European Endurance Conference - Achieving Excellence in Healthy Endurance Environments

Aly Dixon has been a competitive runner for 32 years, the last 12 years as an international athlete. She has represented Great Britain on the road, track and cross country including six World Championship (half marathon, marathon and 50km), three European championships (half marathon and 10,000m team cup) and one Olympic Games (marathon) as well as representing England at two Commonwealth Games (marathon). Aly is the reigning World 50km champion and former World best holder for the distance.

Andrew Henderson is the Head of Athletics at Leeds Beckett University and the England Athletics Leeds Talent Hub Head Coach. He has coached athletes from junior to senior competition, including Laura Weightman (two-times Olympic 1500m finalist), Alex Bell (World Championship 800m semi-finalist), Emma Clayton (World and European mountain medallist), Georgia Malir (European U20 Mountain champion) and Alex Botterill (World U20 800m finalist). Andrew received the England Athletics Dave Sunderland Endurance Coaching Award and the British Milers Coach of the Year award in 2019.

Cara Sloss is a Clinical and Sports Dietitian and a practitioner on the Sport and Exercise Nutrition Register (SENr). She has a background in Sport and Exercise Science and her passion for sports nutrition was driven by her own training and competition in athletics. Cara has a particular interest in fuelling endurance and ultra-endurance performance and works as a sports nutritionist in the British Athletics Talent Hub based at Leeds Beckett University.

Darren Reevell is the Regional Coaching Lead for Endurance (North), the England Athletics Event Lead for Ultra, Talent Lead on the Junior Talent Programme, Anglo-Celtic Plate 100k England Team Manager, and has been the England team coach at numerous international competitions throughout Europe. He is also a Consultant Coach delivering England Athletics Club Run, Track Nights, and Flying Coach programmes, as well as a tutor on the Event Group Endurance Integration Days.

Dr Andrew Renfree is Principal Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Science at the University of Worcester, where he teaches exercise physiology and interdisciplinary determinants of sport performance. His doctoral thesis used decision-making theory to explain the way in which exercise intensity is regulated during self-paced exercise. A former middle-distance runner himself, Andrew’s current research interests include affect-based training prescription, determinants of fatigue, and training quantification and monitoring. 

Dr Arturo Casado is a former professional middle-distance runner who specialised at 800m and 1500m, and is now a coach of international runners. As an athlete, he was European outdoor 1500m Champion in Barcelona 2010 and three times a World Championship finalist. He is currently working as a lecturer at Rey Juan Carlos University on the areas of training development and athletics, and on the Master’s programme in High Performance in Sports at the Spanish Olympic Committee. 

Dr Brian Hanley is a Senior Lecturer in Sport & Exercise Biomechanics at Leeds Beckett University. His research is mainly on the biomechanics of distance running and race walking, as well as the pacing profiles adopted by endurance athletes. Brian led on the scientific aspects of the Biomechanics Research Projects at the IAAF World Championships in London in 2017 and the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Birmingham in 2018. 

Dr Richard Blagrove is a Lecturer in Physiology at Loughborough University. Richard is an Accredited Strength and Conditioning Coach and Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and was previously a Director of the UK Strength and Conditioning Association. He has provided coaching support to middle- and long-distance runners for almost 15 years, including several Olympians and medallists at major international championships. 

Helen Clitheroe had a successful career as an athlete competing for Great Britain over 1500m, 3000m, 5000m, 3000m steeplechase, 10000m and cross country. She is now gaining experience working within athletics as a coach at the Leeds Talent Hub, as well as personally coaching athletes. Helen has also been involved in Great Britain and England teams as a coach for a number of years in cross country and track. She hosts regular workshops and webinars for England Athletics to promote and develop steeplechase amongst athletes and coaches.

Jo Wilkinson is the Endurance Regional Coach Lead for the South East and leads on Endurance for the Junior Talent Programme. She qualified as a coach through the British Athletics Elite Athlete to Coach programme. She represented England and Great Britain on track, road and cross country and has been involved in athletics for 35 years as an athlete and coach.

Kyle has been coaching juniors to age group international athletes for around 16 years. He is the regional coach lead for endurance in the midlands and is the talent lead on the youth and junior talent programmes. Kyle is the head endurance coach at the University of Oxford and also runs the performance programme at Imperial College London.

