It's been a busy week with Amy and Suzie experiencing the two contrasting ends of the training and racing spectrum. 

Amy surprises herself by putting herself on a start line with no grand plan and ends up racing the people around her rather than her watch. A 36:23 10K later, she’s left wondering how far you can go when you stop micromanaging pace and just get on with racing.#

Suzie kicks things off with her weekly hot‑cross‑bun fuelling fail — the one that left her shivering at a bus stop and panic‑buying an £8 fleece just to survive the journey home.

Meanwhile, Amy reveals the diet that shocked her physio and completely flipped her shopping habits on their head.

Together, they dive into how their pre‑session rituals, mid‑run gel choices, and post‑session recovery favourites have evolved as they’ve grown into marathon runners — and how none of it has been linear, tidy, or what the textbooks promised.

They unpack years of nutrition curiosity: falling down the paleo rabbit hole, dabbling in high‑fat phases, experimenting with vegetarian and vegan eating, and eventually emerging as two runners now obsessed with getting all the carbs in.

Rest over rated or essential ?

They unpack the booming “recovery industry” of boots, guns, rollers and cold plunges, and contrast it with what the evidence actually supports: sleep, fuelling, mobility, meditation, and lowering cortisol in small, meaningful bursts throughout the day.

This episode is a reminder that rest isn’t optional — it’s where the training actually works.

Suzie and Amy kick off 2026 with a brutally honest catch-up: creaky bodies, acupuncture experiments, osteopath verdicts, and the reality of running through midlife. But this isn’t just a chat about aches — it’s a deep dive into how our definitions of success and consistency have radically shifted since our Loughborough Uni days.

Back then, ticking every box on the training plan was the gold standard. Now? We’re asking better questions:

How many races can you really fit into a year without blowing up your marathon training? This week, we discuss planning a race calendar, the temptation to over‑commit, and how what a realistic season may look like when you want strong training blocks and personal bests.

Suzie & Amy look at their race planning and what they have learnt across the years.