Laura Johnson

Laura is an Ex-Competitive Gymnast who was a social runner wanting to take her competitive past and apply it to her running.

However, Laura required some running form and efficiency work and was also protecting a wrist she had broken many years before. She was however relatively strong, flexible and had a good base level of fitness.

Getting Faster!

The initial aim was to reduce 5 km time to sub 26 minutes for a personal best.

The training involved a lot of sprint speed work to improve maximal velocity while also improving running efficiency, weekly track endurance interval sessions alongside more normal social running and undertaking a 30-day running strength and form challenge.

After 16 weeks of training, it was brilliant to see her set a time of 25 minutes 54 Seconds knocking 51 seconds off her previous personal best.

Running Further!

Keen to keep working together it was decided to follow another 12-week plan that would target both her 10 km PB (sub 54 mins) and set a new personal best over the half marathon distance. This would be her first ever Half Marathon.

The required training is somewhat different from the 5km training we had been doing and involved significantly more mileage, and higher intensity endurance intervals alongside more strength and general fitness work.

It was during this time that we noticed a plateau in the training gains and sometimes unusually slow races that didn’t fit with her ability. Working with third parties and her doctor it was clear her Nutrition / Calorie intake was low for the training she was doing but also test results showed that her Iron levels were low. It’s a testament to the human body that putting right these two elements saw near immediate gains in training and the hard work began to shine through.

The km was at the halfway point (week 6) and Laura ran a fantastic time of 52 minutes 24 seconds. Well below her initial target of sub-54 mins.
At the end of the 12 weeks, Laura ran her first half marathon in 1hr 50 mins 42 seconds.

To put the achievement in some context the pace this time relates to per mile is under 8 mins 30 seconds and her 5 km (3.1 miles) PB was based on 8 mins 37 seconds per mile 6 months ago. 10 miles further but faster per mile, in 6 months.

The Hard Work Paying Off!

Laura has taken her overall speed gained in the 5 km training and the endurance fitness gained in the half marathon training forward and in the few weeks following this half marathon has set the following times:

New 1-mile PB of 6 mins 27 seconds

New 5-km PB of 23 mins 19 seconds

New 5-mile PB of 39 mins 21 seconds

RunBritain has a ranking system for runners registered with Athletic Clubs in the UK, At the start of her coaching journey, Laura had a handicap of 22.3 and ranked outside the top 70 runners in her club. This peaked at 13.1 moving her up to 8th female in the club.

From the Athletes’ Perspective!

Before I began the coaching I was just going out and running 2-3 times a week, there was no real focus or plan to it. I was also in my final year of my PhD, which meant I had a lot of pressure and time constraints in relation to my work life. Damian worked hard to develop a plan that would fit around me and my other commitments, was always happy to move things around last minute if something came up. However, having the structure of a plan forced me to take some time away from my work, and probably made me more productive!

There were some occasions where I didn’t feel 100% or work got in the way of a training session but all I needed to do was message Damian and he would come up with a solution straight away. I liked being able to debrief with him after sessions too and it was great to receive constant feedback on my training as well as racing performance.

Working towards the half, we didn’t decide on what pace I would run this until the week before. Damian advised and gave me some options (he also made it clear he felt the target time of 2 hours was 100% achievable), but ultimately wanted me to make the final call – again this was really important for me, and I felt confident come race day.

I have not only progressed in my running throughout the last few months but also in my understanding of how I need to pace races to get the best out of myself.

Overall, I was expecting to improve throughout the plan, however, I did not expect to see such large improvements in my time in such a short space of time. I genuinely loved every single minute of the whole process.