The High Performance Human
I'm Simon Ward, Health, Wellness and Performance Coach. This newsletter is for athletes in their late 50s and beyond — the ones who aren't slowing down, but training smarter. Whether you're chasing finish lines or just want to keep doing the sports you love for years to come, we'll explore the best strategies for performance, recovery, longevity, and living well for longer.
Be Battle Ready - Different Events. Same Foundations.
Different events, same foundations. How we’re preparing for a swim, ultra, paddleboard race and 700km gravel ride. Beth and I have committed to four very different endurance challenges in 2026: A 2.4 mile open water swim from Nevis to St Kitts A 50km trail ultra A 40km stand up paddle-board race A 700km multi-day gravel ride along the Camino in Spain At first glance, these appear to require four separate training programmes. Swimming fitness, ultra-specific run durability, paddle-board...
Be Battle Ready - The Ironman Principles That Stood the Test of Time (15 years on)
The Ironman Principles That Stood the Test of Time (15 years on) Beth has been doing what she does best lately: keeping me honest. She dug out a poster I made about 15 years ago, back in 2011/2012, with a list of training and racing principles I used to send out to athletes. “Guiding lights,” I called them. And then she decided the only fair way to revisit them was to read them out to me while I was not allowed to look at the list. No cheating. No polishing the answers. Just a live audit of...
Be Battle Ready - Fit Does Not Mean Safe: Nick Parkes’ Wake-Up Call for Every Masters Athlete
Fit Does Not Mean Safe: Nick Parkes’ Wake-Up Call for Every Masters Athlete If you train hard, race often, and feel strong for your age, it’s easy to believe you are sorted. Nick Parkes felt that too. On 30 July 2023, at the GB National Open Water Championships at Rother Valley, Nick stood on the pontoon ready to race the “triple crown” (5k, 3k, 2k). No wetsuit. Great form. Recent podium overseas. In his words, he felt “invincible”. Nick Parkes swam 36k/wk and was English National AG...
Be Battle Ready - Top 10 Actions Over 50 to Stay Battle Ready
Beth and I recorded a two part podcast on the 10 actions that matter most once you hit 50. Part one is the foundations. Part two is the levers that really move the needle once the basics are in place. This article pulls them together into one simple Battle Ready framework you can actually use. Listen to part 1 - HERE The big idea If you do nothing, the decline still happens. Your healthspan shrinks faster than your lifespan. But if you play this sensibly and consistently, you can hold onto...
Be Battle Ready - Protein for Endurance Athletes Over 40: How Much You Need and Why
Protein is having its moment in the popular press. Great. The problem is, most of the chat online is either gym-bro extremes or fear stories about kidneys. What you actually need is a simple framework you can use week in, week out. Here’s the Battle Ready version, built from my two-part podcast chat with performance nutritionist Dr Jules Strauss. 1) The RDA is about surviving, not thriving The recommended daily allowance (RDA) sits roughly around 0.8 to 1.0 g per kg of bodyweight per day for...
Be Battle Ready - Why Your Gut Is Affecting Your Sleep, Mood and Performance
How to start fixing it For years, when athletes struggled with poor sleep, anxiety, repeated illness, IBS, or race-day stomach issues, we treated these as separate problems. Sleep coaches talked about sleep. Nutritionists talked about food. Coaches talked about pacing and training load. But increasingly, one system keeps showing up at the centre of it all. The gut. In recent podcast episodes, I sat down with Harvey Fortis, a performance nutritionist and researcher completing his PhD at...
Be Battle Ready - How a Booze Vacation Can Help You Regain Control of Your Health
How a Booze Vacation Can Help You Regain Control of Your Health In this week’s Be Battle Ready Podcast, I sat down with Clifford Stephan, founder of Booze Vacation, to explore how taking a step back from alcohol can radically improve your health. For most of our lives, we get away with more than we realise: Late nights, poor food choices, a few too many pints, scraping by on patchy sleep, training hard and assuming recovery will somehow take care of itself. In our twenties and even thirties,...
Be Battle Ready - Broken Endurance: Why Smarter Running Beats Harder Running.
Broken Endurance: Why Smarter Running Beats Harder Running. For decades, endurance athletes have worn suffering like a badge of honour. We’ve been taught that the only way to get faster is to run longer and push harder — that stopping, walking, or even taking a break is a sign of weakness. But what if that mindset is holding us back? In a recent BeBattleReady Podcast conversation with world-renowned running coach Bobby McGee, we explored a concept that’s reshaping how endurance athletes —...
Be Battle Ready - The Complete Guide to Fasting for Athletes: What 3 Hours with a Sports Nutritionist Taught Me
The Complete Guide to Fasting for Athletes: What 3 Hours with a Sports Nutritionist Taught Me The Complete Guide to Fasting for Athletes: What 3 Hours with a Sports Nutritionist Taught Me I'll be honest with you - before sitting down with Dr. Jules Strauss for three hours to discuss fasting, I thought I had a pretty good handle on the topic. I'd experimented with it myself, seen the social media hype, and watched athletes around me try everything from 16:8 protocols to extreme multi-day...
BeBattleReady - Creatine Isn't Just for Bodybuilders: The Brain-Boosting Supplement Every Endurance Athlete Should Consider
Creatine Isn't Just for Bodybuilders: The Brain-Boosting Supplement Every Endurance Athlete Should Consider I’ve had an on/off relationship with creatine for years. In my early twenties I hit the gym more than I rode my bike and wanted to get bigger. Creatine was my supplement. When I started in triathlon I didn’t think I needed it as an endurance athlete. Then I heard about the power benefits and started taking it again but after gaining a couple of pounds, I stopped (turns out I shouldn’t...
I'm Simon Ward, Health, Wellness and Performance Coach. This newsletter is for athletes in their late 50s and beyond — the ones who aren't slowing down, but training smarter. Whether you're chasing finish lines or just want to keep doing the sports you love for years to come, we'll explore the best strategies for performance, recovery, longevity, and living well for longer.