My Experience of Intuitive Training

and finally realising the root cause of losing my running mojo

A couple of weeks ago I read here on Substack an article about a runner who didn’t have a training plan.

I know, right?!

The article, (by

Jenny Tough

, found via

Five Things

), immediately struck a nerve with me. In it, Jenny talks about how she has got to the stage in her very successful running journey when, rather than sticking to a rigid set of numbers, she used her intuition, believed in herself (as she puts it) and ran whatever she felt like doing.

It’s stayed with me and I’ve thinking about it alot ever since. Then it came to me, why this particular article had struck me so strongly- I used to run intuitively.

Thinking back through my own long relationship with running, I considered that, actually, the majority of my training had been intuitive. I mean yes, there were training plans, but if you’d asked me a year ago if I was a slave to one, I would have laughed and said no, and probably would have thought you were ridiculous for asking. And of course, in my capacity as a coach I’m constantly telling my clients not to become obsessed with their training plans, knowing the pitfalls of sticking rigidly to a plan.

When did I change? When I stop coaching myself with the same care and compassion as my clients? Clearly, somewhere along the line, I did.

Mulling this over and inspired by the article, I binned off my prescribed run for that morning, headed east and found myself in my favourite place, completely alone, running up tough hills in a newly discovered route. I congratulated myself on how much I enjoyed the run and how I’d done something for myself, rather than being controlled by numbers.

In previous substacks I’ve described running as both an art and a science. The science provides an excellent framework, a blueprint for runners to structure their training- particularly those who are new to running or training for an unfamiliar distance- a brilliant tool to support the art of running. The bit about knowing when to listen to your internal cues, understanding why and when to push but also how to hold back. Sounds simple right? I honestly do believe that finding this balance, this wonderful, sweet spot, is when running becomes joyful.

So, when exactly did I forget all of this when it came to me and my own running?

As all of these questions were noodling around in my head, I was about 10 days away from a race that I’d entered back in early January. I’d had a flurry of entering a few races and rather impulsively I’d entered an old favourite of mine, Bramley 20, and it was now fast approaching. I didn’t give much thought to it- I knew a member of my group was running it in prep for Manchester Marathon, so I thought I’d keep him company.

As the race drew nearer, members of my running group starting asking what I was running at the weekend, as we do, and I nonchalantly replied that I was running 20 miles. “Oh” was the surprised response, was I after all running a Spring marathon, they all asked? (I’m not). Presumably because they thought who in their right mind would run that distance, just for the fun of it (um, me).

I kept all these comments to myself. Then, a few days before the race, my husband Jamie was “chatting on” over dinner, asking if I was worried at all about Bramley, rather innocently saying that I needn’t be, because he’d noticed that I’d been resting and sleeping and eating well.

I was completely taken aback by his observation (mainly surprised that he takes that much notice of me!) but also because I hadn’t said anything to him about the race. What threw me as well was I hadn’t consciously been aware that I was doing anything different to what I normally do, but he’d obviously noticed me making changes.

Changes like, not running the weekend before, the week’s shopping was full of fresh fruit, veg and we’d written out a week’s meal plan (this is not the norm in our house!), I’d also opted out of my usual Tuesday night strength and conditioning class, knowing that 12 hours later I would be back again in the gym with my daughters, I hadn’t run my normal planned run on Thursday, mmm putting this altogether, Jamie was completely right, I’d slipped into a tapering week without even realising it.

Was I back to intuitively knowing what my training should be? Was I trusting myself again, listening to my gut and using this trust to make decisions that I wasn’t overtly aware of? I wouldn’t have been aware of my body going into auto-pilot if let’s say the race had been a half marathon which I run regularly, but 20 miles is an anomaly for me, and so because of the increased distance, it was noticed and commented on by others which meant I was able to reflect, stand back and watch how I behaved without realising it.

