health, all suffered and in the midst of this I had been trying, struggling but eventually succeeding in completing my PhD, which was an experience that needs a whole series of chapters on stress and trauma all to itself.

You see! Proof.

So yes, I am a doctor… but not a real doctor, as people love telling me.

Although I had built a business around bodybuilding… education, content, coaching… as a competitor my days were over... so what next?

I had no interest in endurance sports at that time. But I did have an interest in moving my businesses into the wider area of sports performance nutrition & physiology. The hunt for my first clinic began.

Business is so intertwined with my journey to become a hybrid athlete, that I could not do it the disservice of not mentioning it, being a major character in the play we call life. Perhaps not the leading role, but at least a solid supporting actor.

Post-bodybuilding.

Finding, building, and growing my business meant A LOT of time on the road, a lot of time not being able to train in the ways that I would like. To be honest for the first time since I could remember fitness was more about clinging on for dear life to some form of shape, rather than having a competitive purpose.

I will skip a few chapters here for the sake of keeping this blog at a reasonable length. But ultimately the next phase in my fitness journey went something like this.

Business took over, travel took over & energy levels plummeted and all I could manage was a few half-arsed workouts a week and the occasional run to do ‘something’ to keep me sane and ‘fit’.

Two years(ish) later having flirted with the idea of signing up for an iron man distance triathlon under the encouragement of some friends and starting to take this semi-seriously alongside trying to get back in shape. The move ‘full-time’ to a new clinic in Leeds and the building of the place living, working and commuting between 3 cities, truly put any performance goals on the back burner. Actually, not just the back burner, it was somewhere in the other room gathering dust behind a sofa.

I hit a low point physically and mentally, and how I got through this period without fully ‘breaking’ still astonishes me.

I wasn’t ‘out of shape’ by conventional standards. But for me, I wasn’t happy with where I was in both appearance and fitness. I wasn’t fit or strong by my own standards and this did not sit well with my ingrained fitness ‘identity’ and values.

Once the Clinic was built in Leeds in around the December of 2019, and with exposure to this idea of the Hybrid Athlete through people like Alex Viada, I decided that I would make the next 12 months of my life about getting back in condition.

Not just in terms of an aesthetic I was happy with and that I could sustain, it also had to be functional; I needed to be strong, fit and mobile.

Over the next few months, I switched into a machine with the most consistent nutrition, training and performance testing & monitoring I had ever had. I felt great, I performed great. My weight was the same but my physique had transformed considerably.

Don’t ask why I was in swim gear…

Then in the March of 2020 we all know happened. That’s when the silly really kicked in.

For a lot of people they struggled, I certainly had business anxiety, but I also had my own clinic with everything I needed to become an athlete and no distractions... apart from the relentless Zoom quizzes of course.

From March until the end of the year I ramped things up. I had started to run much further, lift heavier again and out of sheer curiosity had started to play with some longer distance endurance training on the Wattbike and running.

Pools were closed and Leeds is TERRIBLE for swimming facilities anyway, so over time my training bias simply became ‘lift-bike-run’.

For whatever reason the biking never really stuck with me. But coming out of lock-down into 2021, I had on somewhat of a whim, but with a decent level of fitness, decided to sign-up to my first ultra-marathon. The Endure 24.

12 weeks later.

In this loop race, going as far as you can in 24 hours on the same 5-mile trail course, three things happened.

I ran, walked and hobbled 135km.

I ended up with a stress fracture.

I got the ultra-marathon bug.

The face and body of a broken man.

Being a bigger athlete, I knew that I didn’t want to lose the strength I had built over years of lifting and liked the idea of being ‘competitively strong’. To me this meant being able to maintain some strength standards, that could see me rock up at a power lifting competition and at least hold my own with decent level lifters.

I also knew this would limit my endurance performance at my current level of muscle mass, even though there was still much room for improvement. The one thing that really appealed to me was the distance… I might not be able to run much faster, but how far could I go?

SEED. PLANTED.

Now just over half way through 2023 I have since competed in powerlifting and a 50 mile run within one week of each other (winning my power lifting class), failed a 100 mile ultra-marathon, and completed god-knows how many runs of over marathon distance, mostly on trails, mostly in ridiculous conditions.

As I write this I am two days away from attempting to cover the 184miles of the Thames River Path in under 3 days, self-supported.

