Ultra-endurance didn’t always come naturally to Jonny Davies. The only running the former rugby player was used to was explosive sprints and post-training punishments. ‘When you're playing rugby or football, you never jog,’ he tells Runner’s World. ‘You’re always trying to get from A to B as fast as possible, beat your opposite man.’
He’s certainly come a long way since then. After taking up longer distances in 2019, Davies has become the first person to run between all of London’s underground stations, covering 354 miles (570km) in just over 11 days. Last year for his Run The Capitals challenge, he ran almost 600 miles (960km) between every capital city in the UK and Ireland in 11 days and 12 hours.
They’re remarkable achievements but, for Davies, documenting failure is just as important as success – something that’s endeared him to a social-media following that now numbers almost half a million. From rugby sprinter to capital cruncher, here’s how Jonny Davies makes each training session as rewarding as the last.
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Hack your mindset
There’s no shortcut to getting round a mental block, but powering through comes with its own rewards. ‘When we quit anything, it's not because our body's completely gone and we can’t go a step further, it’s because our brain’s protecting us,’ says Davies. ‘Ultimately the only way around that is setting a really audacious goal and giving it a go. You generally end up surprising yourself with your capacities.’
Use tech to your advantage
It’s worth investing in the right tech to support these lofty targets. ‘I always start any training block with a real check-up on the body. That comes through data,’ says Davies. ‘There’s no point ramping into a high-mileage training block when there’s an underlying issue that’ll only be exacerbated by pushing myself harder.’
Davies’ current favourite wearable is the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra, which provides an impressively long battery life, military-standard testing and a comprehensive rundown of metrics for any runner looking to take their training to the next level. ‘I’m probably the worst judge of how I’m doing,’ admits Davies, ‘so taking objective data… we can tweak our strength and conditioning around improving certain areas.
‘It gives me a lot of faith in my training. The more you understand, the more confident you can be in your approach.’
Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra
Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra
Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra
Commit to consistency
‘People often fall short by being half committed. We’re quite good at talking ourselves out of things’ he says. ‘I have a big whiteboard in my apartment. If I put [a session] on the whiteboard, there’s no negotiation. The decisions been made.’
‘I’m able to remain consistent because I’ve got it there on the board. There’s something that feels so great about getting to the end of a week and seeing every session marked as complete.’
Stop fearing failure
‘I DNF’d on a half marathon the other day. I was running a Victoria Park event. I have a bit of a hip issue at the moment that I’m working on with the physio. He said that if it starts tweaking, stop running, go home and do an hour on a bike instead,’ says Davies. ‘I didn’t want to hide away from the fact: these things do happen. We’re not perfect.
‘The value is in giving it a go. If you attempt something and it doesn’t work out, that's fine. If you don’t try it at all, then there's nothing you can take away from it.’
Get quality sleep
Sleep is physically and mentally central to any good training routine, but is something that Davies has had to work on as the magnitude of his challenges has grown. ‘It’s the one thing that once I got on top of, everything else clicked,’ he says. ‘Those hours of sleep are when your body’s recovering – that’s when all the work you've done gets cemented in.’
Tech also plays a big role with sleep, with the Samsung Health app automatically monitoring time asleep, sleep stages and other elements like blood oxygen levels*. ‘Consistently good sleep is so important… the fact that there's so much technology available now to monitor, measure and improve sleep is fantastic,’ emphasises Davies. ‘It’s the missing piece. I’m at the age now where I will disappear early from dinners or evenings with friends for the sake of good sleep!’
Remember why you’re training in the first place
‘If I was always in a state of “I have to keep pushing”, I would fall out of love with this really fast,’ admits Davies. ‘Training blocks are long, and can be monotonous – you can get frustrated. Whereas I think [saying], “Hey, I can do this with my body – this is a really enjoyable thing to do”, and moving for the sake of moving, is a wonderful thing.
‘Giving yourself permission to enjoy the thing you’re doing, even if it is a race, is really important. We build up the importance of these things so much that often we forget to enjoy what we’re doing and the fact that we worked so hard to get here. It’s worthwhile to take those moments to appreciate it.’
Discover more at samsung.com
*Intended for general wellness and fitness purposes only. Requires smartphone operating on Android 11 or above with Google Mobile Services and the latest version of the Samsung Health app. Samsung account login and Galaxy smartphone is required for certain AI features.
