This is the episode I'd make myself sit down and listen to five or ten years ago.

If I had, I'd be fitter now. I'd be a better athlete.

I wasted years training for the athlete I wished I was instead of the one who actually showed up, and it cost me.

That gap between where you are and where you wish you were is what slows you down.

You chase paces slightly ahead of where you're at, week after week, and a few months later you're injured, burnt out, or going backwards.

I've done it more times than I'd like to admit. This block I'm 12 weeks into coaching myself and it's the best I've ever felt, purely because I stopped chasing a version of me that didn't exist and started training where I actually am.

I talk through the ego trap, the Strava obsession, why wishing feels like ambition but isn't, and the one idea that fixes all of it: the purpose of the session is the purpose of the session.

Plus a listener question on fuelling around high and low training days, and a proper look at how I rebuilt after Brisbane. If I hadn't pulled myself back, there's no way I'd be sitting here talking about a sub-60.

No script. No edits. Just a real life Run Down.

• Why I'm not actually the biggest athlete to go sub-60 (and who is)

• Week 12 of coaching myself: the best block I've ever had

• Coach what you know, not what you don't

• Training for where you are vs where you wish you were

• The ego trap and the Strava obsession

• Why wishing feels like ambition but sends you backwards

• What overreaching actually costs you

• The Brisbane rebuild that made sub-60 possible

• The purpose of the session is the purpose of the session

• How to actually build toward a goal (the sub-25 5K analogy)

• Listener Q: fuelling around high and low training days

• Ambition vs wishing, and coaching someone out of the wish gap

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