An athlete finishes an extraordinary race. The coach has been there through the training, the doubts, the changes of plan and all the ordinary weeks that made getting to the start line possible.

So how much of what happens next belongs to the coach?

In this solo episode, Paul starts with an athlete finishing the Tor des Géants and his own discomfort with turning someone else's achievement into evidence that the coaching works. From there, he looks back at how his understanding of coaching has changed, from essentially giving athletes lighter versions of his own training to something much harder to define.

He tells the story of an athlete who was strong, committed and successful, but repeatedly couldn't finish 100 miles. Eventually, rather than prescribing another training block, Paul offered to run the distance with him. It was something he'd almost never recommend, but for that athlete, at that moment, it seemed more useful than getting any fitter.

The episode explores belief, judgement, mistakes, different coaching relationships and the awkward relationship between results and good coaching. A great result doesn't necessarily prove the coaching was great. A bad one doesn't necessarily mean it failed. And some of the work that matters most may never appear in a training plan or a finish-line photograph.

There isn't a particularly clean answer here. Just a question Paul has become less certain about the longer he's coached: what is a coach actually responsible for, and what do they get to claim afterwards?

Paul Giblin is an ultrarunner, endurance coach and founder of Pyllon Ultra.

Keep up with Pyllon: Instagram: @pyllon / @pyllonultra Substack: Pyllon YouTube: Pyllon Coaching: Pyllon Ultra

If you enjoy the Pyllon Ultra Pod, follow the show and share the episode with someone who might enjoy it too.

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For a long time, my race calendar organised most of my life.

There was always another training block, another trip, another race. Western States would lead into Chamonix, Chamonix into UTMB, and the things I was going to deal with afterwards could usually wait a little longer.

The strange thing is, I was happy. Running gave me progress, identity, incredible experiences and somewhere to go when other parts of life were harder to understand. Sometimes it probably helped me avoid things too. I’m not sure those two things are as easy to separate as we like to think.

The last couple of years have almost reversed that pattern. Frostbite, recovery, moving house, the croft, work and all the ordinary jobs of life have become the new calendar. The big running ambitions never disappeared. I just became very good at telling them to wait.

In this short solo episode, I talk about a recent day on Ben Nevis, lying in hospital after Yukon, a difficult TDS, the years when racing occupied almost everything, and why I’m now trying to work out how much space I want to give the athlete again.

I’m not sure balance is quite the answer. Maybe some of us naturally put our weight somewhere, and the question is how far we allow the pendulum to swing.

Paul Giblin is an ultrarunner, endurance coach and founder of Pyllon Ultra.

Keep up with Pyllon: Instagram: @pyllon / @pyllonultra Substack: Pyllon YouTube: Pyllon Coaching: Pyllon Ultra

If you enjoy the Pyllon Ultra Pod, you can follow the show on your podcast app and share an episode with someone you think might enjoy it.

Thanks for listening.

Another episode of our Long Run Conversations with John Connolly.

Ultra running has always moved in waves. One year it's barefoot shoes. Then maximal cushioning. Heat training. Carbon plates. Heat suits. Weighted vests. High-carb fuelling.

Some of those ideas genuinely move the sport forward.

Some quietly disappear.

In this conversation we explore why we're so drawn to the next big thing, how social media and marketing influence the way we train, and why it's often the unglamorous basics that make the biggest difference over time.

Along the way we chat about:

• Heat suits and weighted vest training
• Barefoot shoes, maximal cushioning and carbon plates
• High-carb fuelling and the rising cost of race nutrition
• Why elite athletes aren't always the best models to copy
• How to think more critically about new training ideas
• The difference between genuine innovation and clever marketing
• Why consistency still beats novelty

As always, this isn't about dismissing new ideas. It's about asking better questions before changing the way you train.

If you enjoy these conversations, we'd love to hear from you. Let us know what topics you'd like us to explore next.

Find Pyllon Ultra:

🌐 https://pyllon.substack.com