Ep 17 Coros special with ultra and trail legend John Kelly
· Trail Running Ireland Podcast
Eoin Flynn talks to John Kelly, the Tennessee-born ultra runner who finished the Barkley Marathons in 2017 and this summer completed his Grand Round, linking the Paddy Buckley, Bob Graham and Charlie Ramsay rounds by bike. Ben Clark from show sponsor Coros talks about Eliud Kipchoge joining the brand, and René Borg explains how to use last year's training volume to plan the year ahead.
Ben Clark explains how Coros started in 2014 with smart cycling helmets before moving into GPS watches. He covers the Pace 2, the lightest GPS running watch on the market, and the battery life of the Vertix for multi-day events.
René explains why annual volume, in hours and kilometres, is one of the strongest predictors of performance. He says his own best year, 2012, rested on five years of consistent training, not on the three months before it. His approach is to add around 10 percent to an athlete's average weekly volume, plan the year around 48 weeks to leave room for rest and illness, and put the heaviest blocks where energy and life allow. Eoin warns against trying to repeat exact sessions from a year earlier, recalling advice from his old coach Jerry Kiernan. René adds that a training diary is more reliable than memory, and gives rough benchmarks of 300 to 350 hours a year for good club runners and around 500 for elite athletes.