What the elites do differently: training lessons from 2026 running films
Inspiring YouTube videos from this year, and the training tips you can take from them
Content is getting ever better. Running videos have stepped up in quality, production values have skyrocketed. Brands are pumping money into many productions, elite runners are being coerced into filming their day-to-day lives and, to be honest, I’m here for it. Whether it’s seeing what Kilian Jornet puts in a smoothie, or watching David Roche pour sweat off a treadmill in his skiing gear, not only do they provide hours of entertainment, but they also deliver never-before-seen insights into elite runners’ training and racing tactics. Here are some of my recent favourites, plus the main training tip takeaway. Entertaining and informative – what’s not to love?
1. Megan Roche – Closing the Loop: an Ultra Heart Journey
TRAINING TIP TAKEAWAY – keep the joy of running close to the surface on every run
Megan Roche is a highly accomplished runner as well as a coach to many elite trail runners. If anyone follows her Strava, you’ll have seen her updates regarding her heart condition, which began following chest pain after a run in 2021 – as she says in Closing the Loop, ”It felt like someone shot me in the heart. It was kinda wild.”
Following tests, she was diagnosed with myocarditis and pericarditis – inflammation of the heart muscle and the tissue surrounding the heart that can cause serious health issues. This film follows her journey, along with her husband, ultra runner and co-coach David, as they navigate the highs and lows of diagnosis, treatment and two pregnancies across five years.
The joy both Meghan and David have for trail running, training and life in general – ”One of my favourite things to do on downhills is just grin,” she says as we follow her around one of her favourite trail loops – is infectious, as she explains how running helps her forget about the issues. But unfortunately, Megan is one of the 30% for whom pericarditis flares up again, over and over, during training and racing.
All runners can feel the fear the uncertainty of the situation brings – the heart is the core of our body, as she says, “the soul of my body that hurts”. Life, mortality, running, injuries, pain, parenthood and fear lead her to look at different ways of dealing with the condition, and the joy of finding a medication that could potentially be life-changing and allow her to continue to train and race won’t fail to produce a few tears.
2. Mark Darbyshire – Making Marks: The Fastest Trail 100 in UK History
TRAINING TIP TAKEAWAY – keep stress to a minimum during race day
This is a race story involving UK ultra running legend Mark Darbyshire, the unassuming Brummie who clocked 13:42 on the South Downs Way 100 in 2025, breaking Mark Perkins’ record that had stood since 2014.
Film My Run follows Mark along the 100 miles as he clips along at a remarkable pace, guzzling yoghurt and seemingly never fading. Along the way we meet his mum, who crews him with a remarkably simple philosophy that many other crews could learn from – ”I’ve only got one thing to do and that’s get to a point before him. That’s it. Give him some water or whatever. There’s no other commitment. I love it.”
Mark’s relaxed attitude to racing is refreshing – as he says in the film, he only took up running in later life to halt the drinking and smoking, and it turned out he was one of the best in the world, and now holds most of the course records on the UK’s hardest ultra marathons while keeping the fun of racing. He doesn’t keep splits on his watch, just runs to feel, then if he gets to halfway, he’s “in with a shout”.
Like he says: “It certainly makes you feel alive doing these things. It’s like being a kid again.”
3. Conner Mantz + The American Record
TRAINING TIP TAKEAWAY – knowing the ‘why ‘ of each workout will help you hit your target
This deep dive into Mantz’s training towards Boston 2025 and his attempt to break the US marathon record is engrossing – seeing how hard he worked in training can only serve to inspire your own workouts.
Interestingly, he likes to know the ‘why’ of every workout he does, and a target for each session, such as, ‘Did I fuel well? Did I listen to my coach? Did I push myself as hard as I wanted to? Did I go above that limit? In which case, I did it wrong’ – things all runners can take and use in their own workouts.
Also, he suffers the same nerves the night before a big race that we all do – he stays calm by reminding himself, “I just have to do what I’ve been doing in training and put it all together.”
4. Jennifer Lichter – The Interval Workout I Use to Build Speed for Ultras
TRAINING TIP TAKEAWAY – as Jenn says, “This is the stuff that makes you tough, dude!”
I’m a big fan of Western States’ 2026 winner Jenn Lichter’s YouTube channel as it’s packed with advice and tips for ultra runners. In this one, we get an insight into what it takes to be one of the best ultra runners in the world as we join her on her ‘broken tempo’ workout – 5 x 5 min hilly tempo followed by 3 x 4 min on road.
She starts by revealing her pre-session fuelling – homemade chocolate chip cookies. Her videos appeal due to their low-budget nature – no flashy effects, no music, just Jenn grinding out a workout in cold, wet and windy conditions. This is what it takes to achive your goals.
She sums up what many runners think on the second hill rep of five: “Dude, the last one’s gonna hurt!”. As she runs along the roads, she yells greetings to local residents and does it all with a smile on her face.
Motivating and inspiring – one to watch before a tough session.
5. Paula Radcliffe – Chasing Stars
TRAINING TIP TAKEAWAY – don’t slow at the top of hills – instead, run hard and keep going over the summit
Radcliffe reflects on her remarkable achievements while training towards completing her Six-Star marathon journey and battling a long-term recurrent foot injury in this polished film with plenty of archival racing footage.
It’s full of nuggets of wisdom for runners, including quotes from Joan Benoit-Samuelson and Chris Thompson, but this is my favourite, from Paula herself when revisting an old cross-country route she ran in Boston:
“My dad had always taught me when I was a little kid that when he running up a hill keep running hard over the top because most people get to the top and think okay I’ve made it to the top now I’m going to take a little breather. But if you keep running hard, you can gain some ground at the top of the hill. I tried it and it worked – I was actually able to beat Yunxia Wang that day who went on to set the world records later on.”
