I thought i would try and capture the essence of what bought me into Coaching and then onto what drives me in MY journey towards my goals for 2017. Just like my clients i have dreams and aspirations, some more achievable than others. here is where i get to give you the candid version in my quest to achieve my goals.

A bit about me and what makes me tick......

I love what i do and i love the people/clients that i am surrounded by. As a Coach I only ever want the best for each and everyone of my clients. I will give my all and Coach my Client in the best way possible backed up by evidence based training at that given time. I believe in my principles of training and believe that as a Team we will meet and achieve our Standard/Goals that we have set.

Thats a great statement but what does it actually mean.

This is the point where if you have been Coached by me for more than a few months you will understand and completely get me. Put bluntly I can be quite demanding and sometimes come across as aggressive in nature ( nooooo i here you say ). When i say aggressive i don't mean violent, i actually mean i am overly passionate about what i am saying or what i am trying to get you to achieve via your training programme. I also believe i can keep you safe on that journey and if followed then we can control the outcomes. If not followed then what generally happens is that i become increasingly frustrated and before long you will know about it lol. 

The thing is i am no wall flower, i tend to wear my heart on my sleeve and this quite often produces some colourful conversations of which i have no volume control and will always give you the truth whether you like that or not. I am what most might call MARMITE, you either Love me or Hate me. Most love to Hate me, but you get my point.

So what about Jon The Athlete ( in its loosest sense of the word )

Well the same traits shine through but even brighter. I am much more of a critic of my own training and sometimes quite harsh on myself. I played rugby for a fair amount of years and was fairly successful at that, very confident in my abilities and held my own when it came to selection to get into the 1st team. After retiring from rugby when i was 40 i turned to running by pure fluke, i never though that there would be anything that gave me the buzz that Match day would give, but i found this in running. The only problem was that i was no natural distance runner. To describe myself others have said i am a cross between say Odd Job ( from james Bond ) & the rugby player Jonah Lomu, Speed and power was my thing distance running certainly was not. 

Having retired from rugby i read an article about The comrades ultra and it instantly gave me goose bumps, the guy writing the article had just run it for the first time and was giving his account of the gruelling foot race, 89km with a cut off time of 12hrs. I was sold, i booked in and had 12 months to train.

Now for those of you who didn't know me back in 2009 i was pretty much built like Rubik's Cube, i was nearly wider than tall ( thats not hard i know ) but you get the picture yeah. I was 16st 7lb and only 5ft 6". The long runs were a slog but i kept going, the double long run days were even worse but i kept going. All the work was the complete polar opposite to what i had trained for before. As a rugby player the training was short sharp and explosive sprints and hits on the rugby field. Now it was long slow controlled running. But i never gave up. I never knew i had it in me but i completed that race in South Africa ( Comrades Race Report CLICK HERE  ) and the support from back home was amazing. What surprised me even more was the fact that people messaged me saying that after my journey i had inspired them to start running. From that moment on i knew i wanted to be an Endurance Coach.  

Over the next few years i done a fair amount of events and although never particularly fast i gave everything i had in each and every race. I attack each race as if they were a brick wall in my way then just like a Rhino i charge right through the bloody thing until i get to the other side. If i get stuck on the way through, i back up a bit and i have another go until i get through. Giving up is not an option.

Along the way i have recorded some bloody great memories with some pretty amazing people. One chapter was what become known as 6in6. 

In 2012 myself and about 50 other people from the Rochford area took part in The Wolf run, an obstacle course race based just outside Leamington Spa. There were various groups of people some i had met and some i had yet to meet. It was also the first year i started to take clients on. Whilst chatting to a group i mentioned that i had previously ran 3 marathons in 5 weeks and how cool it would be to run 5 in 5 weeks. Within this group was a lady called Keely, whom i knew and had spoken to but didn't know properly. Keely jumped up and said that sounds awesome, you can train me for that and i will do it with you. One thing to note about Keely was the fact that at that point she had only just completed a 10k and was now looking at doing 5 back to back marathons, challenge accepted. Once we got home i started sorting the Marathons out and seeing which ones would work etc etc and the end result were 6 marathons in 6 weeks. 6in6 was born. Keely and i had such an amazing journey throughout 6in6 and so many amazing people helped both with the training and support that it was truly amazing. We finished off at Halstead Marathon and so many people came to watch it was even better than finishing the London Marathon. Without running i wouldn't of met my Best Mate Keely, we are still best of Buddies now and i look back on that time as a pivotal point in our friendship and look forward to the time when i can again run with her. Let me just tell you about my mate keely, she is bloody funny, most of the time it was near impossible to go on a long run because she made myself and Sarah laugh so hard with stories of pureed bees (thats where honey comes from apparently  ) and Donkeys in Sugar Coma's etc etc. 

