Heidi Hogan-Steele is a good quality club runner who had been aiming to get under 3 hours for the marathon but had come up slightly short on a number of occasions after an impressive marathon debut in 2019 of 3.03.
There were a couple of occasions where she went off a little too fast and then struggled in the latter stages. By her own admission, she lacked confidence in her ability to judge pace and often felt she was not going fast enough, despite what the watch was telling her. She took some time out in 2023 to give birth to her daughter but then came back to running in 2024 and ran an annoying 3.00.02 at the Yorkshire marathon which was extremely close but the run had followed a similar pattern and she had fallen away towards the end which ultimately cost her the time.
So it was certainly not about ability, but more about the right structure of training, confidence and a good strategy on the day.
I contacted her to offer my help as I thought I might be able to support her in this quest. She had booked to run Frankfurt in October 2025 and so we set about planning for this with an 18 week programme. As an experienced runner, Heidi’s training was already pretty solid but I could see that a few tweaks could really help.
The main things we changed were:
Heid was unfortunately ill just before a half marathon she had planned to run in September. I would probably have preferred her not to run but she was keen to do it as it was a county race and she wanted the team to do well. So we agreed a strategy where she would run the half marathon closer to marathon pace.
Although, she finished it comfortably on the day, the illness got a little worse afterwards and she took virtually the whole week off. I checked in with her daily and suggested rest and easy running only but she managed a reasonable long run by the weekend and was back on it by the following week.
She stuck well to the programme and the requested paces for the sessions and her confidence in her ability seemed to improve. She had trained well and was ready.
However, even on the weekend of the race, there were problems; her flight was cancelled and she had to take a later one and on the night before the race, there was a fire drill at her hotel and she was evacuated. But with an assured confidence she seemed to take these slight setbacks in her stride, choosing to focus on what she could control. I had asked her to think ‘you have a job to do today and your pace control is essential, particularly early on’ and this seemed to help.
She stuck well to her race strategy and was in good enough shape to pick up in the last 10k - which I have to say, did worry me a touch. She smashed the sub – 3 and finished with an impressive 2.54. 51, an amazing time.
In summary, the main things I would draw from this experience and after evaluating the performance with Heidi were:
To keep things simple and make small adjustments with progression in training towards the goal in question.
Heidi noted that she found the structure of the programme; that was tailored to her busy life of work and being a first time Mum, was very useful and having a coach to report back to provided a level of accountability which was helpful and kept her motivated to complete the sessions.
Being prepared to step back and make adjustments to training when something happens like illness or injury. Sometimes, if the athlete can say the ‘coach said not to run’, this can allow the athlete to give themselves permission to step back in training even when deep down, they probably knew it was the right thing to do.
Focus on what you can control and keep to the strategy on the day as closely as possible.
Heidi has continued to run well and although she may try to build on this marathon success at some point, her current focus is on shorter distance.