Martin Rush is Head of Coaching and Athlete Development for England Athletics, responsible for the development of ongoing coaching support post-qualification for coaches. An ex-teacher and Olympic race walker, Martin joined British Athletics in 2001 as a Regional Performance Manager, overseeing the World Class Potential Programme athletes and acting as British Athletics Junior Team Leader until 2008. He was Team Leader for the England Athletics Track and Field Team at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

Professor Andy Jones is professor of Applied Physiology at the University of Exeter. He is internationally recognized for his expertise in the causes of exercise-related fatigue, respiratory physiology, and endurance sports performance physiology and nutrition. He is a former international distance runner and has served as a consultant physiologist to UK Athletics, the English Institute of Sport, the Gatorade Sports Science Institute, and Nike. 

Professor Sue Backhouse is Director of Research in the Carnegie School of Sport at Leeds Beckett University. Over the last 15 years, Sue has undertaken collaborative research to develop a better understanding of doping behaviour from multiple perspectives. Sue serves as a member of the WADA Social Science Research Expert Advisory Group and is co-founder of the Clean Sport Alliance.

Spencer Duval is a former international athlete over cross country and 3000m steeplechase. Spencer represented England at two Commonwealth Games, and Great Britain at various World and European Championships and the Olympic Games. He is currently the National Endurance Lead where he leads on all endurance events from 800m to ultra-distance on the track and off it. Spencer was head endurance coach at the Commonwealth Games in 2018, and will take charge again in 2022 at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

Andy Young is a former middle-distance athlete and now better known as a very successful coach of many years. Andy coaches a number of elite Scottish athletes and has been instrumental in the rise of Laura Muir and Jemma Reekie, including coaching Laura to numerous Championships medals including Olympic Silver in Tokyo 2020.

Becky Lyne is a former international middle-distance athlete. She was voted Britain's Female Athlete of the Year in 2006 and has since gone on to use her experiences as an athlete, together with her first-class honours degree in Sport and Exercise Science from Loughborough University, to help others to improve their performance and well-being. Her company Gracefull Running uses cutting edge technology to perform online running technique analyses, whilst her 'Gracefull Girls' programme combines online, running-specific S&C sessions with interactive seminars to nurture inner and outer strength.

Bernard Ouma has been a professional athletics coach since 2007 and is founder and head of the Rongai Athletics Club in Kenya. He has trained various successful athletes such as World 1500m Champion Timothy Cheruiyot. His own sporting background is as a black belt holder in karate, and has undertaken a degree in Sports Science majoring in track and field.

David is a former Great Britain and England international runner at distances from 3000m up to half-marathon and cross country, later becoming a Great Britain and England Athletics Team Coach, coaching 19 athletes to international status. David is the former Coaching Editor at Athletics Weekly and writer of well over 600 articles and editor of three bookazines. He was the recipient of the Frank Horwill Award for Outstanding Service to BMC and also Lifetime Services to Coaching.

Norman first joined the BMC in 1968 as an athlete. As a coach he has brought many athletes through from novice standard to be UK National Champions over 800m, 1500m and 5000m and selection at five Olympic Games. Norman was the UK National Event Coach for 800m/1500m from 1990 to 1997. During this period, he worked with the BMC to integrate the BMC competition and coach education programmes with the National Strategy.

James is a senior lecturer and Performance Director for Athletics at Cardiff Metropolitan University and currently completing his Doctorate in Sport Coaching. A former International middle-distance runner, he was a finalist at World, European and Commonwealth championships, and is the current World Masters indoor 1500m champion. James success in coaching middle-distance runners led to being named 2017 BMC Coach of the Year and Welsh Athletics awards in 2018 and 2020. He has been a Great Britain team staff member for World U20, European U20 and European U23 Championships.

Matthew joined the BMC Committee as BMC News Editor in 1990. He has been a race organiser since 1993 and was one of the founders of the BMC Grand Prix series in the 1990s. He received the Frank Horwill Award for Outstanding Service to BMC in 2000. A qualified accountant, Matthew has performed a number of roles on the Committee and his current role is Treasurer.

Neville’s early athletic career began as a sprinter, gradually moving up in distance. He has been coaching a number of sports for almost 50 years, taking athletes from grassroots competition through to international status, including former 10km World Champion and Olympic medallist Wendy Sly. The coaches that have mainly influenced his practical coaching philosophy are Franz Stampfl, Arthur Lydiard and Harry Wilson, world-class coaches who confirmed the need for both psychological and physical preparation to be successful.

Tim joined the BMC in 1975 as a 13-year-old to run in the races organised by Frank Horwill at Crystal Palace, and has maintained his membership ever since. Since 1995, he has organised competitions at many venues, particularly Watford, which has built a legendary status for fast times. As Grand Prix director since 1999, Tim has overseen meetings across the country. Tim became chairman of the BMC in 2006, modernising what it does but staying true to core principles.