UESCA – UNITED ENDURANCE SPORTS COACHING ACADEMY

I am a UK based endurance running coached, qualified to English Athletic standard, but more importantly I am a UESCA qualified running coach.  For most runners in the UK and Europe, the meaning and standard of UESCA will be unfamiliar, so who are UESCA and why do I, as a runner and running coach, place so much pride and importance of being a UESCA coach?

UESCA has this philosophy…..

“To deliver scientifically backed training to clients in real world environments”

This means that, the methods used are not simply adopted because during the midst of time they have become common practice, our methods are scientifically researched. One great example is heart rate zones and training to your zone. There is absolutely no scientific evidence that the commonly used, 220 beats per minute minus your age gives you your maximum heart rate and everything else is calculated from that number. It was made up by a runner nearly 100 years ago, and because there was no evidence for anything better, it became a standard. Some people have tried to devise methods along the same lines, but always using age as a key factor in the equation. The reality is, age is meaningless for this specific aspect of training. Men or women of the same age, build and general fitness levels can have completely different resting and maximum heart rates, so why would you use age as part of the calculation?  Age only becomes relevant when deciding how to plan the training load of an athlete, not at the calculation stage.

A real world environment means, understanding and adapting the actual science of how your specific human body works and what it needs. You are a certain age, a certain weight and height. You have a current ability level, a current aerobic capacity level. You have your own goals and expectations, and your own life pressures of time and stress. How well or badly you sleep and what kind of climate you live in needs to be considered, and all of these factors are unique to every single runner. This is the real world and your training MUST reflect all of that or it will be ineffectual and can easily lead to injury or burn out.  It will certainly lead to an athlete not achieving their potential or targets, and will certainly rob you of the enjoyment of running.

Have you ever been that runner who has found that one day the run is hard and you feel like giving up, but come a day or two later and it feels like you can run all day. It means you aerobic system is in sync and working well.  Now imagine every day feeling like that when you understand how your body works and what you need to do to make it work smoothly and correctly.

Being a UESCA Endurance Coach, means I understand how to adopt and adapt the very best scientifically backed training conditions for each individual runner, which is not based on ancient theories, hearsay, or well meaning, but factually incorrect, runners on social media. The term, “generic training plan” should not exist in running. How can a 25 year old male do the same training as a 62 year old female?  The short answer is, they can’t and shouldn’t, and those that do download those endless free plans on-line simply have to adapt them themselves to suit their situation. How do they know that the adaptions being made are correct and best for the type of training you need?  They don’t.

Founded in 2014 in the USA, UESCA’s aim was to be the most scientifically based endurance coaching qualification in the world, and to date, it has achieved that goal. As a runner, you want know how to be the best you can be, that might be to run faster, or further, or both, or how to stay injury free during a long training block. You might just want to know, how do I finish this race and be ok at the end, or running is simply part of your health regime and you want the most benefit from the couple of 5k or 10k’s you do each week.

Training is time consuming, both physically and mentally, and unless you are a full time professional athlete, your time will be limited because of family, friends and work, so the allocation of that time needs to be correct, effective and have the ability to be consistently maintained. Without consistency of effort and the correct progressive load, progress can not be made.

I have personally adopted the methods of UESCA to well over 200 marathon runners over the last few years. I am exceptionally proud of the fact that everyone who has completed the training block and made the start line has also made the finish line. Not a single runner has ever DNF’d on my watch with this standard of coaching.

But be under no illusions, endurance running is hard, be it a half marathon, full marathon or beyond, but what is also true is that training to achieve these goals is much harder. If you train for 16 weeks for a full marathon, you will cover around 450 miles in training alone. Now imagine doing all that training, only to find out at the end you are not at the level you need to be at or you are now nursing an injury due to overloading a body that simply wasn’t ready or able to absorb it. 

Accurate numbers are hard to find, but it’s reported that somewhere between 25% and 30% of runners who are accepted to run a a marathon don’t even make the start line. For London that means around 12,500+ won’t make the start line, let alone the finish line and mainly because of injury or the training regime and load placed on their bodies was simply unsustainable. This is something that doesn’t need to happen, nor should happen. 

The marathon completion rate has slowly risen over the years, London boasts a 98% finish rate of those that actually started the race. Whilst that is great news, the truth is the average completion time has slowed up (not a bad thing just a fact), but that 2% who didn’t finish, means between 1000 and 2000 people who trained for a marathon didn’t make it. That’s still a lot of people in real terms.

I coach runners to not only achieve their target, but most importantly to learn how to embrace and enjoy running. The evidence is loud and clear that people who do things they enjoy will continue to do those things, and running is incredibly good for your heart health. When we consider the fact that the biggest killer on the planet is heart disease and heart failure, imagine the best medicine for that not being found in a bottle of man made drugs, but simply and consistently putting on some trainers and running and walking. Read that paragraph again, because if that isn’t enough to make you want to run (and walk) most days, I am not sure what will.

Training to the UESCA standard means I can bring professional standard training to the everyday athlete. Runners who want to be the best they can be, runners who accept the importance of their heart health and runners who love running for the community and new friendships it creates and the feeling it brings. They all deserve the very best in the attention to detail of their body, their mind and how it works to make running a healthy, fulfilling and enjoyable sport to do. 

“Delivering scientifically backed training to real world people and environments”

Lee Perry

UESCA Endurance Running Coach