Hello! Let's be wonderful together.....

The thing that i like DOING the most…

The thing I like the most in the whole wide world is seeing people achieve things they never thought possible. That’s the truth. I never realised that until it happened. I’ve spent a lot of my life seeking approval from people who I thought were cool, believing that you have to be a certain way to be successful. But success for me is watching someone who doesn’t believe they can do something turn into someone who DOES do something.

I’m not a qualified life coach or a personal trainer with loads of certificates and a penchant for protein shakes or any of that stuff. I am a person who goes out and takes on some pretty amazing adventures and then explains to other people how they can go and do the same thing. Then I help them to do it. I am also not a magician. It’s up to you to do the work. But I can show you exactly how to do it, I can support you and advise you, and together we can get results that you might not think possible in quite a short period of time. Every single person is different. Modern training plans and advice for ultra and beyond are usually utter bollocks because they don’t take into account who YOU are, where you’re at mentally, your experience, your fears, the time you have and the reasons you want to run over marathon distance. I do. Everything I do is personalised to you. If you want to do it, I can probably help you. In 2024 I won Coach of the Year at the National Running Awards, so I must be doing something right.

We live our lives behind screens both physically and metaphorically. We think those big adventures, races and massive mileage events are for other people. You don’t think you are good enough. I hear this ALL the time and it breaks my heart. The truth is everyone has adventure and endurance and magic in them. Everyone has that big energy. You just need someone that will hold your hand, help you find your tribe and encourage you to make a decision that might scare you a bit. I promise you it will be worth it a million times over. Sometimes I write stuff that seems like a rant about this. I put most of it on my blog. I also put a lot of it in my book.

What I do 

I’m an endurance running and mindset coach. I also do one day one-to-one workshops for individuals and multi-day running workshops for groups. I am also a recovering alcoholic. I really do understand how human brains work because I’ve seen the damage they can do if their not used properly.

After 12 years working for major record labels, I realised that the thing I had once absolutely loved (music) was slowly killing me. It was horrible. My dream career had turned me into nightmare person and I was very lost. After taking part in the inaugural Rat Race Test Pilot trip to Mongolia in 2018, I realised that out on that ice was the first time I had truly had to deal with myself and my thoughts. Whilst I could run hundreds of miles, I couldn’t sort my head out, so I ran away from it. Constantly. Fast forward five years, lots of trips, a pandemic, some seriously questionable mistakes, a pretty horrendous mental health crisis and the realisation that I needed to accept I was an alcoholic, I find myself sat here doing something I absolutely love - coaching other people to do amazing things. It’s taken an incredible amount of acceptance, patience and understanding to get here, but I am here. And I want to help you.

I’ve been immensely lucky to find something I truly love to do, but it wasn’t running that saved me. Not by a long shot. I saved myself. Running helped me do that. Working on my thought process helped me do that. The two things are not exclusive.

Ultimately, the thing I am most proud of (after my sobriety) is teaching other people to get out and discover how brilliant they can be and how brilliant the world around them is. I’m not superwoman or a professional athlete. I’m someone that has struggled to find where they fit, someone that suffers (like a lot of people) with depressive demons, addiction, anxiety and existential misery. Although all that fades when I am out doing what I do best, on a hill, in the moment, I have learnt that it is what’s going on in my head that is key to my ability to do this stuff. And that’s what sets me apart from other running coaches. I fucking get it. Honestly. I do.

my experience

I’ve got a load of world firsts under my belt, from running across Lake Khovsgol in Mongolia to crossing the Namib Desert twice. I’m the first woman to have run the full-length of the Panama Canal, I’ve run the length of the Outer Hebrides, crossed Scotland on packraft and foot a couple times, run the length of the UK over 35 days, and, in 2023, came in first woman at the Wild Horse 200 - a 200 mile race across the Brecon Beacons. I’ve competed well over 200 marathons and almost 80 ultras - including eleven 100 mile plus races. I’ve had DNF’s, I know how to get through them. My favourite distance is a nice chunky 100 miler, but give me a super long multi-day ultra and I am anyone’s. I could list all my races and things I’ve won and PB’s and all that shit here, but it doesn’t really matter and nobody actually cares, so I won’t bother.

The important thing is that I have been through the mill and have had the absolute pleasure of hitting rock bottom as the result of pushing depression, addiction and self care so far under the rug that they feel through the cracks in the floorboards. I wouldn’t advise hitting rock bottom. It’s not great. I have done an immense amount of work on where it all went wrong - and it turns out it had nothing to do with my running and everything to do with the stories my brain was telling me - not only about running but about my self worth, my place in the world and my own capabilities. I vowed to never, ever allow myself to go back to that place. I did the work and now I want to show other people that almost anything is possible.

I started running 12 years ago and have only being doing the ultra thing for 8 years, but I absolutely love it. It’s game changing. I also believe that it’s something that anyone of any age, from any walk of life can get involved with and while it won’t save your life, it will change it from ordinary to extra-ordinary and it will change things for the better if you do the work. I’m not just talking about running the miles - that’s important, but looking at how you think about running, about life, about yourself - that’s the real game changer. Thats where the superpowers lay. The first step is saying you want to do it. The second stage is asking yourself why. The third step is talking to me.

Since starting as a coach, I have worked with people from all walks of life. Some of them have gone from couch to ultra, some have come to me with a string of DNF’s or DNS’s, others have just found themselves totally lost, demotivated and at an extremely confusing crossroads with their running. Some people have huge goals and incredible events they’re training for, some just want to know why they feel so shit about it all. All of them have received personalised one-to-one coaching and self-development plans that have helped change their lives. All of them have gone on to understand themselves and their purpose a lot more clearly. All of them have gone on to change not only their relationship with running, but with their work, famillies and most importantly themselves. You, yes you, reading this - you are incredible. I know you don’t believe that. And that’s the problem. My coaching style is weird, personal and very hands on. But it gets some pretty epic results. You can see some of the nice things people say about me here.

Other stuff I do

I do like a chat. I co-present the Bailey and Harding Ultra Soundsystem Podcast, occasionally pop up on the Centurion Running podcast and have hosted talks, workshops and panels on endurance running, mental health and mindset for companies like Sony Music, Mind, Cancer Research, Dow Jones, Kendal Mountain Festival and IBM. I’ve written for a number of websites and newspapers including The Times and Runners World, been on telly a few times and I work closely with The National Running Show, founding, curating and presenting the Ultra Zone at both the Birmingham and Running Show South events. I am really excited to be bringing something new and groundbreaking to the event in 2023. I’m lucky enough to be supported as a sponsored athlete by INOV8 and am part of the Centurion Ultra Team. In February 2024 my first book There Is No Wall was published to some pretty great critical acclaim, going to number one in several of the Amazon charts. I really hope it will help people understand they are not alone and it’s never too late. I just want to help people - that’s why I wrote it.

In 2018 I founded Ultra Awesome, an online community for anyone looking to get into ultra and the platform that got me where I am today. So many people tell me that they don’t feel like they can do extraordinary things. I know better than that. You can read more about it and get on board here.