After the amazing journey of 6in6 i was keen to see what my next adventure would be. I was a pretty crap swimmer ( still am ) so the thought of doing a triathlon was a tad scary. But in true fashion and with caution thrown to the wind i signed up for the North Fambridge Half Ironman distance. I had the running legs as i had just finished the 6 marathons. it was now time to get on with some swimming. Swimming certainly does not come natural to me and i find this the most technical and frustrating thing to master even today. It takes practice / practice and practice, when you think you have done enough you need to do a bit more. The cycling pretty much took care of itself as i have always been ok on a bike. As a 10 year old i done my first long cycle from Pier Hill to Buckingham Palace and Back to Southend. So race day came and to say it scared the crap out of me is an under statement. The swim is in the river crouch and is known to be one of the fastest inlets in the UK. I never bloody knew that did i. Gun goes off and all hell breaks loose and i am in the washing machine from hell. 50m into the swim and the nice lady in the Kayak asks me if i am ok, in my gentle nature i shout out "OF COURSE NOT - BUT I WIL GET OVER IT" and continued to struggle to get into a consistent front crawl rhythm. So this set the tone for the remainder of the swim. Coming out of the water i was not surprised to see my bike was one of only about 10 left in transition, but i was alive lol. The race was pretty much a slog fest the whole way and i finished in about 6hrs 17mins. My first triathlon done.

My mate Ali still can't work out how i get in that top.....

So with my new passion for all things triathlon on start setting my sights onto Ironman. I love the endurance event more than i do the shorter distances as this gives the chance to really test myself both Physically and Mentally. Most would say i am mentally unhinged and to a degree i would agree, you have to be a little bit unhinged to do some of the things we do now days, but thats us evolving into a more awesome being lol.

My first Ironman was Barcelona 2014, i have very mixed feelings about this event. At the end of 2013 i got myself a Coach, even the Coach needs a Coach. I got in touch with Neil and we had a great chat on the phone and immediately hit it off. Neil was a very experienced coach and knew his stuff and was also an endurance athlete himself. As with any good Coach they write your programme and monitor it to ensure your doing ok. But ultimately its down to YOU to be honest and complete the sessions. My start with Neil was fantastic and i had gained a new half marathon PB by 6 mins and then a new Marathon PB by over 9 mins which i then broke the week after at London by another 30 secs. Things were going real good. Thats were i kind of lost a bit of focus. I started to take it for granted that i would be good from a running point of view, i thought if i concentrated on my bike then the run would sort itself out. I was working hard on the swim and bike but neglecting the run off the bike. Something that would come back and to haunt me. 

The morning of Ironman and the Heavens opened up, there were epic rain storms and the thunder and lightning was immense. During the build up to the start the announcement was made that the race could be changed to a duathlon because of the weather, the organiser were reluctant to do this so put the start time back by 1 hour, the finish time hadn't increased so we now had less time in which to complete the race. The next announcement came that the weather had settled and the race in full would be schedule to go ahead as planned. The swim start was as frantic as i thought it would be but the hours spent in the pool and lakes had paid off, the swim went off without a hitch and it felt amazing. Into T1 and i got my bits ready and went out on the bike. The bike leg i think i tried too hard, i hadn't stopped to really think about the marathon and what i was doing to my legs and kept on going working hard on the bike. Into T2 and that was fairly swift and uneventful too. I was now on the run. The run i thought would just take care of itself, i would slow down to a very nice pace and just coast it. Well that never happened and at that point in time i started to get muscle cramps in my adductors and VMO. Quite possibly the worst feeling i had to date, i kept trying to run but kept cramping up. Angry man walk it was then. My family had come out to support me and all i can say is SORRY as they asked me how i was all they got in reply was a grumpy one liner. Having eventually got to the finish and managing to run through the finish line, i felt like an absolute fraud. Those feelings are truly unreasonable and as a coach i know that finishing something like this is so much more than smashing it. But never the less i felt like dog shit. I felt i should of ran more of the marathon and i couldn't get my head around the fact i had walked so much. I was definately going back to put things right. If you want to read my race blog for Barcelona 2015 then you can read it by CLICKING HERE 

