The Run Coach Who Went From Couch to 5K to Winning a 100-Mile Ultra
✔ UKA Coach in Running Fitness & Athletics Coach
✔ UESCA Certified Ultrarunning Coach
✔ BSc in Psychology
✔ Running Form and Movement Specialist
✔ UKA Trail Leader
✔ Couch to Ultramarathon Winner
✔ Mourne Way FKT
✔ Author of the Happy Diet
✔ Beecraigs BYU Race Director
How it all began...
I'm Kayleigh, and I avoided PE at school. Genuinely — I was the kid with a note, finding any excuse to sit on the bench. I didn't run a single step for sport until I was in my thirties.
I tell you that first because if you're reading this thinking you're not a runner, not sporty, not built for this — I know that feeling from the inside. I lived there for most of my life.
Then a Couch to 5K in November 2020. Half marathon in 2021. Marathon in 2022. A 50-miler in 2023. And in 2024 I won a 100-mile backyard ultra — last one standing, 31 hours on my feet. Not because I got fast. I never got fast. I'm still not. I win on positive mindset, patience and going slow, and it turns out that's a thing you can teach — which is more or less the whole point of me.
The bit most plans miss
You can have the perfect schedule sitting in your app and still fall apart at mile thirty. I know, because I have. And when it happens, the problem stopped being your legs a good while back — it's the self-doubt on the long runs, the race nerves that undo months of work in twenty minutes, the wee voice asking who you think you are.
I've got a psychology degree, and it's not there for decoration. It's how I coach. When we work on your head I'm using real tools and real research — visualisation, attention control, reframing the way you talk to yourself when it's grim — and I explain why each one works in plain English, so it's yours to use whether I'm on the end of the phone or not. Most coaching treats mindset as a wee bolt-on module. For me it's the foundation, because on race day your head and your legs have never once operated separately.
That's the thing people are usually looking for when they find me. They've done the training. They've read the books. The plan was never their problem.
The Year It Fell Apart
In 2025 I lined up for a 100-miler with what I'd told myself was a minor niggle. By mile 36 I knew it wasn't. I DNF'd — my first ever — and got the diagnosis: stress fracture. I'd been due to race 215 miles across Scotland and represent Team Scotland at the 4 Nations Backyard Ultra Championship. Both gone, just like that.
I'll not pretend I took it gracefully at first. But the world didn't end. I'd built my whole identity around running and suddenly it was away, and I had to actually use every mindset tool I'd been teaching — on myself, for real, when it counted. I came back stronger for it. And I coach differently now, because I know exactly what it feels like to lose the thing you love and have to find your way back. You can't get that from a certificate.
Race Director: Beecraigs Backyard Ultra
Being injured is what turned me into a race director. I took my backyard ultra obsession one step further and founded the Beecraigs Backyard Ultra near Linlithgow.
I love the format — one loop, one hour, repeat until you can't, no advantage for the fast starters. It's the tortoise and the hare played out in real time.
But running the event taught me the loop was never just a course. You watch people turn up not knowing a soul and leave with a crew who get it. That's the whole thing, really — the running's the excuse, the people are the point.
When I'm not coaching
I live in my campervan, chasing trails round Scotland and beyond with my wee dog Bowski riding shotgun. I set an FKT on the Mourne Way in Northern Ireland. I wrote a plant-based cookbook, The Happy Diet. I'm alcohol-free and daft about homemade honey energy gels. None of it is polished. That's sort of the point of me too.
Why Run Smile Inspire?
Because that's my whole story in three words. I started with zero background in sport, carried along by the encouragement of other people, and now I hand that same spark back through coaching and storytelling.
The smile is real, by the way. It's in every finish-line photo, every soggy training run, every hill I probably shouldn't have attempted. I smile when it hurts. I smile when it's going well. It's just what I do, and it turns out it's contagious.
I'm just an ordinary person doing slightly daft things. And if I can, honestly, so can you.
If You've Read This Far
The best feedback I ever get isn't about PBs or finish times. It's when someone messages to say "you made me think I could do that too." That's the job. I'm an ordinary person who did some daft things by being patient and stubborn and kind to myself when it got hard — and every one of those is something I can help you build.
There are two ways in. Full one-to-one coaching if you want the whole thing — head, legs, fuelling, the lot, moving week to week around your actual life. Or a one-off training plan review and consultation if you're not ready for that and just want an expert set of eyes on what you're already doing.
Change can come in a few weeks, or take up to a year if it's deep-rooted. But it comes. I've watched it happen too many times to doubt it now.
Come and have a blether — the first call's free, and there's no pitch if it's not right for you.
IN THE MEDIA
About Kayleigh from the Blog