6. Black Trail Runners – We Are Here – Making History at UTMB
TRAINING TIP TAKEAWAY – you don’t have to run fast paces to finish an ultra – many runners walk or hike large sections
Not elites in this one, but it’s an inspiring film I wanted to include for a number of reasons. Ultra running has a clear diversity problem – look at any start line and it’s overwhelmingly white and male. British trail runner Sabrina Pace-Humphreys is actively trying to change that. She set up the Black Trail Runners group in 2020 with the aim of increasing representation in the sport – as she says in the video, only 17% of runners at UTMB last year were women, and of those just a handful were of black ethnicity. By doing this she is building a legacy, breaking down barriers and showing other black women that “you belong here too, but we have to claim it”.
Here we follow seven women from Black Trail Runners who have travelled to Chamonix to tackle races from the ECM to the full UTMB itself. They all go on their own journeys, battling the weather, the elevation, the cutoffs and mental demons. For those that make it to the finish, they cross the line grinning, relieved, exhausted, bursting with joy while holding their kids’ hands.
For those that don’t make it to the finish, we experience their raw emotions of witnessing them denied their dream by minutes. But it’s clear it serves to stoke the fire within to return to Chamonix to take revenge on the course.
7. Floberg Runs –Sub-2:29 at the Boston Marathon
TRAINING TIP TAKEAWAY – you can achieve things you think are beyond you if you put the work in
Eric Floberg puts his entire Boston experience together in this film with minimal voiceover, instead backed largely by music, as he aims for a big target – sub-2.30 at the 2026 race. We see him attempting to carb load the day prior to the race, showing how tricky it is to get the carbs in when travelling to another city around shakeout runs and Red Sox games.
Then we get the day of the race, and a moment that unexpectedly got to me – as he waited for the race to start, out in Hopkington, he stumbled across an old lady – Mary – playing accordion and was overcome with emotion following his grandfather’s death just 15 days prior.
The race itself features a mile by mile poetic commentary by Floberg and his target to stay at 5.43 per mile. Does he achieve it? You’ll have to watch....
8. The Cutoff – A Film for the Rest of Us
TRAINING TIP TAKEAWAY – if the cutoff beats you, go back and kick its ass, and kick it hard
Another non-elite film, but this one’s another diamond, concerning a race that’s slowly burrowing its way into my head, possibly because I’ve watched so many other gripping documentaries about it (The Chase, Sally McRae’s ‘Every Step Forward’, Heather Jackson’s’ Forever Changed’).
This one takes a different tack, though, and focuses on the back of the pack in the 2025 race. The ones chasing cutoffs. Squeezing through by minutes. The film follows a number of runners as they battle to stay in contention, against physical exhaustion, the elements, injuries and voices in their own heads.
It made me choke up on four separate occasions, in particularw hen Tony’s daughter runs out to meet him 200 miles in. Pure tugging-at-the-heartstrings moment. As Tony says, “Comfort’s become a disease. I like being comfortable but you never really find out what you’re capable of unless you get outside of your comfort zone and hurt.”
Ultimately, the film is about making the most of life. Of embracing challenge. Adventure. Not missing these moments that marathons and ultras bring:
“In the end, time is the only thing that cutoff measured. Not heart, not effort, not who you became along the way. It just keeps moving forward, indifferent and exact. And in racing against it, you are reminded that the most meaningful moments aren’t the ones where you beat the clock but the ones we chose to live fully while it was counting down.”
9. Casquette Verte se FRACTURE le Cheville – Arc of Attrition by UTMB
TRAINING TIP TAKEAWAY – embrace the madness of whatever a race presents – until you physically can’t any longer
French runner Alexandre Boucheix, AKA ‘Casquette Verte’ (the Green Cap), crossed the Channel to run this year’s brutal Arc of Attrition 100-miler along the south coast of England in January. The race took place in a named storm – Storm Ingrid – and I can vouch for the conditions, as I was there running it too.
The route was muddy, sludgy and sloppy from mile two onwards. The Green Cap went out hard, and was in the leading pack when he slipped coming down a grassy hill at 27km and broke his ankle in the process. Unbelievably, despite the pain, he did not go immediately to hospital, instead attempting to help crew his friend. He tackles it all with humour and good nature, despite the clearly devastating outcome. Worth watching for the moment, in desperate attempt to reduce swelling, he tries savoy cabbage leaves.
10. Hans Troyer – Western States 2026: These Are the Times
TRAINING TIP TAKEAWAY – racing will always throw something new at you, the trick is learning how to deal with it
The phenomenon that is Hans ‘The Kid’ Troyer ran his second Western States this year and it’s no spoiler to say he went out in a blaze of glory as part of one of the most fiercely competitive fields the race has ever seen. Took it out hot… and bonked hard around mile 60.
His videos are never less than entertaining, and this is a detailed insight into what it takes to crew an elite runner at the historic 100-mile race. With six minutes to go to the start, he states how terrified he is, and states, “Let’s have ourselves a day.” In terms of what played out, that’s an understatement.
His snippets reporting back on the race five hours after his DNF provide valuable insights not just into his own strategies, but those of his competitors like Kilian Jornet, Jim Walmsley and Francisco Puppi. The nausea that he’d been dealing with since the start eventually led to his downfall – and it’s clear his first bout of mid-race stomach issues has taught him something: ”This sport is about learning.” Wise words from the “younger and fitter” Hans.
Do you have a YouTube running film you’d recommend that’s inspired you or you’ve learned from? Let me know in the comments!
