Ben Douglas and TeeJay Jones Testimonial and Thanks – by Mike Gallagher

After a busy time of races and marathons for folk recently I thought it would be a good time to reflect and champion two of our fantastic members who really helped me achieve a great result at the Copenhagen marathon.

Ben Douglas

The marathon has always been the distance that I have never quite done justice to. Hence I decided to use the excellent coaching services of Ben Douglas.

A lot of you will know Ben as an amazing runner but his coaching service that he offers is brilliant.

At the start of the process I was at a decent enough base fitness level but needed to kick in.

Ben took plenty of time to chat about my race goals as well as my current form and how much time I realistically have to run each week. He really took care and designed a brilliant 12 week training programme which kept me motivated and really gave some variety and results.

I really enjoyed the training for this marathon thanks to Ben. He designed the plan and made an interactive spreadsheet so that we could keep track of progress and the workouts. He was always very responsive and adapted the programme when we had to make alterations due to niggles or life getting in the way.

Ben really took time and care and offered an holistic and achievable programme.

I would highly recommend Ben to anyone who is wanting to achieve a goal that was not thought possible. He played a major part in helping me achieve a 12 minute marathon PB and making me faster at 42 than I was probably at 32 years old!

TeeJay Jones

After running Manchester and Leeds marathons in 2023, running became very painful and I struggled to get going again. Someone mentioned that TeeJay does sports massage. TeeJay was only too happy to see me and take the time to sit down and chat about where I was getting pain and what the problems were.

She offers a physiological assessment service too, which she did in great detail. It turned out that after years of running I had developed a massive imbalance on my right side which led to painful quads. I was also not using my glutes as they had next to no strength, so I was over compensating elsewhere.

This was evident in previous marathons where I would get awful cramp which would stop me in my tracks.

My muscle bed was like spaghetti junction which turns out, was not good. We worked together over a long period of time. This involved TeeJay offering advice on strength training, developing some bespoke exercises for me to do as well as keeping on top with expert massage.

Over time, my running has improved as well as my running economy. Running has become a whole lot easier. During my most recent marathon and training block, I found I was using my glute max and medius effectively, which helped me no end. I believe this was a huge contributory factor to being able to finish strong and run pretty much cramp free this time.

TeeJay really takes time and effort to help and nothing is too much trouble for her and offers a really good value service.

We have built a great trust over the last couple of years and as I am firmly on the vets category, we will be continuing this to help keep keep running stronger than ever.

I know TeeJay works with a few harriers but would definitely recommend for the testing service, PT stuff and massage, she is brilliant.