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      ‘At that time I was working in Jakarta as an equities analyst. The roads out there are dire, so all my training had to be done on a treadmill. Plus, there are no trails and next to no running culture, even amongst the ex-pats. I’ve never seen a gym before or since where all the treadmills are taken by people walking!’

      Training four times a week, doing three shorter runs and one long run of up to three-and-a-half hours each week on a treadmill brought with it some unique difficulties.

      ‘Running for that length of time on a treadmill is guaranteed to give you jelly legs,’ Naomi says, laughing at the memory. ‘And it’s very boring – I watched lots of CSI!’

      She also found that treadmill training was not good preparation for the impact of running on a hard road.

      ‘I suffered a stress fracture on my first post-marathon run a few days later, which put me out of action for about six weeks. Consequently, I didn’t run my next marathon until October 2007.’

      The mathematical part of my brain (the smallest part) kicks in. If it was four years before she did her second and third marathons, then she must have run 97 marathons in just four years! That’s some running. However, I’m wrong. Not, surprisingly, because my maths is rubbish but because, in actual fact, Naomi didn’t decide to go for 100 until another two years later, in 2009.

      ‘I ran the two marathons in 2007 and then I did seven in 2008,’ she explains. ‘Again, I really enjoyed them. I even did a back-to-back [two marathons in two weeks] and had no problems. And then a friend in the pub told me that a woman called Melanie Ross held the record for being the youngest woman in the UK to run 100 marathons and she was 34. He said I had loads of years on her and that I could take the record.’

      And she believed him?

      ‘Oh yes,’ she replies, ‘I did. When he said, “You could do this,” I thought about it and realised that I could.’

      And he’s still a friend?

      Naomi laughs surprisingly heartily for a woman of such slender frame and confirms that he is.

      ‘I really enjoyed it,’ she reiterates. ‘I don’t see the point in doing any of it if you don’t enjoy it, although when I’m halfway round a marathon, I nearly always tell myself never again!’

      I feel something akin to relief that this delightful, bright young woman is not, after all, suffering masochistic tendencies and I wonder about her views on training.

      ‘I think training is really important – I want to run faster as well as doing the numbers,’ she explains. ‘It’s easy to fall into the trap of doing a marathon at the weekend and then doing a four-or five-miler a couple of times in the week, but that won’t make you any faster.’

      The coach in me would have to agree with that sentiment, which begs the question whether Naomi belongs to a club and if she has a coach.

      ‘No, I don’t have a coach or belong to a club, apart from Fetch.’ (Short for ‘Fetcheveryone’ – a web-based club where runners, cyclists, swimmers and triathletes can exchange news and views, discuss races and maintain training blogs: www.fetcheveryone.com).

      ‘Although as soon as I’ve done my 100th, I’ll become a member of the 100 Club, I can’t wait to get my club shirt!’ she adds, excitement lending a quiver to her voice and reminding me of my own excitement when I went with my mum to buy a new Girl Guide uniform and ended up with a size 0 hat because my head was pea-sized. Not that that’s important right now, or indeed relevant. However, I can empathise with Naomi’s excitement.

      However, both Naomi and I seem to have digressed somewhat. Donning my size 0 coach’s hat, I am interested to learn what sort of training she does without a coach to advise her.

      ‘When I first started training at university, I became a gym-rat! I was doing an hour’s cardio session on a cross-trainer, plus a session on the treadmill and the rowing machine followed by lots of strength training, four or five times a week. I still train five times a week,’ she tells me, ‘but out of the gym with two or three mid-week runs, one or two steady, plus a tempo run of between 1 hour and 1 hour 20. My favourite session is fast 800 metre/1 mile interval runs.

      ‘Sometimes I train with my boyfriend, but not often as he’s too fast for me and I feel pressured to try and stay with him, not wanting to slow him down so I mainly train on my own, which I’m totally happy with.

      ‘Running is a solitary sport, which suits me,’ she goes on. ‘I like the time out to be free with my thoughts – I see it as down time. I’m very self-motivated and have no problem getting out to train, no matter what the weather. I enjoy being in touch with the seasons, seeing the first snowdrops and crocuses, the feeling that my mind and body are at one with nature.

      ‘I have definitely over-trained in the past, but I’m now much better at listening to my body and pulling back when necessary.’

      Coach Summer is glad to hear it.

      Despite this admission, Naomi tells me that she’s never had any real injuries and thinks she is lucky in this regard.

      ‘Although, actually,’ she admits, a moment later, ‘I did suffer from an overuse stress injury after the Brathay 10-in-10 at Windermere [10 marathons in 10 days], but rested for two weeks and was then fine again. And I had Achilles tendonitis after running on Chesil Beach for three and a half miles, but I think this was peculiar to the surface I was running on as I haven’t had any trouble with my Achilles since then. And now and again I suffer a bit from ITB.’ (Iliotibial Band Syndrome – a thigh injury often affecting the knee.)

      ‘I actually had to have two weeks off last January,’ she complains, ‘but normally I train all the time. I get scared that if I have time off, I will lose my endurance.’

      My coaching voice just will not keep quiet.

      ‘Sometimes,’ I venture, ‘it’s a good thing to rest. You won’t lose a good build-up of endurance that quickly. In fact, quite often if you have already built up a good endurance base over a long period of time, a rest will allow your body to re-energise itself and you may even find you run better immediately after a short lay-off or a reduction in training. Remember, your body gets tired and if it gets too tired, you will just run tired.’

      There’s a moment’s silence and I wonder if I’ve said too much, but then Naomi’s back again.

      ‘Actually,’ she admits, ‘I did have a week off at one point and then ran a personal best in my next race, knocking six minutes off my previous half marathon time.’

      I feel vindicated.

      As if marathon racing, training and a full-time job doesn’t keep her busy enough, Naomi has also recently taken up Dynamic Pilates, which apparently involves strength training and stretching, once a week.

      ‘I don’t have the patience for yoga or meditation,’ she explains. ‘Dynamic Pilates is hard work, it uses resistance and makes you sweat.’

      I ask her to elaborate further as I have never heard of it.

      ‘It’s supposed to help alleviate stiffness and stretch out the muscles, helping to lengthen them,’ she advises me.

      Hmm, maybe this is something I should look into myself. My muscles could definitely do with a good stretch. I’m not so sure about the hard work and sweating bit, though.

      As a coach I can’t help but be impressed by Naomi’s intelligent approach to her training, a lot of which she says she has picked up from various books on the subject.

      ‘I particularly like the American writer Sam Murphy and Runners World magazine,’ she says. ‘I just apply what I like to myself and keep a blog of my training and racing – it’s a good way of looking back and tracking my progress.’

      Of course I shouldn’t be surprised by Naomi’s approach. This is a woman who read classics at Oxford,

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