To compliment my personal training exams In December 2014 i passed my Level 1 Triathlon Coaching Course and immediately booked on to the Level 2 course which i also passed June 2015. Within this time i set a group up to help me with my swimming element of the coaching course, we had some fun and then more people joined. Eventually more people joined and to be honest became it bit too much for me to handle. I put some messages out to see if others would be interested in helping set up a club to which there was a resounding yes and we formed JBR Run & Tri Club which today has around 75 members. The club has such a great feeling of unity that it does truly feel like an extended family. No one is more important than the next person, we are all equal and treat each other with respect. Dont get me wrong we take the piss out of each other massively, but thats because we can and we are all mates. 2015 was a massive year for me and in my professional life i owned a recruitment company. The company was more  of a bind than a happy place and in the first quarter of 2015 2 clients went Bankrupt for a considerable amount of money and I shut the doors on Friday May 16th to the only negative aspect of my life. For me this was a new chapter. Nervous but looking forward that Rhino instinct kicked in and i charged forward. 

Concentrating on coaching and building a client base is in itself time consuming. You have to put yourself round and get yourself known. Its not an easy process and the biggest factor is it takes time to establish yourself in your field. I am not the most patient of people and this process has and does seem overly elongated, but i get it. 2016 i was hopefully going to be settling back into a bit of consistency with my own training but to be honest it was sporadic at the best of times. I tried to blag my way through Brighton Marathon and managed to injure myself and do my slowest marathon to date.

I went on recce trip to Cyprus with Sean to check out a Tri Camp for our 2017 club camp. Cyprus was amazing and myself and Sean seemed to be laughing most of the week whilst getting in some serious amounts of training. The camp gave me the much needed base fitness that i had been lacking over the last 6 or so months. Coming back to England i needed to make sure that i was still setting a good example for those that i coached and even more importantly i now had club members looking watching and listening to things i say and done. I can't complain i put myself in this position so i have to live with it, sometimes the pressure of doing the right thing all of the time does get to me if i am honest. 

The Bolton Ironman was another frustrating event for me, a journey that took 6hrs and a weekend which  i seemed to spend most of the time rushing around like a bloody lunatic. The vent wont go down as one of my best and to be honest quite possibly one of the worse events i have ever done, not because i was sick during the run element but purely from an organisational point of view. Many love this race but for me it was just rush rush rush. The end result in me not finishing this race just capped it off really. The only good thing about this race was seeing my Good Friend Julie finish her 1st Ironman. I wont go into too much detail but i screwed up my nutrition was sick 5 times and ended up in the medic tent for over 90 mins. The words Fuck it spring to mind. 

So the end of 2016 saw me take on The Mallorca Ironman. i have been to Mallorca on 2 training camps and have ridden the ironman course twice before. I know how hard it is and thats without having to run a marathon off the bike. So knowing all this and having still not found my running mojo, i set to work to put that right. I started training on my holiday straight after Bolton, only short runs but i ran 5  days on holiday with loads of strength work in between. I long for that brute strength i had in my rugby days, i was bloody strong back then and know days just don't find the time to fit it all in. On my return from holiday and with my fellow training partners for Mallorca ( husband and wife team Phil & Louise)  i set up a bike course out to North Hill to get us ready to tackle the Mallorca hills with a progressive run off the bike each week. The first week was ok and all was well but after that something or other happened each week, either to me or someone else which kind of took the wind out the sails for that run off the bike, although we had trained bloody well and specific, we still only done about 70% of what should of been done. 

Onwards to Mallorca and the whole weekend was amazing, we had supporters out there and there were 5 of us doing the event from our club. They announced the swim was going to be non wetsuit and we went back to the hotel for a swim in the bay, job done and fully focused. I felt pretty good as did everyone else. We arrived in Alcudia for the start to hear that they were now allowing wetsuits. Mass panic ensued and we considered going back in a cab to get our wetsuits but phoned Sarah instead....

