We head to Font Romeu to learn more about life as part of HOKA’s elite training squad.

There’s something about this time of year, that quiet lull before the winter racing season when elite runners begin to disappear into the middle of the mountains. It’s altitude camp season. Last month I followed the trail to Font Romeu, a sleepy ski town tucked high in the French Pyrenees. For decades, it’s been a well-known site for distance runners chasing thinner air and a few extra red blood cells. This time, I was joining the HOKA team for their third-ever training camp.

At the centre of it all was the energy of the brand’s group – Team Makou. Led by coach Andy Hobdell, the line-up included Rory Leonard, Callum Elson, Scott Beattie, Ellis Cross, Efrem Gidey, Sarah Astin and newcomer India Weir. Add in France’s 10km record-holder Alessia Zarbo, a few more international HOKA athletes and Hobdell’s trademark banter, and you have a mix potent enough to keep the sessions running at altitude pace.

Once labelled “ones to watch,” the members of the group have outgrown that tag. Leonard smashed Mo Farah’s long-standing British 10km road record earlier this year. Ireland’s Gidey earned a spot at the World Championships in Tokyo for the 10,000m. Cross picked up a bronze at the British 10,000m Championships, while Weir, who only joined in May, snatched silver at the British Championships in the 5000m, finishing ahead of Innes FitzGerald. 

The team had gathered in Font Romeu for four weeks of hard training, sharpening their form ahead of the Valencia Half Marathon where everyone – with the exceptions of Elson and Weir – would line up in Spain. 

My aim in joining the team in Font Romeu was simple: to peel back the curtain and see what really goes on behind the perfectly polished Instagram posts and Strava uploads. What secret drills, methods or little tweaks separate this group from the rest? What I found instead was something more human. The secret, it turns out, isn’t hidden in a data file, it’s in the camaraderie.

Between morning threshold runs and afternoon track sessions, the atmosphere felt less like a professional training camp and more like a family living at altitude. The team’s humour kept things light; the girls arranged nail salon trips, the group coffee runs for their beloved ‘brookies’ – a cross between a chocolate brownie and a cookie –  to communal dinners that ended with everyone crowded round the TV, catching up on the latest Team Makou YouTube upload.

HOKA used the camp as an opportunity to connect more closely with the athletes. Between sessions, they joined calls with the brand’s product and innovation teams to have open, collaborative conversations about their shoes and the technologies behind them. With HOKA co-founder Christophe Aubonnet also spending time at the camp, the team had the rare chance to speak directly with one of the minds behind the brand – to understand its philosophy, share their experiences and see how their feedback could help shape what comes next.

Font Romeu is a place where life moves at its own pace, and it’s so peaceful that even when I wandered into the local supermarket, I was surprised to find I was the only one there. It was almost eerie how still the town felt, as if it was in hibernation, waiting for winter’s rush – until you headed to the hustle and bustle of the track.

During my stay, I followed Team Makou over every type of terrain Font Romeu had to offer – from the dusty trails around the lake to the mountain roads that tested both lungs and legs, to the track nestled between the trees. While the athletes floated through one of their “easy” 10km runs with effortless rhythm, I found myself alongside Hobdell. I’d turned up assuming that I would just observe from the sidelines – until he casually mentioned we’d be going “Jeffing.”

I had no idea what that meant. As it turns out, it’s a blend of jogging and walking – and at 1800m above sea level, even walking feels like a workout. As soon as we picked up the pace, it was clear that every session in Font Romeu comes with an extra layer of challenge.

As we “jeffed” along, Hobdell filled me with stories from his other life as a criminal defence lawyer – how he balances that with coaching, I still don’t know – but in between the tales, I got a deeper understanding of his coaching philosophy and how it has shaped his group.

His coaching résumé is extensive and includes guiding athletes like British middle distance athlete Andy Baddeley to the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, but mentoring a team is a new challenge. Team Makou have been together since the beginning of 2024, and Hobdell has been there from the start.

“Over the years, I’ve coached athletes to five Olympics,” he says. “But I’ve never coached a team. So, for me, working with this group is an education. There are many learnings for me along the way, especially with man management. What makes one athlete tick doesn’t make another tick.

“What works for one doesn’t necessarily work for the other. It’s not one size fits all, it’s learning about the superpowers of their personalities and their talents to get the most out of them. That’s my learnings from all of this – knowing that they are still individuals but, working together, they can be stronger. As a group, I’m surprised just how much more we can do together.

