Listed below are the fully trained coaches within Steel City Striders.

Feel free to contact any of them with any training questions you may have; training plans, session plans etc.

You can find each of them on the contact us section of the website.

Peter Brown has been a UK Athletics Level 2 Endurance Coach for over thirty years whilst he has been a member of Steel City Striders since 2000.

In 1984, wanting to get fit enough to go winter hill walking in the Cairngorms, he began by making the common error of many starting in the sport by trying to run a marathon. But this was the era of Coe, Cram and Ovett and he then tried middle distance which was perhaps unwise for somebody with a fundamental lack of speed ending up mainly running the steeplechase as no one else at his club wanted to do it at the time. Back in the day his pb’s were 16:42 (5000m), 34:55 (10k) and 77:41 (half marathon). He never really got the trip for the marathon despite having completed eighteen of them his best being 2:53:51. Obviously he can’t get anywhere near these times nowadays.

Nevertheless, this track orientated background has proved to be extremely valuable and its discipline underpins Peter’s coaching philosophy: if you want to run a good marathon, then you need to run a good half and if you want to run a good half then a decent 10k time is essential. Scornful of short cuts, this is all based on hard work and good old fashioned mileage with his personal training regime being defined by a regular pattern of Hills or Long Reps on Tuesday, Track on Thursday and a Long Run at the weekend. He regularly uses the word consistency.

Peter looks after track sessions at Woodbourn Road every Thursday evening.

Away from the track, Peter’s alter ego is that of archaeologist with a particular attraction to sewer lamps so beware if you ever go on a long run with him.

Ian Stinson has been a member of Steel City Striders since 2006. He began running socially while working in London but, really took running more seriously on return to his native Yorkshire. Ian has raced in many of the local road races over the years as well as a few international marathons – ‘a great way to see a city’. Recently he has moved to doing more off road races and particularly enjoys the fells of the Dark Peak. Ian completed his first two day mountain marathon with other Striders in 2015.

He has completed the Coach in Running Fitness qualification (CIRF) and is grateful to the club for giving him the opportunity and supporting him through the course.

Ian looks after the Tuesday night speed sessions for the club at Millhouses Park. These are aimed at runners who are new to speed work but want to improve their times in 5k, 10k and half marathon events.

Ian organised the cross country teams for Steel City for many years and still enjoys turning out at the cross country league events which he believes are great races for developing both strength and speed during the winter.

Victoria Hawkins

I ran my first 10k (Dronfield) in 2013 and joined Striders shortly afterwards.

The club has given me amazing support over the years and through it my running journey has been so enjoyable, I am now proud to be able to give back to the club and to support them.

Having completed 10k’s and Half Marathons I felt that road running and chasing the ever challenging PB wasn’t my passion and changed tarmac for mud! I can now be found on the fells ( day and night! ) usually wet through and knee deep in mud with a big grin on my face.

I have supported Matt Rimmer at the Millhouses 5-10k courses for the past 3 years and it is through these courses watching and learning from Matt that I felt capable of progressing from my LIRF (Leadership in Running Fitness) to my CIRF (Coach in Running Fitness).

I hope to continue to support the club, Matt and the 5-10k courses and to improve my running and experience so in turn I can help and support others in our club to improve their running and to maybe encourage them to have a try at off road running.

Our Club is growing in numbers and strength and it is a pleasure to be a small part of it.

Mick Wall is a johnny come lately to running having only started to run in straight lines once his long, but uneventful Sunday morning football career came to an end. He joined Striders in 2013 and was soon elevated to club geek having offered to assist in turning around the club’s online presence; website, Twitter, online membership, mailing list etc. A role that he looks back on with pride.

This love of spreadsheets, data and all things IT lead him to question his own fledgling training. He would be found frequently asking questions about training on the Striders Facebook page, why? How? What if? His geeky ways meant that he wanted to know about heart rates, training paces etc and understand them.

Ultimately, he never gets enough time to train properly and has probably taken his 10k and Half Marathon time as low as a 40 something body can do on 20 miles a week. Although his proudest Striders moment is his 2nd place in the V40 Road Race Championship of 2015. A feat he doubts he’ll ever get near again.

His training curiosity continued to grow and rather than using Dr. Google he turned to the printed books of renowned coaches like Browning, Daniels, Lydiard and Pfitzinger. This led to him writing ‘Building a Training Plan’ for the club website, summarising much of what he’d read and sparked his interest in becoming a coach. This has been followed up with a revised training document Train Smarter: Have a Plan.

He has also spent a lot of time recently chewing the coaching fat with Stuart Hale at Accelerate Performance Centre, specifically about strength training where both men agree that strength training is the often overlooked, but critical part of training. Quite simply, to run fast and to run fast for a long time you need to be strong for running. Cue another article for the website: Strength, Stability, Exercises and Drills.

Mick believes that everything starts with base aerobic work and strength, then you can build faster sessions on top starting with race pace before thinking about getting faster. Whilst not forgetting the golden rule of an 80/20 split in training that advocates 80% of your running be ‘easy’ and the remaining 20% be ‘hard’. All of this is detailed in the Building a Training Plan document and subsequently in Train Smarter: Have a Plan.

He’d be happy to answer any questions about training plans, training sessions or just advice on what to do next in your training. Just drop him an email.

