There’s now just fourth months until the start of the 2026 Winter Olympics, and many endurance-based athletes will soon be transitioning from their “base building” training and into a phase that more closely reflects race specificity. One of those athletes is Scottish-born and Norway-based cross country skier Andrew Musgrave, who will be representing Great Britain at Milan-Cortina in February. Cross country skiing, for reasons that will be discussed in this article, is the be

The human body is an extremely complex organism, and our physiology’s ability to respond and adapt to a variety of stressors (in order to withstand future stressors more efficiently) is a fascinating example of such complexity. However, our bodies can respond to eustress and distress very similarly meaning we cannot, without context, distinguish between a positive and negative adaptation. For example, an increase in the heart’s left ventricular mass could be explained by cons

In long distance endurance sport, physiological durability is gradually becoming recognised as the fourth determinant of performance alongside VO2max, the lactate threshold and running economy. Durability (also named physiological resilience or fatigue resistance) refers to the extent in which an athlete’s physiology changes under fatigue compared to their fresh state physiology. The research in this area is still growing, but the running specific research so far has primaril

This year I’ve been lucky enough to begin coaching some extremely ambitious off-road/mountain-based endurance athletes. One particular athlete, Tony, set his sights on attempting the Paddy Buckley Round, an iconic 100 kilometre fell running route in Eryri, North Wales. Throughout this run, the athlete summits 47 mountains, climbing a total elevation gain of over 9,000 metres/29,500 feet (which, for reference, is more elevation than if someone was to summit Everest from sea-le

I often feel as though some of life’s most important questions can be answered by looking into the past. Spanish philosopher George Santayana claimed: “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. Simply, those ignorant of history will repeat the mistakes of those made in the past. This applies across all domains, but certainly applies to endurance sport. The training practises of Igloi, Lydiard or Zatopek have laid the foundations of modern day practises.

Ultra-endurance sport is extremely fascinating due to the unique aspects beyond physiology that can hugely impact race performance, with...

One of the most interesting aspects of uphill specific run training is the amount of variability in training methods in order to reach...

In this article, I’ll explore how life stress (stressors outside of the sport) may increase the risk of injury during trail running. Many...