What 12 months of using NURVV has taught me about my running

NURVV Run’s CFO Tom Pearce started running around 13 years ago to lose a few pounds and quickly fell in love with the sport. He’s run five marathons including London (twice), Brighton, Florence and Berlin, and is running London again this October (fingers crossed!).

After trialling various NURVV Run prototypes, he’s been running with the finished product since 2019. He told us what the past year has taught him about his running.

Injury doesn’t have to be part of running

‘I’ve always hated being injured and unable to run. It makes me feel like I’m losing my fitness and it doesn't help ‘the head’, either. I find running is such a great way of de-stressing at the end of the day

‘Before I started working at NURVV, I was going through a spate of injuries. I’d been watching YouTube videos and seeing physios to try and get to the bottom of it. One of the things a lot of people were saying was that the way your foot hits the ground can affect your likelihood of getting injured.

‘I’d noticed on race photos that my legs looked like I was pulling myself along rather than bounding so I’d been deliberately trying to work on my technique, increasing my cadence – the amount of times your feet hit the ground each minute as you run – and trying to run with my feet landing under my body. Gradually it was making a difference.

‘When I first heard about NURVV Run, I thought, “Wow, this is great, something that will actually show me how my feet are landing rather than having to guess.” Using NURVV for the past 12 months has given me loads of information about my technique and helped me identify areas to work on to reduce my injury risk – it’s the longest period without injury I think I’ve ever had.’

I actually like audio coaching

‘Initially I was a bit sceptical about the live coaching aspect of Pace Coach – NURVV’s in-run coaching feature. I didn’t think I’d like having a voice in my ears so it took me a while to use it, but I actually really enjoy it. I find the coaching prompts helpful for reining me in, so I can maintain a steady pace without going out too fast and blowing up or getting injured.’

I know what I need to work on to increase my speed

‘I had major lung surgery last year, which has significantly impacted my running. I’ve had to reduce my distances, go a bit slower and manage my expectations. While I’m never going to be as fast as I was, I also thought one of the reasons I was running slower was my step length. I’d been working on my cadence but my stride wasn’t brilliant.

‘Using Pace Coach on a faster run validated this. It showed that during 70% of my run, my cadence was in the target zone, but my step length was only hitting the target 30% of the time. Now I’m concentrating on increasing step length to improve my pace – it’s definitely helping.’

Stats are really motivating

‘I find monitoring my Running Health Score – a number showing how sustainable and healthy your running is by looking at key aspects of your technique and training load – almost addictive. I like to see how I’m progressing and get really drawn into it.

‘When I first started running with NURVV my Running Health Score was in the 60s, now I’m on 84. My cadence and training load are good but pronation and balance are the areas I need to work on. It’s good to have running goals that aren’t just time or distance based.’