The Distance Dr

The Distance Dr Helping endurance athletes go the distance - without breaking down 🏃🏼‍♀️
Physio | PhD | Sport Sci
Fun, friendly & practical science 🧠

25/07/2026

Long story short: ran in the dark, tripped over, substantial boney bruising to my tibia 🦴 I need some time off running but it will be okay to race Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 phew 😅

I’ve consulted with a sports doctor and am rehabbing and strengthening my heart out (sensibly!) to tolerate running again

Plantar heel pain is one of the more frustrating injuries, mostly because it’s slow to completely go away. There’s no qu...
22/07/2026

Plantar heel pain is one of the more frustrating injuries, mostly because it’s slow to completely go away. There’s no quick fix but there are some solid strategies to put into place!

If this info feels like a lot, just start with the stretch. Ten seconds, ten times, before your feet hit the floor in the morning. Add the heel raises in once that feels manageable. You don’t have to nail all three from day one but aim for consistency over anything else!

And please keep going past the point where it starts feeling better, because that’s where most runners drop off and it’s exactly why it comes back.

And of course, load management is always key 🔑

👉 Comment LEARN and I’ll send you the full video.

This is general education, not personalised medical advice.

References: DiGiovanni et al. 2003 and 2006 (the stretch), Rathleff et al. 2015 and Riel et al. 2019 (the loading), Morrissey et al. 2021 and the 2023 APTA clinical practice guideline (overall management).

If you’ve ever looked at your week and thought there’s just no room to add strength work on top of the riding and work a...
08/07/2026

If you’ve ever looked at your week and thought there’s just no room to add strength work on top of the riding and work and everything else, this one’s for you, because it turns out you might not need anywhere near as much as you think 🤔
This study took competitive cyclists, women included, who weren’t lifting at all, and added one exercise to their normal riding for eight weeks. That’s it!

The cyclists who completed the strength training saw significant improvements in time to exhaustion and cycling economy 🚴🏻‍♀️

The benefits did not come from extra muscle, not extra weight to drag up a climb, just your nervous system getting better at using what you’ve already got. Which is exactly what you want as an endurance athlete, with a nice bonus for our bones and long-term muscle while we’re at it.

Want the full breakdown and how I’d program this for cyclists? Comment STRONG and I’ll send it over.
Loved doing this one with Women’s Cycling Apparel ❤️🤍 more coming.

Most runners I see with plantar heel pain have already tried rest. Six weeks off, no better, and now they are deconditio...
30/06/2026

Most runners I see with plantar heel pain have already tried rest. Six weeks off, no better, and now they are deconditioned on top of still having the heel pain.

You can keep running with plantar heel pain if you reduce the dose per session enough that the tissue can handle what you are asking it to do!

Please remember that the pain guidelines are exactly that, guidelines. They are a starting point I use with my athletes. Some runners feel comfortable pushing a little closer to the upper end, others want a more conservative buffer, and both are valid. Pick the version of these rules that feels right for your body and your goals, and adjust as you go.

Comment LEARN and I will send you the full video breakdown

This carousel is general education, not personalised medical advice.

24/06/2026

Take this as your sign to join the Distance Dr team! Nick Baldwin and I are really excited to be opening a small number of Distance Dr coaching spots.

Over the last decade we’ve coached all levels of athletes from first-time marathon & Ironman finishers, to experienced age-groupers and World Championship qualifiers. No matter your level, our commitment is always the same - to help bring out the best in you!

This is for runners and triathletes who want help with their training, but also want the bigger picture considered, including:

your injury history,
your training background,
your strength work,
your goals,
your availability,
your life/work/family commitments,
and what your body has or hasn’t tolerated well in the past.

Whether you’re looking for run coaching, triathlon coaching or strength programming for endurance athletes, get in touch if you want to join our group of amazing athletes competing across the world!