Wetsuits on and we were about ready to go, the water looked as calm as it could be and we were off. I hadn't done much swimming at all and quite literally had a quick lesson before Bolton ironman to give me something to think about whilst swimming. This obviously worked a treat as i came out the water about 8 mins quicker than i have ever swam. Through into T1 and i sorted my lit out and was soon off onto the bike. I didn't want to go too hard knowing what i had got coming up at about 90km. On the route map it shows the first half as flat then the big climb and then flat again. Well let me tell you for one thing, that first half aint flat, there was some lumps and bumps in that first 90km that were not bloody nice at all. At around 80km i caught up with louise said hi etc and went onwards toward the climb. Now the weather had been lovely before this and quite literally the moment i started climbing the heaves pend up and i was soaked. The only thing on my mind was if this keeps up my descent was gonna be slow. Over an hour later and over the top of the climb the rain had stopped and the roads were actually quite dry. Time to smash it down the hill. I can get a little bit reckless when going down hill and there were a couple of hairy moments when the breaks were not helping me much. The second part of the course was pretty damn good and it seemed to fly by. Into T2 and i had to wring out my socks, school boy error for not having a spare pair. I ate some food and got out on the run. The weather was a bit hit and miss now and the rain was coming and going. I see Arron and Vicky with their kids and they all gave me a big cheer as i ran past. All seemed really well. Lap 1 completed i was feeling ok. i was then into lap 2 and about half way through when my hip flexors started feeling really tight and i felt like i was leaning over. This changed my running gait and i was then finding it extremely difficult to run. At this point i see Louise run toward me on the otherside of the run route. As she approached me i said i had had enough and was out. I didn't  think i had it in me mentally or physically to finish, i was willing to give up. Louise never said a word but run around the turn point came up beside me and said there was no way i was giving up and she was staying with me. I protested but she was having none of it. She was not leaving my side until we had finished. I tried so hard to run knowing i still had about 20km to go. I just didn't have the capacity to run more than 10 steps. With every step there was a searing pain and sometimes i had to stop because i was doubled over. Still she stayed by my side. My protests of go were not even registering with her, she just stayed with me, listening to me whinging about how much it hurt and woh me woh me. Without this woman i would not of finished Mallorca and in my eyes she is an absolute legend. Thank you Louise for sacrificing your Ironman to stay with me.

So whats happening in 2017

Well i have worked on the strength and hopefully i am now getting stronger again. I have been training and stating to get some consistency through my week. I am currently injured with the most frustrating injury ever. I have vowed to do more brick sessions to make sure i don't fall fowl of the marathon at the end of 180km bike, so have been working on a slow progression of Brick Sessions starting early on in the season. Whilst in this session it does seem that i have pulled my bloody calf, i have tried to figure out whether it was a loading issue or something else. So i have checked and checked everything i have done and after having checked everything and things that have changed it comes down to a fitter moving my cleat on my shoes to a more forward position, this in turn loaded up my calf more inturn creating an injury i had never had before. I only found this out when i spent 3 or so hours checking my bike fit and equipment. So we constantly learn. My events currently booked are as follows:

Great Bentley Half -5th  Feb

Thorpe Park Half - 26th Feb

Cyprus Tri Camp March 1 week

Spring Lambs - 2nd April

Brighton Marathon - 9th April

London Marathon - 23rd April

Halstead Marathon - 7th May

Grafman Middle Distance tri - 21st May

Southend Sprint Tri - 28th May

North Fambridge Half Ironman - 2nd July

Southend Half Marathon - 9th July

Half Ironman in Sept ?????

Barcelona Ironman - 4th October

The above list does scare me a bit, but i am prepared to do what it takes to make sure i get around through this season with a big smile on my face. This is just the start of 2017 and already its got me excited and nervous at the same time. Give it everything and leave nothing to chance. Enjoy every minute and if you can enjoy it with your friends and team mates then all the better. Below is a pic from Clacton triathlon which saw over 35 of us competing as a club. What an amazing day with amazing people. 

The next blog will be at the end of February............