Husbands need to be careful when considering fitness-related gifts for their wives. Sometimes they give the wrong message. But this wasn’t the case when Jo Druce’s husband gave her a copy of 80/20 Running last Christmas. A former elite rower who once represented Australia at the World Championships, Jo, now 49, started running 10 years ago “for my mental health,” as she puts it and had gotten really into the sport and was delighted with the gift choice.

Even so, Jo, who works as a personal trainer in Sydney and has one son, didn’t know just how good a gift the book was until she started using it. Having set a 50K PB four years earlier, she used an online 80/20 plan to train for the next one and ended up lopping 15 minutes off her previous time. “I felt great in the last 8 km and overtook more people than I ever have at the end of a race,” she says. “I was almost doing negative splits for the last few km.”

Jo Druce is not Santa Claus. She can’t turn around and give every other endurance athlete the gift of 80/20. But she can offer a heartfelt recommendation. “The 80/20 program definitely allowed me to train more often without getting overly fatigued or suffering any injuries,” she says. “I was amazed at how I was able to perform on event day, and I recovered very quickly after it. It’s absolutely worth trying!”