Harry Richard PT
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You need to earn two-a-days.
One hard double day followed by a genuiney easy day will get you further than grinding all week.
Two sessions a day can work.
But most people get two things wrong.
First - Session order matters.
Running and lifting on the same day?
If you want better running...
Run first.
If you want to be stronger...
Lift first
Second - The day after has to be easy.
No exceptions.
This is where most people fall apart.
Two hard sessions creates a lot of tissue damage.
Follow it with another hard day and you're not recovering.
You're just stacking fatigue.
Injury becomes a matter of when, not if.
Hard day. Easy day. That's the pattern.
“Why do you train so much?”
Me: Food is energy, and I enjoy energy...
14/05/2026
Most people train without knowing what their race actually demands from their body.
They just run, lift, and hope for the best.
But your body runs on three energy systems.
And depending on the distance you're training for, each one plays a very different role.
Knowing this changes how you should structure your training.
Here's a quick breakdown:
The first system, ATP-PCr system, fires in the first 10 seconds of hard effort.
Think explosive sprints, a fast start in a race, or a short hill sprint.
It burns through fuel fast and then hands over to the next system.
You train this with short, all-out efforts - strides, 8 to 10 second hill sprints, with full recovery between each one.
The second, the glycolytic system, kicks in from around 10 seconds to about 2 minutes of hard effort.
It runs without oxygen and produces lactate as a byproduct.
This system matters a lot for shorter, faster races like 800m to 5K.
You train it with sustained high intensity intervals - think 400m to 800m repeats at hard effort with solid rest.
The third, the aerobic system, runs everything else.
About 75 seconds of effort onwards, your body shifts predominantly aerobic.
- A 5K is roughly 95% aerobic.
- A half marathon is close to 98%.
- A marathon is almost entirely aerobic.
Even an 800m race is around 60 to 70% aerobic - more than most people think.
So what does this mean for your training?
If you're racing 5K, you need:
- A strong aerobic base
- Dedicated VO2 max work
- High intensity intervals to build the top end.
If you're racing half marathon:
- Lactate threshold becomes the priority
- Tempo runs and threshold intervals need to be a regular part of your week
- Zone 2 volume underpins everything
If you're racing marathon or beyond:
- Aerobic base is almost everything
- Majority (80%) of your training should be easy
- Threshold work layered in (20%)
Look at your goal race.
Work out what energy system it relies on most.
Then make sure your training actually reflects that.
A lot of people train hard without training smart.
Knowing your energy systems is how you close that gap.
In your next run, make the second half faster than the first.
It takes discipline early.
But the back end will look after itself.
You feel good at the start.
So you go hard.
Makes sense.
But here's what's actually happening.
- Lactate builds faster than your body can clear it.
- Oxygen delivery lags behind.
- Fatigue kicks in earlier than it should.
By halfway, your body is already in damage control.
The second half becomes a write-off.
The fix is simple.
Start slower than you think you need to.
Let your heart rate settle.
Let oxygen delivery catch up.
Then gradually lift the pace as the race goes on.
Strong finish beats a fast start every time.
12/05/2026
Most people do the same warm up for every session.
A few minutes on the treadmill, some leg swings, maybe a stretch.
Then they jump straight into whatever the session is.
The problem is a generic warm up prepares your body for nothing in particular.
- Nervous system
- Muscles
- Joints
All need to be primed for what's actually coming.
A warm up that works for a strength session looks completely different to one before a tempo run.
If you're lifting...
Your warm up should mirror the movements in your session.
Working up to heavy squats?
Do bodyweight squats, then light loaded squats, gradually building to your working weight.
This primes the exact muscles, joints, and movement patterns you're about to load.
The same goes for bench, deadlifts, or any compound movement.
If you're running a hard session...
- Intervals
- Tempo
- A race
Your warm up needs to get your cardiovascular system ready.
Start with easy jogging to raise your heart rate and body temperature.
Move into dynamic drills - high knees, A-skips, leg swings.
