The first-month of training I programme for a 50+ hour work week runner

Why runners sign up for coaching in the first place

Today I want to take you behind the scenes to show you a typical week of programming for a client who's in their first month of training with me.

Before I do that, we need to understand the context behind why someone signs up to my coaching in the first place.

Often it's one, or a mix of the following reasons.

1. Recurring niggles and injury.
2. A steady decline in performance, from slower times to fewer workouts in a week.
3. Motivation to train has vanished, but the desire to hasn't.
4. A bad experience at a recent race that's caught their attention.

Month one goals for the 50+ hour runner

Based on these challenges we need to fix, month one goals are pretty universal for the 50+ hour runner.

Firstly, we need to make all elements of training work in a week that doesn't care less about training.

The odds are that my clients aren't just not running consistently, they're also not doing everything else around training they should be.

Why jump on a foam roller when you can't even run?

To be clear, we're not going to build all the perfect habits in 30 days, but we can aim to nurture the ones that help us with our second goal.

Winning the nervous system over

50+ hour work weeks, niggles, plateaus in performance, lack of motivation. These are all signals that my client's nervous system is likely dysregulated.

Put simply, there's a lot of stress and tension in the body we need to move through.

To do that, we need to help the body relax into training.

And before we do that, we need to help the body trust that the extra activity we are going to build into the week, and the runs we go on, is not just more stress it can't regulate effectively.

Basically, we need the body to give us energy. But energy is stress, and the body is going to hold on as tight as possible to an energy budget that has historically been mismanaged.

Think of it like a cautious Chief Financial Officer (CFO) who's seen your expense account and is no longer trusting you with the company card.

The question that actually matters

So to be able to build the right habits at the right pace, while not bankrupting us, we need to answer the following question.

What is the minimum effective training dose in a week to create the adaptations we need?

Remember, I'm not talking about increasing Volume of Oxygen (VO2) max, building an aerobic base or getting hench.

The adaptations we need in the first 30 days are consistent training habits and a nervous system that trusts us to train.

Why not just do the maximum dose?

So why not work out the maximum dose, some of you might be asking?

Surely we want to get the most out of our week as possible?

Well, this is where us A-types can go wrong. We get a surge of energy to start training, go to the gym five times in a week and push to failure with every lift and every run.

We then beat ourselves up for failing at our goal, while our CFO restricts the energy budget even further because once again we overspend.

Read as, better to be a little undertrained than overtrained.

I want to know the minimum amount of training required for my athletes to achieve whatever goals they set, because time and energy are limited, so let's leave something left in the tank.

Can we train for a marathon by running 3 times per week?

Can we get strong in the gym by training just 2 times per week?

Can we combine those five sessions into three sessions in a week and service both goals?

For 80 percent of a marathon cycle, there will be weeks where we can, and hit the minimum effective dose to keep progressing.

But most clients aren't training for a marathon in those first 30 days. They're often just finding their feet in training again, so the minimum effective dose is a little simpler.

Meet Rishi

So let me show you what that actually looks like.

Meet Rishi. Rishi's a client of mine in his first month of coaching. He works 55 to 60 hours a week in the City. Ran a marathon two years ago. Hasn't been consistent since. Knows he needs to get back to it before something goes.

Here's what Rishi's week looks like.

Monday. Rest day.

But not a full switch-off day. Ten to fifteen minutes of breathwork and mobility in the morning. This isn't for the muscles. It's for the nervous system. We're telling the CFO the money's coming back to safe hands.

Tuesday. Forty-minute easy run.

At a pace where he can hold a full-sentence conversation. If he can't, he's going too hard. This is the run that regulates the system, not the one that tests it.

Wednesday. Thirty-minute strength session.

Squat, hip hinge, push, pull, carry and step-ups. Two sets of each, moderate load, sound technique. In and out in half an hour. This isn't a body-building session. It's a body-signal session, teaching the tissues that they're safe to load, while waking the nervous system to different movement patterns beyond sitting and running.

Note, this session is so short and easy, if Rishi misses it, it can be bolted onto Tuesday or Thursday runs. Over 10 years of coaching I've learned this is a key hack for people who are fighting diaries and energy.

Thursday. Optional.

Either a thirty to forty-minute easy conversational-pace run, or a full breathwork and mobility session if he's cooked from work. The point is he's got a choice. And in the first month, if he chooses to skip, that's a signal we listen to. The CFO's telling us something.

Friday. Rest. Full.

No mobility, no breathwork. The body gets to just be.

Saturday. Fifty to seventy-minute long run.

Conversational pace throughout. If Rishi can't hold a conversation, he's out of the zone we need him in. This is the run where the aerobic base begins to rebuild. It's also the run where he starts to feel like a runner again, which matters more than the training effect this early.

Sunday. Thirty minutes of walking or a mobility flow.

Whatever gets him outside and moving without adding stress. Likely with his kids and hopefully in nature.

The whole week, added up

That's it.

Two runs. One strength session. One optional. Two active recovery days.

Total time in the week? About two and a half hours of actual training. Which for a 50-plus hour work week client is not a burden. It's the price of showing up to his own life properly.

The point

Here's the reason I wanted to show you this.

If you're the kind of runner who's used to grinding, five, six sessions a week, pushing every workout, Rishi's week is going to look like nothing.

That's exactly the point.

Because Rishi's not going to do this week for the rest of his life. He's going to do it for the first month, then we're going to layer in more, once his nervous system trusts the process.

Layer too soon and we're back to square one, chasing the deficit.

Layer at the right time and everything from here on out compounds.

That's what minimum effective dose actually is. It's not about doing the least. It's about doing the least that leaves room for you to keep progressing.

If you're 50-plus hours a week at work and you're trying to run at the same intensity you did five years ago when your life was simpler, you're the CFO's problem, not the training's.

Take the pressure off in month one. Trust the process. Give the body a chance to say yes.

This is the work I do with clients. Getting them back to the sport that helps them navigate lives that can feel exhausting, while giving them the tools to train that keep them on the road, even when turbulence hits.

Which it will. It always does.

If any of this rings true and you want to sanity-check where you actually are, drop me a Direct Message (DM). No pitch, just a proper answer.

Over and out.

Coach.