Overdrive Insights

Inside the Rogue Pack, we do things a little differently. We don’t just throw random sessions at athletes and hope something sticks. We look at the research, pull out what actually matters, and turn it into practical training that everyday runners and triathletes can use. That is exactly where the new Spring Loaded Challenge comes from. As we move into spring, Rogue Pack members are starting a new six-week challenge built around one simple idea: better ground contact = better

What a final week going into London. If I’m honest, I genuinely wasn’t sure I’d even get round. The X-ray on the Monday came back “clear”… or more accurately, inconclusive. The follow-up was potentially an MRI, but with the wait times, that wasn’t happening before race day. The general feeling from the doctor was that if I could still do most of what I’d been doing, then it probably wasn’t a stress fracture but more likely a stress response, bruising, or something nerve-relat

I’m currently writing this, sat waiting for an X-ray on my ankle, hoping to rule out a stress fracture ahead of London. Which probably tells you everything you need to know about how the last couple of weeks have gone. They haven’t been great. Not in terms of how I’ve felt, and not in terms of how the training’s gone. And it didn’t take long for things to get a bit weird. Early last week, just doing the usual morning routine, getting the kids' lunches sorted for school, and f

Not to put it mildly, the past few weeks have not been good. Week 12 started with a nasty stomach issue that completely messed things up. Every time I tried to train, whether it was running or riding, I’d get this sharp, stopping pain through my stomach. It was painful, and as much as I like to crack on and get on with things – it wasn’t happening. It lasted five days. Which in marathon prep terms… is a big chunk of time. Frustrating more than anything, because outside of tha

Discovering Intent in Your Training Most endurance athletes don’t struggle with effort. If anything, they’re doing too much. More miles, more sessions, more intensity. Yet, the results often don’t match the work. Progress stalls. Sessions start to blur together. You finish weeks of training feeling tired but not necessarily better. That’s where many get stuck. Not due to laziness, but because they lack direction. Overdrive Endurance was built to solve that. Not by adding more

Week 11 started exactly how you’d expect after Week 10. Poorly. The aftermath of football lingered more than I’d hoped. The Achilles was a bit sore, but it was actually the left ankle that took most of the hit — bruised, stiff, and just uncomfortable enough to make running early in the week a non-starter. It wasn’t worth forcing anything, so the first few days were about letting things settle rather than chasing sessions. The first proper bit of “training” didn’t come until T

Week 10 started exactly how you want a week to start. Momentum. Monday kicked things off with a really solid strength session. Nothing crazy again, just good quality work in the gym and the feeling that the body is actually beginning to tolerate training again. That’s been one of the slow burners through this whole project, slowly rebuilding durability so the work doesn’t feel like it’s constantly pushing against a ceiling. Tuesday’s run was probably the most encouraging sess

Week 9 started a lot better than Week 8. After the long run the previous weekend I expected the legs to feel a bit battered, but Tuesday’s run turned out to be surprisingly decent. Ten miles at a very easy pace, out in some proper spring sunshine, and the legs actually felt… okay. Not fresh, not bouncing but moving well enough to settle into a rhythm. I’m putting that recovery down to my latest bit of high-performance kit: Temu sports massage trousers. All about the budget ov

Week 8 was a battle. One of those weeks where, if I’m honest, I felt pretty crap from start to finish. It began on Tuesday. The plan was simple: get the run done. Instead, the day unravelled. Life admin, interruptions, pressure, poor headspace, one of those days where nothing quite lands and you’re already behind before you’ve started. The run didn’t happen as planned, and that tone lingered. The rest of the week felt much the same. There was no buzz. No flow. No “this is com

Week 7 started as the complete opposite of Week 6. Last week the body rebelled. This week the mind was ready, but sleep wasn’t. The plan was a 75-minute easy run to start the week. After 45 minutes the legs felt unusually heavy, the kind of dead weight that doesn’t come from training load but from a few nights of poor sleep. There’s good evidence that sleep restriction alone can impair endurance performance, increase perceived effort, and reduce neuromuscular efficiency (Full

Week 6 started brilliantly. And then it went completely sideways. Tuesday was one of those quietly reassuring runs. Nine miles, easy, nothing forced, but probably the fittest I’ve felt so far in this block. For the first time in a while I finished thinking, I could’ve done more there. Normally Tuesday is where I slot a session in, but this week I went longer and easier. It felt controlled, comfortable, and promising. Which was fortunate… because the rest of the week unravelle

Week 5 was pretty dull and boring… and that’s exactly why it felt like a good week. For the first time in a while, the training genuinely resembled a full week of work. Seven days, seven touchpoints with the process. Not seven big sessions, not seven “hero” workouts, just regular contact with training. Four bike rides, three runs, and two strength sessions. Two of those bike rides were only around 30 minutes long, but at this stage even that matters. It’s still more aerobic

Week 4 felt like a bit of a turning point — not because anything suddenly clicked, but because, for the first time in a long while, it resembled a proper training week. Not sharp. Not flashy. But real. In terms of overall load, this was probably my biggest week for some time. A bit more volume, a bit more stress, and just enough substance to expose where things are actually at — physically and mentally. And as always when that happens, the answers weren’t all comfortable. The

This week was a sharp reminder of how demanding running actually is — and why so many standard 16-week marathon plans, particularly those aimed at beginners, quietly unravel long before race day. Not because people aren’t motivated. Not because they don’t want it enough. But because durability and fatigue resistance are massively underestimated. These plans are rarely designed to help someone race a marathon. At best, they’re designed to get someone around one. They assume du

If Week 1 was about resetting the system, Week 2 was a reminder of something far more uncomfortable: this is harder when you do it honestly and in public. The first run of the week landed with a bit of a thud. One of those sessions where, partway through, you’re very aware of the scale of what you’ve set yourself. Sub-3 on three runs a week can feel like a neat idea when you’re writing it down; it feels very different when the legs are heavy and the gap between where you are

Before anything else, it’s important to be clear about what this project is — and what it isn’t. The Sub-3 on 3 Runs challenge is not a universal blueprint, not a shortcut, and not a rejection of mileage. It only makes sense when viewed through the context of my own training history and where I currently sit as an athlete. I’m not starting this from scratch or from guesswork. Over the years I’ve built a decent foundation of performance, including a 74-minute half marathon ba

If you think you need 20–25 hour training weeks and a pro contract to go sub-10 in an Ironman, Mark would very politely disagree. He’s an everyday athlete with a job, responsibilities, and all the usual life chaos. Over the last three seasons he’s quietly turned himself into the guy who just keeps dropping sub-10 Ironman performances and sub-3:30 marathons off the bike. No drama. No hype. Just three years of grown-up endurance training. This is what that actually looked like.