“A session which might seem like a large session working on your own suddenly feels better because we’re taking it in reps, taking turns in pacing and having banter between reps. It’s become something that doesn’t seem very long, very hard or very difficult. It just becomes an event with your team-mates.”

As I observed Hobdell coaching, the dynamic between him and his athletes was clear: playful, but purposeful. He would step away during the warm-up, sitting quietly at the side, observing. He said he liked to give the athletes space and use that time to gauge their moods, something he’d later use to tailor his approach when it came time to train.

Once the 5x2km threshold track session began, however, the switch would flip. Hobdell’s attention to detail sharpened. He’d be on top of everything – heart rates, splits, form – always adjusting, always pushing. After the session, he’d pull athletes aside for quick, quiet words. No grand speeches, just the kind of individual attention that matters. 

For Cross, who was managing a back injury, these moments were crucial. For Weir, attending her first HOKA camp, Hobdell’s approach was more about easing her in gently, making sure she found her rhythm within the group.

It was clear that his coaching wasn’t about grand gestures. It was about knowing each athlete well enough to know when to step in, when to listen, and when to leave them be.

“I'll be very honest, I am old school,” he says. “But with forward thinking, so I'm alive to research. I'm alive to findings about certain types of training, certain adaptations, and I'll incorporate it. But it's like anything. If you've got a method that works, all you're going to do is try to enhance that method.

“For me, it's about an athlete enjoying their running, enjoying the process to get the maximum out of them. I suppose if you were to talk to me about what my philosophy is, it's to encourage an athlete to fulfil their talent and their ability, but by enjoying their running.

“What they do is they bring all of their talent to the team and then the team becomes its own superpower because they're able to talk to each other. They're able to train together. They're able to get the work done together.

“If they're having a bad day, it gets offloaded to the team. If they're having a good day, they bring that into the team. Their enthusiasm comes within and gives us more power, more strength.”

Elson is one of the group’s more experienced members, and he’s had a front-row seat to the evolution of Team Makou. Not only is he one of the athletes, but he has also helped steer the team’s growing online presence from day one. The mile silver medallist at the 2023 World Road Running Championships was there when the idea to document their journey first emerged, and has played a key role in bringing it to life.

“When we first went away on camp, everything felt like it worked well together, both the atmosphere and helping each other with the different strengths and weaknesses we've got in training,” he says. “So we thought a good way that we could capitalise on it was to make some online content and bring people along.”

Back then, Elson was already familiar with online content. Having his own YouTube channel meant he had the tools and know-how to make it happen. But, as the videos gained traction, he and the team realised it was bigger than just a fun side project.

“As it got traction, people wanted more. I said to the guys: ‘If we want to do more of it, we need to make it a proper thing, it needs a name, it needs a logo and we need to speak to Chris Rainsford, our athlete manager, to see how Hoka can help support us’.

“He decided to back it as a project and since then we are now thinking how to take it further. We’ve progressed a lot, we have exciting things coming like merchandise and partnerships with different brands, it’s all moving really well.”

Leonard, one of the team’s standout athletes and British 5000m bronze medallist, is a prime example of an athlete finding their stride as part of the team. As a young athlete, he showed great promise, with a gold medal at the European U23 Championships in the 10,000m. 

But now, as he steps into the senior ranks, his level and his expectations have risen – as demonstrated by that British 10km record of 27:38 in the early part of this year.

“It's taken a long time to find the right place, the right coach and the right group,” he says. “I've found that now with these guys. It’s brilliant. Their personalities are who I want to be around all the time. It's a friend group and Andy's great. He knows when to turn on the intensity and turn it off a little bit. He always says he’s good at embarrassing you, he's good at that.”

Now, with the addition of Weir, Leonard sees the group expanding in new ways. The growth of the women’s side of Team Makou is something he’s particularly enthused about. 

“It’s another layer to what we’re building here,” he says. “We’re growing, and it’s exciting to see that side of the team evolve. A lot of Andy's foundational beliefs in running are getting aerobically stronger and we are all doing that, too.”

With the cross-country season getting into full swing, many more of Team Makou members will be in action in the coming months. Several of them, including Leonard, have made it clear that their main focus is on qualifying for the European Cross Country Championships in Portugal next month. Last season, Leonard finished as the top Briton in the senior men’s race, in ninth place. Alongside Cross, who placed 25th, they helped secure team gold for Great Britain.

They will be aiming to repeat that success, while the hope is for more of the Team Makou group to savour the podium experience and give the team that trains together plenty of reason to celebrate together too.