Comment WITHME and I’ll send you the details or head to the link in my bio





Ironman Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 is widely regarded as one of the toughest courses on the circuit, and a big part of that is the sh...
22/06/2026

Ironman Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 is widely regarded as one of the toughest courses on the circuit, and a big part of that is the sheer amount of climbing, well over 3,000 metres across the bike and the run on relentless, repeating hills. The small problem is that I’m training for it in Busselton, where you can ride for hours and barely gain any height at all (check out slide 2!)
So I’ve had to get deliberate about building hill-specific durability without any hills!
This build is with Beyond Power , and the Voltra has been very helpful in how I load the eccentric side of my strength work.
Swipe through for the full breakdown of how I’m conditioning for both the climbs and the descents. And if you want to see how I’m programming it, comment STRENGTH and I’ll send it your way. 🏔️

If you’ve ever felt like you’re being pulled in three directions, your coach wants the kilometres, your physio wants the...
18/06/2026

If you’ve ever felt like you’re being pulled in three directions, your coach wants the kilometres, your physio wants the rehab, your strength program wants the gym time, and there’s never quite enough of you to go around, this one’s for you.

🏋️‍♀️This is a post I’ve wanted to make for a long time, because it’s something I care really deeply about as both a physio, researcher and a coach. Somewhere along the way we started treating strength training, physio, and performance as three completely separate things, and I really want to change that, because they were always meant to be one connected system. At the end of the day, your body only responds to one thing, the load you put through it.

💡If you’ve been stuck in that cycle of building up, breaking down, and starting over, I think this pod ep will shift something for you and it’s a message I want to spread loud and clear.

Full episode, with all the studies, is on the podcast and YouTube. Comment TOGETHER and I’ll send you the link. And if you’d love to be coached this way, as one connected system instead of three competing jobs, Nick Baldwin and I have just opened a few spots, link’s in my bio and we’d love to chat 🧠💛

🦶 Plantar heel pain (aka plantar fasciitis) can be confusing for runners and triathletes. You wake up, swing your legs o...
17/06/2026

🦶 Plantar heel pain (aka plantar fasciitis) can be confusing for runners and triathletes. You wake up, swing your legs over the side of the bed, and the first step out feels horrible 😣. But after you start running, your foot warms up, and for a beautiful couple of kilometres you wonder if you imagined the pain or if it’s gone but when you stop, it can come back even worse 🤷‍♀️😣

This is the first in a three part series and focuses on getting diagnosis right. The most important clinical point in this carousel is the heel squeeze test for ruling out a calcaneal stress fracture. Get that diagnosis wrong and you can keep training on what is actually a bone injury, which escalates quickly in runners. If your pain pattern includes night pain that wakes you, progressive worsening despite reducing training, sudden onset after a single hard session, or any swelling or bruising, those are not features of plantar heel pain, make sure you get it looked at properly.

🧐 Want to learn more? Comment ‘LEARN’ and I’ll send the full video.

The next post and video covers how to keep running through it (yes, you usually can) and the last part of the series focuses on the stretches and strengthening with the strongest evidence base. I am taking three carousels for this because plantar heel pain is one of the more poorly managed common running injuries, and getting the diagnosis right is the foundation.

Remember, this should never replace medical advice! 🏥

I love research (obviously) but applying principles are not quite as easy as copy and pasting into a program. It really ...
07/06/2026

I love research (obviously) but applying principles are not quite as easy as copy and pasting into a program. It really is an art and science!
A study might give you a really useful principle, but then you still have to ask: how does this apply to me, in this week, with this race coming up, with my current fitness, injury history, gut tolerance, time available, weather, equipment, family life, work load, and all the other very un-glamorous things that make up real training?
So this week, 14 weeks out from Ironman Wales, I thought I would share a few of the ways I have taken concepts from research and actually applied them to my own training. You will notice it’s not hard and fast and also, can be a little simple too!
Good training is not about making everything complicated. It is about taking useful concepts and making them fit the athlete in front of you, and right now, that athlete is me.
I’ll keep sharing how this changes across the build, what I keep, what I adjust, and what I test next.

I’m also opening up a very limited number of coaching spots soon so if you’re interested, shoot me a message to get in first!

14 weeks to Ironman Wales. Let’s go. 🏊‍♀️🚴‍♀️🏃‍♀️

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