British steeplechaser looks at the work that led to him winning the national title in Birmingham

Phil Norman successfully defended his British 3000m steeplechase title with victory at the UK Athletics Championships in August.

The result itself was not particularly exceptional – he ran 8:40.47 to take the win ahead of Zak Seddon in second (8:40.69) – but after the disappointment of his non-selection for the 2024 Olympic Games and a return to full-time work, it was an immensely satisfying performance that brought to life the possibility of a return to the Alexander Stadium for the European Championships in 2026.

The 35-year-old could have certainly been forgiven for sitting it out.

His last outing in the 3000m steeplechase was an 8:18.65 lifetime best and championship record in Manchester in June 2024. It was the fastest performance by a British steeplechaser in 30 years (sixth all-time, at the time) but was agonisingly short of the UKA qualifying standard for Paris (8:18.50). It was track and field at its best and worst.

“Physically I am in the shape and form of my life… but mentally and emotionally I have nothing left to give,” he admitted at the time. He told AW it would be his last ever championships, possibly his last ever steeplechase.

But Norman loves this brutal, beautiful sport, and nine weeks prior to the 2025 edition of the UK Athletics Championships he reached out to his Slovenia-based coach Tomaž Pliberšek with a clear goal: he wanted to defend his title.

“At the time I was just coaching myself,” says the North Devon athlete. “At the end of last season, and after everything, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do going forward and I didn’t think it was fair on him [coach Pliberšek] just to string him along. I told him I was going to carry on running, but I didn’t want to put him out or have him put a plan together if I wasn’t sure what I was going to do.

“When I called him I was in pretty good shape aerobically, I just felt like I needed to do some specific work. I said: ‘If you can get me doing the right things to race in nine weeks’ time then I’d like to do the Champs and try to defend my title’. He said: ‘I’m always in your corner. If that’s what you want do, let’s do it’.”

This year wasn’t about chasing times or making teams, however. “I didn’t want to put myself through that again,” says Norman. It was all about taking the pressure off and enjoying it. He had taken paid leave from mid-February 2024 to focus on the Olympic Games; this time around he was working throughout.

He ran his first steeplechase race of the season in early July, clocking 5:33.74 for the 2000m steeplechase at the National Athletics League meeting in Derby. He had opened with an almost identical time the previous year and gone on to run a series of very quick 3000m steeplechase times, including a trio of impressive back-to-back performances in June that ranked in his top four all-time: 8:20.93, 8:19.58 and 8:18.65. In contrast, his 2025 British title win came in his first full-distance chase of the year.

This season – the prospect of which had seemed so unlikely amidst the disillusionment of Paris non-selection – has been a success, not just from a performance perspective (Norman believes he’s in as good shape as he’s ever been), but psychologically too. The Olympic Games is in the past; he is now looking to the future and a return to international competition.

“Bar the Olympics, competing at a home champs is one of the things I’ve most wanted to do in my career, so it would be nice to do that in Birmingham [at the 2026 European Championships],” he says. “I believe I can still perform just as well next year, so why wouldn’t I?”

Training week in run-up to the UK Champs

Norman, who trains alone, fits his training around his job as a pole tester for Openreach. He works full-time hours across four days (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday) and starts at 7:30am each day.

In spite of a return to work (compared to full-time training over this period in 2024) his training hasn’t changed drastically: “I might not have done quite as much basic mileage going into the spring just because I didn’t have the time to recover and fit it all in,” he says; “but in terms of the actual sessions I’m doing, I’d say it’s much the same.”

Monday: (am) 5-6 miles easy run before work (7:00-7:30min mile pace); (pm) 4 miles easy run followed by hurdles drills/strides and core workout (from home)
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: (am) track session focused on speed such as 15 x 400m off 75 seconds (in flats), averaging just inside 61 seconds, plus 2.5-mile warm-up and 2.5-mile cooldown. “I’ll sometimes practice the water jump with four or five run throughs before a session when I get closer to races,” he says.
Thursday: (pm) 9-10 miles easy run (around 7:00min mile pace) plus core
Friday: (pm) 8 miles with hill strides (for example, 15-second hill strides)
Saturday: (am) longer track session such as 5x1000m (2:30 recovery) average 2:42 pace – 8min recovery – 400m fast (around 52/53sec) – 6min recovery – 200m fast (24/25sec)
Sunday: 12-13 miles easy around 7:00min miles or just inside – no quicker than 6:30 pace

Favourite session: “Anything with the hurdles – even though I’ve got to set them up myself! I enjoy going over the hurdles and I’ve always naturally just taken to them. A lot of the time my splits aren’t much slower over the hurdles than the flat reps. It might be that mentally it breaks the reps up a little bit when I’m training on my own, but I enjoy any session where I’ve got the hurdles out.”

Least favourite session: “Over the winter it’s probably long tempos. I’ll do an eight-mile tempo, for example, and it’s just a bit of a grind, really. It’s not that exciting.”