What 50 blog posts and 100 newsletters have taught me about running, cycling and the power of community
- Emma O'Toole
- May 10
- 5 min read
After writing 50 blog posts and 100 newsletters focused on running, cycling, and strength training for endurance athletes, clear patterns begin to emerge. Performance is rarely limited by a lack of effort or motivation, but by gaps in structure, recovery, and long-term consistency. This article reflects on the most important lessons learned from coaching runners and cyclists over 30, including the role of strength training, training structure, injury prevention, and the impact of community support. Emma O’Toole shares practical insights to help endurance athletes train more effectively and stay consistent over time.
Strength training for runners and cyclists over 30 is a game-changer for performance, resilience, and long-term health.
If you want the full breakdown, check out my Strength Training Over 30 Guides:
TRAINING BREAKDOWN
"Build an environment where your body can handle what you are asking of it, week after week, month after month."
By Emma O'Toole
Hi there!
I started writing a weekly newsletter about strength training for runners and cyclists with one goal: to share honest, practical coaching advice with people who love endurance sport.
One hundred newsletters later, and now fifty posts on this blog, I want to share what those weeks of writing have taught me. Not about strength training, although there is plenty of that to come, but about you, the readers who do these sports and why you do them.
We do not do this only for the data
Endurance sport attracts a certain kind of person. Driven, consistent, hungry to improve. The kind of person who sets a 5am alarm to get a run in before work, who plans their weekends around long rides, who feels genuinely unsettled when an injury interrupts training.
To those who don't "get it" we can get called obsessed, to those who do "get it", there's that unspoken bond.
We do this because we love it.
Running and cycling are not hobbies for most of us; they are part of who we are.
They shape our mornings, our weekends, our conversations, our sense of self. The physical gains, the PBs, the race finishes, those matter. But they are not the whole story.
What keeps people going year after year, through the niggles and the setbacks and the training blocks that do not go to plan, is the community around them. The people who understand. The ones who have been through it alongside you.
That is what I have learned more than anything else across one hundred newsletters and it is what I want to write about today.
What the first 19 weeks of 2026 look like in this community
I want to share some of the results from the runners, cyclists, and multi sport athletes I work with and who are part of the free BUILT TO ENDURE® community. These are real people with full lives, jobs, families, and commitments, doing extraordinary things in their sport.
In just the first 19 weeks of 2026:
Falk completed the Double ROAM, one of the most demanding cycling challenges I have ever seen an athlete take on. The ROAM requires a minimum of 400km with a minimum of 10,000 metres of elevation gain within 36 hours. Falk did it twice, finishing 1st overall with 2,485km, 65,200 metres of total elevation, and 20,370 metres climbed in a single effort, which is more than double the height of Everest.
Cheryl completed her first marathon, which is proof of months of belief, consistency, and courage.
Matthew completed a 200km and then a 300km audax, having only been able to ride for 30 minutes back in November last year. Four months of consistent, progressive strength training training took him from riding 30 minutes to 300km.
Rob ran his first 50km ultra marathon, which also happened to be his first marathon distance and beyond, all wrapped up in one event.
Carly ran her first 20 mile run through some of the most scenic views you will ever see on a training run, a reminder of exactly why we do this sport.
Robert knocked a whopping 50 minutes off his Etape Loch Ness time from last year, which is the result of a year of consistent and purposeful work.
Mhairi has moved from training to racing this year, entering her first time trials and her first road race. The confidence that takes after months of consistent work is something worth celebrating just as much as any finishing time.
Stu ran a 1:24 half marathon PB, an incredible result that reflects months of smart, consistent and periodised strength training.
Liz knocked 6 minutes off her sprint triathlon time on the same course and set her fastest 10km time earlier on this year. What a way to start 2026!
Sarah has kicked off her racing season with two half marathons and a sprint triathlon.
Some of these athletes are coached by me directly, whilst others are community members who have taken what they have learned and applied it in their own training. Either way, these results belong to them.
And alongside the results I also want to acknowledge something else. Not every training block has gone to plan this year. Some athletes have had setbacks, training disrupted, races deferred, weeks that did not go the way they hoped.
What has got people through those moments isn't a training plan, it's the community around them: the people who show up when things get hard are just as important as the ones who celebrate when things go well.
What strength training has to do with all of this
Every single one of the athletes above has strength training built into their week. Not hours of it, two sessions of roughly 45 minutes, structured specifically around their running and cycling. It is integral to their training week, supporting everything else, and it is one of the things I write about most because it is one of the most consistently undervalued tools available to endurance athletes.
If you are a runner or cyclist over 30 who wants to train consistently, stay injury resilient, and keep improving year after year, structured strength training is one of the most important changes you can make... and it does not need to take over your week to make a difference as we saw in this post here where we saw the training data from athletes.
What is coming next
There is a lot to look forward to in the months ahead.
The free BUILT TO ENDURE® coaching community for runners and cyclists over 30 continues to grow and I want it to keep becoming a better and better resource. More coaching conversations, more guides, more practical content on strength training for endurance athletes.
BUILT TO ENDURE® clothing is coming very soon and I genuinely cannot wait to share more on that.
And there are more newsletters, more blog posts, and more in depth resources on the way covering strength training, periodisation, race preparation, and injury prevention.
Come and join us
If any of this resonates and you want to be part of a community of runners and cyclists over 30 who are training consistently, supporting each other, and doing things like the results above, I would love to have you in the free coaching community.
It is free to join, there are over 800 members already inside, and it is the place where these conversations continue beyond the newsletter and the blog.
And if you are looking for a starting point with strength training, you can grab a free strength workout, one for runners and one for cyclists, when you join.
Happy running and riding!
Emma x
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