Jemma Goodship

Occupation: Estates Management

Trainer: Stephen

Goal: Marathon in under 5 hours

Comments from Jemma

I started my personal training sessions with Stephen in the New Year, with the main goal of getting a marathon PB. Having run two in previous years in just over 5 hours, I was determined to run a sub 5-hour marathon at Brighton in April 2011.

I worked with Stephen once a week over the couple of months leading up to the event alongside my weekly long runs and cross training in order to help achieve this goal.

Each session was always different yet was all centred on achieving the end goal. We worked on everything from plyometrics, resistance work, core work, circuits and running technique – which made me think and work differently each session. The sessions included running outside, doing some hill reps and interval speed play work, which was really important in building up speed and stamina to incorporate into my Sunday long runs, and eventually put into play on race day.

It was good to take away new ideas and learn to train my body for a marathon in other ways than just building up the miles each week. For this marathon we ended up doing a lot of cross training / gym based exercises working different muscle groups and breaking things down into smaller chunks / interval sessions which I feel really paid off come race day, where as before I would of really focused on just clocking up weekly mileage alone, risking more chance of injury.

Stephen devised good warm up and recovery techniques, to help both prevent and aid any injuries along the way. The importance of the foam roller and stretching using the power plates became a vital training tool. We would discuss nutrition, how much sleep I was getting, and how I was training during the rest of the week outside our sessions, to help me benefit and improve by looking at all the other factors within my training.

It was great to pick up some tips of swapping certain foods, adding more protein based snacks to my daily eating routine and learning the importance of recovery and sleep to aid all the hard work I was putting in.

Stephen’s training routines, fresh and different circuit workouts each week and superb general advice be it based on nutrition, tapering, recovery stretching etc has really helped me train better and the results showed on race day when my 4.47 time was clocked. I went into the race feeling confident and happy with the training, and am now looking into lots of other marathons and halves to aim for.

Post marathon, and after two weeks of valued rest, Stephen’s sessions work carefully devised to minimise pressure on the legs, especially as I had a hip/knee niggle during the marathon, all of this was taken into consideration in recent training to avoid risk of further injury, and get me back up and running again ready to start training for my next goals.

The sessions were always positive, goal focused, fun and varied and the results were visible pretty quickly. I have valued everything I have learned from Stephen in our sessions and would recommend his training to any runner whatever their distance or goal.

Comments from Stephen

From my first session with Jemma I was able to demonstrate different methods of training, in addition to banging out the miles every week. The greatest thing was Jemma’s commitment to tackling this new training, and giving a new strategy to achieving her PB a chance.

I kept the routines varied and progressive to keep Jemma interested but also to her force her body to continue making varied adaptations each week. Over the course of a marathon your body (and mind) need to respond in many different and unpredictable ways, and so I wanted this reflected in Jemma’s training. Given Jemma’s other interest in horse riding I tried make sure we strengthened the right areas to compensate for all the hours in the saddle.

A PB achieved in the Brighton Marathon was a fantastic testament to the hard work Jemma put into her training, and that she is planning more events is great news and I’m sure she’ll be setting new pb’s soon.