Hodgkinson and Hunter Bell embraced after gruelling east Manchester session as M11 fine-tunes bid ahead of European Championships
Keely Hodgkinson and Georgia Hunter Bell embraced by the side of the track in east Manchester after completing a brutal training session as they prepared for this week's European Championships in Birmingham, the BBC reported on 10 August 2026.
The session took place inside M11 Track Club, a near-30 strong international group based on a Manchester postcode and led by coach Trevor Painter and partner Jenny Meadows. The 24-year-old Hodgkinson told BBC Sport, "I think it's everything," adding "Environment is everything. We have people from all around the world training here. We all get along really well, we're all respective of each other's journey, and we all know that if we want to continue being the best, we've got to train with the best." The club operates on a "fun until the stopwatch starts" philosophy, Painter says.
During the downpour Hodgkinson lay flat on the track and, according to the report, Painter placed an opened umbrella beside her before running for cover; two team-mates were required to help her up and Hunter Bell retreated to be sick. Painter later joked he was "mostly disappointed that relatively few of their team-mates have suffered the same fate on this occasion, when the cameras are rolling." The anecdote underlines the physical extremes of sessions the group uses to prepare.
A lactic acid-inducing block of 400m intervals in early June signalled a focused 800m training phase. The article notes Hodgkinson had run a British 800m record in Stockholm just a few days before that block, while Swiss athlete Audrey Werro posted the fastest time since the world record was set 43 years earlier. Painter reported Hodgkinson beat her personal best splits in the session, going faster than the times she posted in the lead-up to an indoor season in which she captured world gold and the indoor 800m world record.
The M11 project predates Hodgkinson's senior success and grew from Meadows' vision to establish an official Manchester-based training group. Painter, who coached Meadows to international podium finishes and has a personal 400m best around 47 seconds, has worked with Hodgkinson since she was 17. Meadows said: "I think everyone thought I was quite deluded. I had a vision of this happening, but I didn't quite know how we were going to achieve it," and added, "Now people know instantly: that's Jenny and Trevor, that's some of the best athletes in the world. You don't have to explain what M11 is. It's pretty incredible."
Sustained on-track success accelerated the group's growth, aided by sponsor backing that funded an assistant coach, track-side physiotherapist and a dedicated physiologist. Painter said: "Back in the day, it was difficult because you're working on a shoestring budget, trying to make things happen," and added, "If they're healthy, they can do their job of running as fast as they can." The arrival of additional support staff expanded the squad's capacity to prepare athletes for major targets.
Training venues range from the public-use SportCity track to ad hoc sessions in a Wigan car park and a dirt hill known as 'hell hill' on South African camps, with an emphasis on a no-ego environment. Painter described that approach: "The team aspect is so powerful. It doesn't matter which athlete it is; if someone's having a bad day, there's always someone to put their arm around you or give you that little motivational comment that helps you back out of your mood," and added, "We celebrate each and everybody's wins - and we suffer each and everyone's losses, pains and injuries." The report also records that Hunter Bell still worked full-time in 2024 before her rise to six international medals, including Olympic bronze, world silver and the world indoor 1500m title.
M11's recruitment and marginal gains work have intensified, with the coaches receiving heavy interest and the appointment of physiologist Rachel McCormick after some 180 applications for the role. McCormick, who had published more than 50 research papers and joined in late 2025, described the role as potentially "a dream job" and said: "What I've been trying to look for are the small wins." She has used measures such as blood lactate sampling and wearable data to feed into training decisions. Meadows observed the new data has changed how they view adaptation and added: "We are hunting for a world record with Keely in the 800m, Georgia might decide to double up on events at the next Olympics, so it's asking 'how do we get all of that right?'"
Hodgkinson, who has said she intends to break the women's 800m record of one minute 53.28 seconds set in 1983, holds 11 senior international medals — six at global level — and will attempt to add to that haul at this week's European Championships in Birmingham.