For those of you who have followed my running over the last year through this substack, you’ll probably know that for the last 9 months I’ve written multiple times about struggling with my running mojo, but these last few weeks have enabled me to really look at my relationship with running and the outside world with a new perspective.

This time last year I was on a mission and, as hard as it is to admit, I didn’t listen to my gut; not only my gut, but also 20 odd years of experience in running and in coaching, yep, I did what I advise all my runners not to do and raced every race in the lead up to my Spring marathon of 2024.

Since realising this, I’ve been scrutinising last year’s performance stats for the marathon training cycle and honestly… wtf what was I thinking? I clearly listened to all the outside noise, I’d fallen for Garmin wooing me, convincing me, holding me tight and telling me what I wanted to hear, that I was on track to run a 3:51 marathon. And here’s a question I’ll never be able to answer, did I run without my watch on race day because I knew that I wasn’t wholly convinced by my Garmin’s sweet stats?

Here's the thing, yes I wanted to improve my overall marathon time, but expecting to shave 30 minutes off my previous time in just six months was pretty unrealistic. Big performance gains like that take time, a more practical and realistic goal would have been aiming for a 10 minute improvement.

What I do remember is feeling exhausted on the start line of last year’s marathon, seriously fuck knows, looking back now, how I held on and finished it in the time that I did! And do you know how I know that I was exhausted by mile 2 of last year’s marathon? Because only a few weeks ago, in a half marathon race I felt strong all the way through, and I remember thinking, “oh I haven’t felt this good for a very long time”.

On hindsight, I pushed myself towards all the outside noise of “how to” optimise my running performance, and it’s quite frightening how much I got sucked into the constant tracking and self-scrutiny of numbers, which I’ll be honest, at times led to completely new ways of self-loathing. I can still remember the horrilbe feelings, fresh waves of self-criticism washing over me whenever I opened up Strava, comparing my miles, my pace, my effort….ultimately though, all this distraction hijacked my gut instinct, and it’s only within these last few months that I’ve managed to get it back; too cheesy to say that the price I paid was too high? Nearly a year of being mentally injured frantically searching for a lost running mojo?

Anyway, I’ve gone off track, back to my race last weekend - I’m not arrogant enough to be flippant about “banging out” 20 miles just like that, but I know I’ve got a good solid base of endurance, and upon reflection, I did enter this race intuitively, deep down I knew it would be a fantastic opportunity to practise pacing and fuelling for my goal half marathon in May.

I also know that this race is tough, it’s a 2 lapped route on country roads, after the first lap, you run through the finish line (there is a 10 mile option) knowing you’ve got to repeat the same undulating 10 before you finish; it’s mentally challenging, especially when the first 20 mile finisher comes through as you finish your first lap.

I woke early last Sunday and felt the familiar feelings of pre-race anxiety. What the hell was I doing? This race was going to take all day, I didn’t have to go, I didn’t have to run all that way, I could message Ollie and tell him I was poorly, did I get it wrong, it wasn’t intuition, it was stupidity! Instead of listening, leaving the country and starting life under a new secret identity as my brain would have preferred, I got ready, went through my usual pre-race rituals and before I knew it, I was on the start line.

It was a tough run, of course it was, it’s a bloody long way. But I finished strong, and it felt good, yet again connected to my gut, able to trust my “feel”.

How do we know the difference between gut feelings, and well, “normal” feelings like “it’s raining, I’m not running”, or “my running buddy has bailed, I’m not running” or “my leg’s going to drop off, I’m not running”?

There is no quick fix answer, just experience, knowledge and a substantial amount of reflection. Teaching yourself to be compassionate about any decision that you make, allowing yourself to acknowledge that it might not have been the right one, for example not going for a run and then finding yourself regretting it as you pace around the house like a caged tiger, or understanding that falling back asleep for some much-needed rest was in fact the right thing to do.

A final note, running intuitively isn’t about not running hard or putting any effort into runs, it’s about listening to your body and trusting that successful improved performance is about finding the balance between the science and the art!