Ready to Level Up Your Trail Running?

Harrier PRO Trail Team Athlete, Kallum Pritchard, Shares His Secrets

Being consistent, training in chunks and surrounding yourself with people who push you to be better. Those are some big bits of advice from proven winner and Harrier PRO Trail Team athlete, Kallum Pritchard.

In this issue, we’re diving into Kallum’s training approach, his best endurance-building strategies, and hilarious stories of checkpoint mishaps.

Let’s dive straight in!

KALLUM, WHAT’S YOUR BEST ADVICE FOR TRAIL RUNNERS LOOKING TO IMPROVE THEIR ENDURANCE?

"I'd say it’s consistency. Consistency in specific training, which I focus on a lot more now. You can't get great at something overnight. I think we normally enjoy something we're good at and to get good at something you need to spend time at it. So you might not enjoy trail running at first if you come to your first hill and you're absolutely blown. But if you start to build up consistency, you'll improve, and enjoy seeing the improvements. I think for me, it's all about consistency"

SO HOW DO YOU WIN AT CONSISTENCY?

"Make time. A lot of the training I've done recently, I've started breaking up into smaller chunks a lot of the time. So if I'm doing a 100-mile week, I’ll consistently do 15 to 20 miles each day. But I can break those up into two runs each day, 8 to 10 miles each.

That's how I can consistently get the mileage and the training in. Little and often is more sustainable for me and I can build the consistency up, rather than finding an excuse not to do longer runs"

HOW DOES THAT IMPACT YOUR ABILITY TO RUN A FULL RACE DISTANCE, ALL IN ONE GO?

"A lot of people think that you have to be running the target distance. And for some people, that probably works as well. But some of the world’s top runners swear by the little and often approach and have set records by training that way.

For me as well, I find saying, “I'm gonna do 8 miles now and 8 miles this evening” a lot better than saying, “I've got to do 16 miles right now before work”. Yeah, I always find excuses when it's like that"

WHAT’S ONE TRAINING HABIT OR APPROACH THAT’S HAD THE BIGGEST IMPACT ON YOUR PERFORMANCE?

"I would say tailoring my training to the race I’m focusing on. So, if I’ve got a mountain race coming up, I’ll make sure I’m getting in an amount of elevation that reflects the race. It's quite hard where I live at the moment because there are no hills, there's not much trail, but I have to do what I can. If I've got a hilly race coming up, I'll spend a lot of time on the treadmill to try and make up for it.

I've also joined a running club. We get coaching sessions every Tuesday. That's typically more of a marathon road session, but it's a way of getting some speed into my training. We've got quite a few really good marathon runners there. So it's competitive and I like doing it. That's a good, hard training session"

YOU SAID YOUR RUNNING CLUB IS COMPETITIVE, TALK TO US ABOUT THAT

"My performance in those sessions is completely dictated by who turns up. We've got some guys there aiming for a 2:20 to 2:25 marathon. If they're turning up, my session is completely different. It is competitive, you're friends, but you still want to try and beat them, even if it's just a session. That competitive element is good"

NOT MANY PEOPLE ADMIT THEY’RE SECRETLY COMPETING WITH CLUBMATES DURING TRAINING

"Yeah, I definitely am. Not a lot of people admit it, but I'm not scared of saying it. I'll say it to the lads at the sessions as well. We'll all encourage each other to go past each other. It's all fun. But I enjoy it. I think everyone else is doing the same. We're all really competitive and we push each other. Probably the biggest thing that's improved my fitness is joining a running club"

WELL IT’S WORKING, YOU’RE ALMOST UNBEATABLE IN RACES NOW. BUT HAVE YOU EVER HAD A RACE GO COMPLETELY WRONG?

"Definitely the first race did. I thought I was unstoppable for 20 miles, ran completely balls out then died, hit a wall, and had to walk the next 30 miles. That 30-mile walk of death was just horrendous. On top of that, my grandad, who was crewing me, didn’t make one of the checkpoints. He still doesn't make them all now, but he tries. I don't know who was more lost, him or me. But that was a big eye-opener"

THAT’S HILARIOUS, SO YOU PLAY CHECKPOINT ROULETTE WHENEVER GRANDAD IS CREWING YOU? WILL HE BE THERE, WILL HE NOT?

"Yeah, he still does it now. At the Dukeries 40-miler a few years ago he agreed to meet me at every checkpoint. I really appreciate him doing it, even though there's a risk there. And I can remember getting to the finish line thinking he's not turned up to a single checkpoint.

I wasn't going to be angry or anything because I appreciated him being there. But I came to the end of the 40 miles, gave him a phone call and he was at the first checkpoint! He’d obviously been asleep in the car, just getting his head down. So yeah, it is a roulette every race he comes to crew, but it’s great to have him involved. He's an ex-Marine as well, so we'll give each other a stick about getting lost between checkpoints. It's all okay"

DO YOU HAVE A GO-TO PIECE OF KIT THAT YOU SWEAR BY?

"At the moment I'm using the Harrier 10-litre Kinder race vest for a lot of my training. Last night I was going to a marathon road session with my running club, but I was doing five miles to get there and five to get back, plus the session in between. So I turn up with my trail vest for a road session.

I've used a lot of different vests over the years and it's hard to find one with so many different pockets. It's nice to have an exact area to store every bit of your kit and know where it is. So that would be the main thing."

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