Lighter Not Faster
Lighter Not Faster
By Ambassador, Jonathan Davies
In December 2021, I was struggling with chest pain. Upon speaking to a doctor, I was advised to lose some weight to try to help this. At the time, I was mainly playing football while doing some running on the side. I started slightly reducing what I ate and moving more. I thought I was merely becoming healthier but ultimately this left me unable to run, isolated from friends and family and living with REDs."
The number on the scales dropped, and my athletic performance improved exponentially, making county teams for the first time on the track and cross country. This further fuelled the idea that lighter equals faster. So, I carried on losing weight, under fuelling and over-training and saw no ill effects until August 2024. By this time, I had placed highly in County Championship cross country, made the county team and broken all my PBs I had tried to."
In August 2024, I did my first 5k on the track. This was too much for my legs which had insufficient fuel to repair and recover so, when I went for a long run the next day, not even halfway through my shin flared up. Luckily, no stress fracture but this put me out of proper training for just over a month.
By the time I returned, I moved to the University of Bath to start my first year. Surrounded by elite athletes, I chose to focus on my running. I immediately saw rapid improvements from my drastically increased mileage with 100+ kilometre weeks coupled with multiple hours of cross training to supplement. My methods were validated by my performances throughout the cross-country season, winning the U20 Oxfordshire League title and placing highly in the Gloucestershire League cross countries for the university team.
The first sign that my body couldn’t take this load was when I picked up a cold at the start of November 2024 which lasted for 6 weeks before I could properly do any running again. I then instantly resumed by high volume training to catch back up to where I was before.
When road and track season 2025 came around I had lofty ambitions based on my training. However, in every race there was a similar pattern, start off strong and tail off. Instead of taking this as a sign to fuel more for the races, I thought I had to train more. Immediately after one of my 5k races, I went to Portugal for a week on a warm weather training camp. Double sessions every day, led to high levels of fatigue upon returning which took weeks to shake. Sessions became harder and performances plateaued and dipped ultimately.
Throughout summer, I increased the mileage and the intensity desperate to see results. Most of the summer season was underwhelming, and I couldn’t hit any goals.
Going to the Lake District on holiday I coupled my high mileage with hikes, and this is where my body really started to struggle. Constant fatigue, sleep disruption and being highly irritable were the first signs that my body was protesting against the training. A down week with no proper sessions and only one run a day managed to regain some of the energy and I felt able to resume training.
I returned to Bath for my second year of studies and took training to the extreme. Highest mileage weeks ever, even more cross training, less fuel. Every Saturday morning session fasted, every Sunday long run, including a 30km run to Bristol without a bit of fuel before, during or until a couple of hours after. Stepping on the scales, I was dangerously light at risk of injury and further health complications.
On top of this, it had started to affect my relationships with friends and my girlfriend. Very low libido, high irritability, 3 hours of sleep a night, obsession of getting training done and food. I was at rock bottom, isolating myself from my friends, food noise very loud, exhausted and miserable. This is when I reached out for help."
From January to May 2026, I was unable to run as I was too weak but persisted with hours of cross training a week. By restoring some weight, I managed to resume training and as of the middle of July I have smashed both my 10k and 5k PBs off of not much training which shows that lighter does not equal faster. From experience I can say that REDs not only affects you but greatly affects your relationships with those closest to you.
In short, a fuelled body is a healthy body, and a healthy body is a faster body. If you are struggling with REDs, overtraining or eating reach out to others to seek help. This is the hardest but the best step to take and you will see immense improvements. I wanted to put my story out there so other people and especially male athletes who are where I have been feel there is support out there and that they are not alone in it.
For years I believed that becoming lighter would make me faster. REDs taught me the opposite. A fuelled body is a healthy body, a healthy body is a fast body, and no personal best is worth sacrificing your health to chase."