The specifics of these events are stories withing themselves and I will write about all my ultra experiences, lessons learnt and all of the ridiculousness in good time.

This leads me nicely into talking about what a hybrid athlete is.

Well firstly, it is not a sport. There is no ‘games’, there are no ‘rules’.

To me this makes the definition an entirely personal one but across the various people who consider themselves Hybrid Athletes one thing seems to hold true.

In its simplest and broadest sense, it is people who dedicate themselves to training for both strength and endurance.

That opens a whole world of potential argument, and it is certainly not for me to talk about this in an authoritative way. I did not coin the term and ultimately to me it doesn’t matter.

Some people may think it simply means justifying not being exceptional at any one thing!

I always joke that I might not be a good endurance athlete, but I can guarantee I can bench more than the field. When I compete in power lifting, I am certain I am the only person in the room who has run over 100km.

Fragile male ego kept intact.

The truth is there are some incredibly talented lifters who train in a Hybrid Style (I am not one of them). And some people who are well above average in terms of strength that have very high levels of endurance performance.

For me, to keep myself ‘honest’. I have come up with a more standards based, operational definition of the ‘sport’ with my desire for the extreme built in. More of my Hybrid manifesto than anything else…

1.       To compete [and find my limits] in both [maximum] strength and [ultra] endurance sports events.

2.       To meet strength standards that would be considered strong across athlete populations in at least one of the main power lifting disciplines (1.5 x body weight bench press, 2 x body weight squat, 2.5 x body weight dead lift are VERY solid numbers).

3.       To be in the top 30% in ‘standardised’ endurance events in a chose discipline (in my case running).

4.       TRIGGER WARNING: To use my body in a functional manner, in my case this means climbing to a grade of V6!!

It is VERY difficult to gauge performance standards in ultra-marathons.

It is very much a who turns up on the day, how ‘big’ the event is, the terrain and weather conditions. Timing and placing comparisons across ultra events is virtually impossible for this reason once you are in to the middle of the pack.

However, being the clever sausages we are, we can look at 5km, 10km, ½ and full marathon times. These can give a reasonable approximation of endurance performance against the ‘population’.

If I am going to consider myself a) an athlete and b) one that actually trains for endurance events. Then I think it is reasonable standard to hold myself to, to be a ‘bit’ faster than the average person rocking up to a park run, who couldn’t really care less about time and just wants to stretch their legs on a Saturday or Sunday morning (and by the way this is a completely admirable & reasonable way to live your life… zero judgement here).

My bias is clearly towards strength because that is the background from which I came and what I was ‘ok’ at… and that is perfectly fine because this is my definition after all. If you don’t like it… create your own!

Ultimately, these numbers do not matter to anyone but me. But I do feel that these are reasonable goals to aim for and are solid targets for anyone who wants an ultimate hybrid goal.

My other goals sit in the much vaguer bucket list of distance rather than speed; completing 100 mile and 200 mile plus events. In those situations, finishing alone is the result, I could not care less about time or placings!

To sum up my thoughts on this in a more broad sense. Being a hybrid athlete is about having strength and endurance goals that are important to you. Reaching them. And then moving on to the next challenge.

For me it the extremes that drives me, wrapped within the physical constraints of what my 42-year-old body will still allow me to do and my desire to have a personal aesthetic goal.

Last but not least, let’s have a little chat about. climbing.

The great thing is that there are standards and progressions to aim for in climbing. Mine is to climb at an advanced grade (V6) within the next 2 years. Having only started seriously in December of 2022 I am currently climbing consistently at an intermediate level of around V3 & V4… on good days.

SpiderPaul

To me climbing is about as functional as you can get in terms of movement, and it feels like the missing piece for me in calling myself a hybrid athlete.

For some it might be combat sports, functional fitness/CrossFit, or strongman.

This functional component is about having a vehicle to express all the components of fitness, co-ordination, balance and complex movement competency with endurance and strength.

Some may argue this is the definition of CrossFit and they might have a point. But for me, the competition is still limited to duration’s and intensities of effort that fall within a pretty narrow window when you consider the broad spectrum of human capability.

Personally, I want this spectrum to be as large and extreme as possible, to be able to fully explore the limits of my potential.

And this journey to finding our limits and pushing past them is what this blog is all about.