Darroch Murdoch Personal Training

12/04/2025

Running Essentials IMO

If you’re going on a short run (45 mins & under):
- Somewhere to store your phone/keys, my preferences would be a pair of compression shorts with a tight pouch to slide your phone in or potentially a running belt.
- A device & app to track your runs, this could be an smartphone/watch and generally I’d suggest Strava as a good app to use but could be anything (the better the gps on your device, the more accurate your timings etc will be).
- An actual pair of running shoes. I’m renowned for being frugal with my spending but no piece of kit will improve your running more than a proper pair of shoes suited to you (ensure to try on several different brands and types as everyone is different with what they need).
- A breathable top, nothing too restrictive.
- Earphones (unless you want just as much of a mental challenge as physical, not for me that).
- And lastly, in this kind of weather, some sunglasses you can run with. This will be a rarity so far from essential but they are handy in this weather.

Longer runs (45 mins and above):
- Everything I’ve mentioned above will fit into this category.
- Somewhere to store gels (I would say this would be for runs that are slightly longer than an hour at least), I personally use the small zipped pocket on the back of my shorts or a pouch in compression shorts but again a running belt isn’t a bad shout. And I’d use one every 40 mins roughly (again everyone’s different, test different timings out).
- A small bottle of water (500ml and below), waters a bit of a pain to carry so I’d consider if you really need it for the distance you’ll be covering.

The one noticeable omission from the lists is a vest. I’m personally not a fan. I feel as if they do far more to slow you down with where the weight is deployed and also encourages you to bring more things you don’t need. I think a belt if you feel you need something of that nature is a better option.

If you have any questions on any of this don’t hesitate to drop me a DM 👍🏼

21/03/2025

Hyrox Glasgow 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Good challenge.

Good bit of focus for training.

02/02/2025

My Approach to Training Summarised in a Quote.

“In the short term your success depends on your intensity

In the long term your success depends on your consistency.

Do not sacrifice the latter for the former.”

I heard this today and it epitomises my approach to training.

There’s nothing special in what I do.

I have a plan, I execute on that plan by showing up day in, day out and perform as best I can that day.

That approach has led to me building a physique I’m happy with, it’s led me to running marathons, it’s led me to hit strength goals and I’m sure there’s more to come.

Execute, it won’t be perfect.

06/01/2025

No. 1 Piece of Advice For the New Year:

Forget about performance.

Sounds counter productive I know.

From personal experience and also observing clients through their journeys, one of the biggest hurdles is dealing with the pressure we put on ourselves.

The pressure I’ve previously put on myself from a performance point of view is ridiculous, no wonder I got stressed, anxious and struggled at times to get anywhere or get motivated to train.

For years now I’ve learned to live with the fact that my workouts won’t be perfect, I won’t always hit personal bests, I might perform really poorly compared to the standards I know I can hit when I’m feeling good.

How can you expect to be 100% regularly in a session, when you’ve got a full time job, studying, a family, a social life. Unless you’re a full time athlete or the exception to the rule, you’re not going to be.

Because I’ve managed to learn how to deal with this expectation I’ve managed to train consistently, week in week out, on a lack of sleep, when under the weather, when I’m unmotivated and when things just aren’t going my way.

It may seem that I’m just unbelievably motivated but it’s because I reduce the pressure I put on myself. I complete every workout start to finish but I adjust my expectations on performance to cope with what life’s sending my way.

I guarantee you in the long run you’ll achieve great things by doing this rather than waiting to feel 100%, those days are few and far between.

So rather than waiting on the perfect workout, get in and get it done and don’t put as much pressure on yourself.

18/12/2024

Málaga Marathon 🇪🇸

Same old story, found myself getting back into running a month or 2 ago and got the idea in my head that I could run another marathon.

2 practice runs later I was relatively convinced.

So a couple of weeks ago I signed up to the most interesting marathon I could find, and here we are.

I was in the hurt locker for about 26k but we got it done.

3:26, not bad.

09/12/2024

22/09/2024

A Sunday reminder.

The end of a week for me is the perfect time to prepare for the next week ahead.

If you’re going into this week without a plan then you’re setting yourself up for complications & failures or you simply don’t have anything you’re working towards which is fine here and there.

Getting into the shape you want to be in is a simple task, as long as the ground work has been completed.

The groundwork in this case is:

- A realistic schedule which includes work, training, social events & time to recover.
- You then need a training plan, this does not need to be perfect or complex, but it does have to be realistic.
- Avoidance of distractions.

If you manage the above all that’s left to do is turn up.

I would always suggest using google calendars for your planning 👍

17/09/2024

Controversial.

I’m a believer in listening to your guilt.

A lot of people probably won’t agree with this.

But if you feel a certain level of guilt about a nutritional or exercise decision, you’re probably doing yourself a disservice if you don’t take action on it.

I say you should be mindful of how often you feel guilty about a decision of this nature and go ahead with it anyway.

Are you ever sitting having a pretty inactive day and in the back of your mind you think “I should maybe get up and do something”.

Or you’ve just destroyed a full pack of triple chocolate cookies and you’re already planning a takeaway for dinner but you think “I’ve mibbe went off course too much already today”.

A lot of people would maybe say not to be too hard on yourself but I reckon the guilts there for a reason, to keep you true to your deeper values.

Listen to it, it’s working in your own best interests.