Finish with a few short strides at close to your target pace.
By the time the session starts, your body already knows what's coming.
One thing most people miss - the gap between finishing your warm up and starting the session matters.
Research shows the benefits of a proper warm up, particularly increased muscle temperature, can be lost within about 15 minutes.
Don't warm up and then stand around.
And a note on static stretching...
Holding long stretches before a session can actually reduce power output.
Save those for after the session, not before.
Before training, you want dynamic movement, not passive lengthening.
The warm up is not a formality.
It's the first part of your session.
Treat it that way.
Add one faster session per week alongside your long runs.
You don't need to overhaul everything.
Just make sure you're doing both.
Most people keep all their runs at the same pace.
Then wonder why they stop improving.
Speed work changes things.
- Your lactate threshold goes up.
- You can hold harder efforts for longer.
- Your efficiency improves.
- Each stride costs less energy.
- Slower paces start to feel easier.
But speed work alone won't build your endurance.
Pair it with longer, slower zone 2 runs.
One builds the ceiling.
The other builds the floor.
You need both.
I use 3 key sessions to push my lactate threshold higher.
Here's exactly what they are and why they work:
Most runners train in the zone that feels productive but sits just below the intensity that actually forces adaptation.
These sessions fix that.
1️⃣ - 4 x 4 minute intervals
- 4 minutes at a hard but sustainable pace
- 1 minute standing rest
- RPE 7-8
Short recovery keeps lactate elevated throughout. Your body has no choice but to learn to clear it faster.
2️⃣ - 3 rounds of a Hyrox-specific favourite.
- 3 min hard run
- 3 min Sled push/pull @ race weight
- 3 min hard run
- 2 min rest
The sled forces lactate accumulation in a way pure running never does.
Coming back to the run after the sled is where the real adaptation happens and compromised running is improved.
3️⃣ - 2-3 x 3km intervals
- 3km hard but sustainable pace
- 1km jog recovery
Longer duration, sustained output at threshold, incomplete recovery.
This is where aerobic ceiling improvements are made.
That's the formula.
- Short and sharp.
- Mixed modality.
- Long and sustained.
Each one hits the threshold from a different angle.
Used together across a training block, the result is an athlete who can sustain harder efforts for longer without blowing up.
07/05/2026
I used to think eating less and training more was the answer…
…I believed that for a long time.
I was scared of weight gain.
So I trained harder, fuelled less, and called it discipline.
On paper it looked like progress.
- Lean, yes.
- Fast, sort of.
- Strong and healthy? Not even close.
The injuries stacked up.
Recovery went nowhere.
My body was coping, not performing.
The fix wasn't a new program or a new training block.
It was just changing how I saw food.
Calories aren't the enemy - they're the fuel.
F1 & airlines invest billions into the fuel for their engines.
You wouldn't put cheap fuel into your expensive car.
I used to fear eating more and wonder why I kept breaking down.
Now I fuel for what I'm asking my body to do and it actually holds together.
It's not a radical concept.
It's just 1 thing most hard-training people get completely wrong.
Are you training hard but fuelling like you're trying to lose weight?
It’s a problem you need to solve.
DM me "HYBRID" if you want training that's actually built around performance.
When the knees start feeling off, this is my first and best solution.
Lunges and squats are great, however they are missing something…
Lateral force.
Yes they require stability but not the kind that provides a good stimulus.
‼️Enter: The Landmine Curtsy Lunge‼️
Here's why:
- The curtsy pattern loads the glute med and the hip rotators in a way standard lunges never reach.
- Weak glute med equals knee that collapses inward.
- Collapsing knee equals injury.
It's that simple.
I’ve seen the same knee issues repeatedly across different athletes. Now I just add this and watch the problem disappear.
It's not a glamorous exercise. Honestly, when you’re hitting failure it kinda sucks.
But it's one of the highest-value things you can do to prevent running injuries.
Are you doing anything to specifically protect your knee joints?
Or are you just hoping they hold together?
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