A runner posts the new £400 carbon-plated shoes on Strava. He has never run a kilometre. He hasn't signed up for any race. He goes to the park, runs two kilometres in the £400 shoes, his Achilles tightens at km 1.5 (forefoot-emphasis shoe plus untrained calf equals injury vector). He stops. Posts about the "incredible run." Doesn't run again for three weeks. The shoes sit in his entry hall.
He invested £400 in gear before investing 60 minutes in form, mileage progression, or even signing up for a race.
Inside this one
- The 10%-per-week mileage progression and the connective-tissue adaptation timeline behind it
- Cadence, stride length, and foot-strike nuance (no prescriptive forefoot dogma)
- Carbon-plated shoes — what the evidence actually says
- Training plans for 5K, 10K, half marathon, and marathon
- Common running injuries, their epidemiology, and the strength-training intervention
- Race-day pacing, fuelling, hydration, and taper protocols
The standard it is held to
Every factual claim in this volume names its source, and every claim carries a confidence grade — settled, strong, emerging or contested. Where the evidence is thin, the text says so. How it’s made, in full → · What we’ve got wrong →