Craig Winrow, Centre Coordinator and Performance Coach
During his running career Craig won multiple English Schools' medals and UK age group championships over 800m. Craig continued to improve his performances as a senior athlete, competing at the highest level of international competitions and achieving a personal best over 800m of 1:45.69. His career highlight was competing at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, where he reached the semi-final.
Craig retired from competitive running in 1998 and moved to the US, where he coached at a division one NCAA university for 6 years. During that period, he had great success with his athletes and university team winning many medals at the Southland Conference Championships over track and cross country. This also led to taking many of his athletes to the NCAA Championships.
He moved back to the UK in 2005 and started coaching at St Mary’s EPC in 2007. Craig is very passionate about sharing his knowledge and experience with the athletes he coaches and strives to help them achieve their potential. Since 2007 he has helped the university team and individual athletes to many team and individual medals at the BUCS Cross Country, indoor and outdoor championships. His coaching highlights include serving on GB coaching teams for international meets and guiding several successful athletes to international achievements at European, Commonwealth and World Championships level and the Olympics.
Contact: craig.winrow@stmarys.ac.uk
Mick Woods, Performance Coach
As an athlete Mick specialised in road running, competing in over 70 marathons and winning 6 with a personal best of 2:20.12, which led him to represent Ireland over the distance. He also developed a passion for mountain running where he headed to Europe to compete in countless races throughout the years.
In 2003 after much success as a coach at Aldershot, Farnham & District Athletics Club he began coaching for British Athletics where he was based at St Mary’s beginning his work as the manager/coach of the EPC. Working as a British Athletics performance coach he had an immediate impact on the St Mary’s programme, where in 2004 St Mary’s placed in the top 5 at the BUCS Cross Country Championships. Also in 2004, Mick was appointed the Team GB Men’s U23 coach for the European Cross Country Championships, a role he has held annually since.
By 2005 Mick successfully led the Men’s team to breaking Loughborough’s winning streak at BUCS Cross Country, where St Mary’s won the title. This was the beginning of a dynasty of excellence at BUCS Cross Country races where Mick continues to be influential in developing young St Mary’s EPC athletes to become individual and team champions. During his tenure at St Mary’s Mick has coached multiple athletes to Olympic Games such as Steph Twell and Beth Potter.
Contact: michael.woods@stmarys.ac.uk
George Morris, Strength and Conditioning Coach
George leads strength and conditioning sessions for EPC athletes and is also strength and conditioning coach to international marathon runners as part of the England Athletics Talent Hub.
Alongside coaching at the EPC, George is a PhD candidate and a multidisciplinary Sport and Exercise Scientist specialising in endurance physiology. A former fencing athlete, George won three national titles and claimed three Commonwealth Games medals for Team GB. As a coach he has worked with talented fencing athletes training them towards participation for Paris 2024 and Los Angeles 2028.
A keen runner himself, George trains regularly with EPC athletes and has achieved a very respectable VO2 max of 75mL/Kg/min which ranks well alongside top athletes that he has tested himself in the physiology lab.