Everybody wants to wake up and have a successful day, and to get the most out of themselves, whatever that day happens to hold. Few people have made an art of it quite like Jess Hull.
The Australian middle-distance runner has stood on some of the sport's biggest podiums: the Olympics, the World Championships, Commonwealth Games. She's racked up nine medals, countless Australian records, and a World Record over 2,000m, and sits fifth-fastest woman in history over 1,500m. On paper, her career reads like a highlight reel.
But Jess will tell you the moments themselves aren't where the work happens. What sets a peak performance in motion is decided long before the start line. It's simple small moments, like the coffee made slowly each morning while the day takes shape, or the sunscreen, applied religiously every morning without fail. Neither depends on her mood or her schedule, and that's rather the point. The first lesson in her routine is the simplest: build one or two rituals that are non-negotiable, and let them anchor everything else.
Much of her consistency is built on prevention, with sleep playing an important role. "Sleep is something I try not to overthink, but at the same time I try to give myself the best opportunity to maximise it." she explains. Jess carves out time to "power down" each day, giving herself about an hour each night to wind down, with 20–30 minutes of stretching or light yoga doing most of the work. It helps her fall asleep faster, and wake up better the next morning, too. Physio and massage work the same way, whether anything is sore or not. "I look at physio and massage therapy as preventative recovery practices," she says. "I'm very healthy as an athlete, which comes down to doing all these little things consistently to prevent the big things,".
Over time, this changes. Jess continues to adjust her mindfulness practices and visualisation, even in her 12th year as a professional athlete. She finds her body responding to something once thought unbearable: ice baths. The lesson for Jess is learning to listen to your body. This is the biggest precursor to success we can all heed. In Jess' words "it will tell you what it needs more of or less of."
It's in this self-awareness that Jess finds further progress in understanding who she is and how she behaves as an athlete. What's changed since isn't her work ethic so much as her understanding of the results from training and the reasoning behind it. "I now have a deeper understanding of the why behind each session, and I believe I execute my whole training block better knowing how to approach it with the intent it's designed for," she says. "I've become better at being intentional with my time, and training with a purpose to the right zones rather than just checking the boxes."
Not every session goes to plan, either, and she's candid about that. On the mornings she doesn't feel like lacing up, routine, not willpower, is what gets her out the door. It's built so deliberately around her that showing up barely requires a decision. "I've done a good job of putting everything I need for my daily training environment around me, no matter where I am in the world," she says, "so that even on the days I'm a little more tired, I can rely on my routine and lean on my team to help me get it done." Understanding why a habit exists is often what makes it survivable on the days it's hardest to keep.
Jess is quick to assert the idea that high performance is not a given, even for elite athletes, explaining "We all have days it feels a little bit harder than we want it to." Her advice for anyone trying to show up for themselves, athlete or not, is almost defiantly simple: twenty minutes that belong to no one else. It could be before the household wakes up, on a lunch break, or simply on the run itself. "Do something for yourself that doesn't drain your battery," she says.
None of it is dramatic, and Jess is the first to say so. "It can just be doing the little things well for a long period of time," she explains. "There's often a delayed gratification for the work you put in, but when you can see things building at the same time it helps to keep you showing up for yourself, every day."
Jess trains and recovers with the COROS PACE 4 and adds the COROS Heart Rate Monitor for workouts. These tools are built to support the sessions that make headlines and the quiet habits that don't, in equal measure. Because for Jess Hull, the days that don't get photographed are still the days that count, and the same is true for anyone trying to get the most out of theirs.
