Jackie’s first run with me was 20 minutes, easy, in July 2025. She was coming back from a heel injury, so the brief was not exciting: build a little volume without causing any pain, then think about speed.
Rebuilding after a heel injury
Her comment afterwards was “no pain from heel not even at the start of the run”. I got some version of that comment for six weeks, and each time I added one thing. Strides. Then a workout whose only real job was to check for pain. Then a race, where she walked the hills to protect the foot and still ran close to her previous best for the event. Then a field test. The heel has not been mentioned since August 2025.
From 44 miles a month to a 1:47 half marathon
That July she ran 44 miles. By January she ran 150, and what had been a big week was now a normal one. Along the way she set bests at every distance from 7 to 20 miles.
| Race | Then | Now |
|---|---|---|
| Joy Cann 5 | 44:16 (Aug 2025, a month into coaching) | 38:30 (Aug 2026) |
| Half marathon | 2:01:25 (Leicestershire Half, Feb 2025, before we started) | 1:47:39 (Leicester, Oct 2026) |
| Ashby 20 | 3:13:28 (Mar 2025, before we started) | 3:02:31 (Mar 2026) |
If you would rather not take my word for it, Run Britain keeps a handicap for every runner, worked out from race results. Lower is better. Hers was 18.8 in April 2025, before we started, and the best she had managed since 2021 was 18.5. It was 15.6 by December and 12.9 by June 2026.
It has not all been one direction
In September 2026 she raced a hard 10 miler and a week later a 90 minute run fell apart after 40. Her own diagnosis was too many races, with three more booked. We shortened everything and she made the call to skip a league race she wanted to run, because she knew she would go into race mode and have nothing left for the half. Nine days later she ran a half marathon personal best of 1:47:39, 10th of 148 in the FV50 category and 78th of 1,140 women, on a lumpy course. She was stuck in a faster wave than expected and got swept along by a very quick start, with no safe way to slow down. She stayed composed, eased off when she could and held it together to the end. A well executed race in a situation that was out of her control.
She has not missed a scheduled session since May.
In her words
It’s all down to your coaching so THANK YOU.
Jacqueline Lake, after her first half marathon back
My reply at the time: “It’s a lot down to you putting the effort in and trusting the plan.” I would stand by that.
Coming back from an injury, or struggling to train consistently? Book a free call and we will talk through your goals, or see how coaching works and what it costs.
