Hi, I'm Julie

I haven't always run in the mountains

In my twenties, I was far more interested in a big night out than a big day in the hills.

I loved raving. The music, dancing, friends and freedom.

I went on to build a successful career in IT. I exercised, but mostly to look better in clothes and enjoy those feel-good hormones. From the outside, life probably looked pretty good. And plenty of it was great fun.

But anxiety, poor sleep, gut problems and far too much drinking were also part of everyday life.

Life got hard for a good while

In my early thirties, I developed PTSD. Life was a real struggle, but I knew I needed help. It was a long journey, which became 17 years of therapy.

As I slowly began to recover I started exploring different ways of understanding myself and looking after my health.

But that didn’t mean I stopped partying or suddenly started making sensible choices. Far from it! Sometimes what I was learning and how I was living were miles apart.

There were breakthroughs, wrong turns, mistakes, contradictions and plenty of small steps.

I wanted to run screaming from the yoga mat

The first time I was asked to lie still for ten minutes at the beginning of a yoga class, was a turning point.

There was nothing relaxing about it. It was ten minutes of panic and forcing myself not to run screaming from the room.

Instead of never going back. I thought… hmmm that’s a bit odd. Probably should investigate that.

And I’m glad I did.

Yoga helped me learn to relax. It gave me ways to manage anxiety and panic, eased my back pain and sometimes left me feeling genuinely good in myself.

I loved it enough to become a yoga teacher in 2015.

Being a yoga teacher didn’t answer all my questions

As I got more into running and training, I was discovering there was still a lot I didn’t understand about how my body worked.

I was getting fitter, stronger. So why was I getting injured?

I started training harder, Bootcamps, heavier weights, running. I loved it. But I was starting to carry more niggles and bigger injuries.

At one point, I couldn’t run without pins and needles down my back and arm. My shoulder was so painful I could barely sleep.

I was fit and doing so many of the ‘right things’. But I was sick of treatment after treatment, only to end up injured again.

But what I really wanted to know was WHY this kept happening. And HOW could I stop it happening again?

Nobody was giving me those answers.

I wanted answers, not another treatment.

“Relax your shoulders,” said every yoga teacher to me for years. Meanwhile me: THEY ARE RELAXED.

But my CHEK training introduced me to a completely different question.

Instead of trying harder to relax my shoulders, what needed to change so they didn’t have to work so hard in the first place?

That was a light-bulb moment

My shoulder pain resolved. In fact, my shoulders felt like new shoulders!

Through this whole body approach old post rehab injuries were re-worked and my whole body felt more comfortable, more capable. This was what I had been seacrhing for.

I was ALL IN at this point.

I learned how to train hard without constantly getting injured.

I still loved training hard.

But I learnt the science of training. How to support training with better health. How to pay attention to how I moved and what to adjust. How to build programs to address pain but also training and life goals.

I could lift heavy weights, tackle complex movements and, for the first time in ages, train without constantly picking up another injury.

The challenge wasn’t just doing more. It was learning to do things better.

And I began bringing that understanding into my work with clients, helping them look beyond the bit that hurt.

Mountains, an ultra and begininning to believe

Around this time, I met Phil, who introduced me to the mountains. Before long, hikes became runs.

We signed up for a 100km challenge. The plan was to hike it. But as my body changed, I wondered, could I run part of this?

I’d spent much of my life believing I was weak, somehow less capable than other people.

But a bit like Neo in The Matrix, I was starting to believe!

It was a crack in some very old programming.

Phil is my partner and works alongside me in the business, with particular expertise in foot mechanics, gait and breathing.

I went from struggling round a half marathon to running my first ultra! Injury free

It wasn’t one magical exercise or one particular course. It was years of learning, experimenting and bringing different approaches together.

And that curiosity has not stopped. I am forever learning and refining.

Doing hard things is more than fitness and discipline

These days, I’m in my fifties. I run, lift weights and love long days in the mountains and trips to Italy for via ferrata adventures. Not bad for someone who didn’t discover the mountains until her mid-forties!

I’ve learned that doing big things takes more than being fit. It means building a body that can handle what you want to do, moving well, getting stronger and knowing how to really recover so you can get out there and do it again without causing problems.

And I’m still learning.

I love a big adventure, but I love my simple life too.

Time with Phil and the cats, good food, reading and days when absolutely nothing exciting happens.

I don’t need every weekend to be an adventure. I just love knowing that adventures are possible.

Back then, I didn’t know a life like this was possible for me.

Now, I still don’t know what’s possible for me.

And these days, I’m excited to find out.

Experience & training

I’ve been teaching movement since 2015 and working one-to-one with clients since 2018.

I’ve helped people with everything from runners’ knee and recurring back pain to persistent neck and shoulder problems, as well as working with people living with neurological conditions.

My training includes the CHEK Practitioner & Holistic Health Coach, Yoga teacher training , Chi Running, Oxygen Advantage Advanced Instructor, Heart Math.

Got a pain or injury problem you can't seem to solve?

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In a free 30-minute call, we’ll look at your problem from a different angle and explore what might have been missed.

No obligation to work together afterwards.