Stephanie Street

I completed the England Athletics Coach in Running Fitness (CiRF) course in July 2016 and I am very grateful to Striders for putting me forward for the course and to Stuart Hale from Accelerate who was my Support Coach and from whom I have learnt so much.

I started running in 2005 when I did Race for Life then I got the running bug and joined Striders later that year. I ran the London Marathon for the first time when I was 50. Since then I have run it 5 times, improving my times on each occasion and gaining good for age entry status. I have also run Chicago, Edinburgh and Loch Ness marathons although now my preferred distance is half marathon and I ran Valencia half marathon in October 2016. I have also volunteered at the 2017 Athletics World Championships.

I like to see running used to highlight causes and I ran with Amy Hughes in 2014 when she completed her world record 53 marathons in 53 days for charity and in 2016 with Ben Smith who ran 401 marathons to highlight bullying and supporting charities Stonewall and Kidscape.

It is great to see so many more women in Striders over recent years. I want to see age group gender discrimination ended in race categories and challenge this when I come across it as all ages and genders should have their achievements acknowledged.

I retired in 2015 and this gave me the opportunity to get my priorities right and put running and fitness first and fit other things around it. Myself and my partner Ian started the Tuesday daytime Striders session at Millhouses that year which is a friendly relaxed run exploring a variety of routes and ending with a social get together in the park café. I have also led a 5k to 10k course and Strength and Technique sessions for Striders.

• Some of the things I have learnt are:
• Have a goal whether it’s entering a race, getting a time or distance to provide motivation.
• Get a training plan in place to reach your goal. One size does not fit all with training plans; they need to be built around the person.
• Long slow runs are not “junk miles” these form the basis of endurance strength and efficient fat burning that we need for long distance running.
• Supporting your running by developing strength and technique is essential to be an efficient runner and remain injury free.
• I have used heart rate training and have been amazed at how this has improved my times with less effort.
• Running is as much about how you deal with setbacks such as illness and injury and I have had my share of these so strive to keep a positive mental attitude.

Now I have completed the CiRF this is the beginning of my journey as a coach and will be looking at more specialist training opportunities. Areas I want to learn more about are sport psychology and how running affects mental wellbeing. If you feel I could help you with your running then please drop me a line or pop along to Millhouses on a Tuesday morning and I would be pleased to meet you.

Matt Rimmer

From doing a bit of running and football at school and college and realising I would not make it as a pro I decided to go down the coaching root. I went on to qualify as a football coach and to work for several Football in the Community programmes, as I still do now.

I got back into running in 2012 doing a 10k in 1 hour 20 with mates from work. The same year I entered the Sheffield Half and got the running bug. I have completed events from 5k to 50 miles on road, trail and fell.

I joined the Striders in 2015 with the same thoughts as most, I’d be at the back holding people up. It turned out that did not happen. They were very welcoming and I soon realised it did not matter if you are at the front or back, everyone still gave their all and was supported whatever they were doing.

After finding out about leading and coaching opportunities I asked about doing a Leadership course and the club were supportive of this.

Following on from gaining my Leadership in Running award, I put myself forward to help on the club’s 5K-10K courses. These have been really successful in the past helping people to achieve their own running goals, so I started leading these feeling a bit of pressure. The courses went really well and all leaders got nice feedback from the participants.

After the course I realised I already had some of the skills needed to coach the groups using my football coaching knowledge but I wanted to have more running specific knowledge. Once again, the club were really supportive and put me through the Coach in Running Fitness qualification. This has helped me gain a greater understanding of specific running training and the reasons behind the different sessions we all do. I have already used the information on the latest 5k-10K course and have had more confidence in knowing why we are doing certain sessions.

I feel that running should be enjoyable for all and everyone has their own specific goals, whether that’s complete a 5k or 100 miles. I’d be happy to help if anyone would like ideas for sessions or plans to achieve their goals, or just to chat about running as we are all obsessed with it.

Laura Fletcher

I’d never been one for exercise until my bad diet and habits caught up with me & I was borderline type 2 diabetes. Time to turn my life around.

So I quit smoking and unhealthy food and joined a gym. After gaining in confidence and fitness I got off the treadmill and hit the tarmac. 6 months later I signed up for a 10k to carry on my new found love for running and for motivation to keep going.

During this race I was amazed at all the gold and green vests running by me and how they all cheered and supported each other. So after completing the race I took to the internet and found more info about the Steel City Striders.

A few weeks later I went along to a training session at Graves and I’ve never looked back!

Countless 10ks, half marathons and 2 marathons later my times have been dramatically reduced and the knowledge and confidence I gained thru the club was amazing.

The club sent me on the LIRF course and I helped lead a few 5-10k groups before leading groups on a Monday night from Heeley. This continued when I moved across town to Hillsborough and eventually, I became venue rep for this side of town at HLC on a Wednesday evening.

I love watching people join the club and the improvements they all make in their fitness and running. I found people were asking me for advice with their own running and thru my own experiences and knowledge I could help them carry on improving. I really enjoy this side of the club.

So the next step to becoming a coach seemed the perfect thing for me to do. I feel a great sense of pride in becoming a coach for the club that helped me with my own achievements. I hope to continue learning and developing my own skills and knowledge so that in turn I can continue to help others in their running journeys.