Jessica - 5km to Marathon Runner
jr

Thank you so much for the video - it is such a confidence boost to see the improvement! And I just feel like my running is so much more efficient and more powerful - I ran 6 miles after work last night at an average pace of 8 min/mile and previously my usual average pace before my sessions with you was around 8 1/2 min/mile so that really is great.

Hopefully I can continue to build on the longer runs and harness my new speed and efficiency during the Hackney Half! I initially came to the Running School for a Biomechanical Analysis to check my gait and highlight my weaknesses Before I started running three years ago I had been inactive since my early teens and no one had ever shown me how to run properly.

As a fairly serious recreational runner about to embark on marathon training for the first time I wanted to make sure I was running as efficiently as possible and stop any injuries before they occurred. I was very nervous before my analysis session, sure that Nick and the team would say I was a lost cause, headed for certain injury and a woefully poor excuse for a runner. But thankfully this was not the case at all!

Nick videoed my running from different angles and I did various stability exercises to assess my form and highlight weak areas. After this we went through the videos and exercises and discussed them in detail so I was very clear on what needed to be worked on, along with some pointers that I could take away from that first session that would immediately help improve my technique.

And lo and behold I beat my 5k parkrun PB that weekend! The following week I started my coaching sessions and we built up my running from scratch, alternating intervals on the treadmill with glute activation and other strength building exercises. Everything we did was easy to follow and easy to understand, even if it wasn't always easy to put into practice! The first few sessions were focused on training my muscles to forget their old, inefficient movement patterns and adopt the correct technique for efficient, injury free running.

Nick was patient, supportive and encouraging and genuinely cared about how my running in between our sessions was going. I was able to email him with all of my concerns and frustrations and received nothing but patient advice in return! Even after just three sessions the improvements to my technique were noticeable and seeing the change in my form at the half way stage was a real confidence boost. It wasn't just visual either; my legs and glutes felt stronger and I was running faster than before!

I was a good student, keeping up with activation and strengthening exercises outside of my lessons at the Running School (the handbook they provided was a great tool for helping with outside-of-session activities) and these are now an essential part of my daily routine in my mission to become a faster, injury proof runner.

After 6 weeks with the Running School I am consistently running faster and stronger and I have taken a minute off my previous 5k parkrun PB! I couldn't be happier with my experience of The Running School and feel things can only get even better from here as Nick and his team have given me the fundamental knowledge, understanding and technique to becoming the runner I have always wanted to be. Teaching your body to move differently isn't easy and it isn't a quick fix but patience has long been the friend of the distance runner.

 

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