Good news!! After a brief period out of commission Runnerslife is back on the world wide web, giving an insight into the life of runners. It's a shame there was some time away from updating readers on my progress as I have come along way in the last few weeks. The last thing I think I wrote about was having a few days rest. I've been doing sessions again and feeling much better than what I was prior to the break. I'm finishing sessions now and running some handy times in the process, and more importantly, enjoying running again. Not much has changed, I still do a couple of hard sessions a week and maybe a bit of tempo with runs in between. I'm not blasting my runs like I was at the start of the season but just running them easy to aid the recovery process. A big change has come in my strength work though. 

As part of my scholarship with the uni I am able to go to a strength and conditioning coach. So instead of doing my core exercises I borrowed of the internet I decided to go and see him and get some proper strength work. It has been really useful and although it is not really the right time of year to start strength work it's nothing too strenuous. The work is broken down into two sessions, a resistance session and a prehab and core session. The resistance session are just some exercises I do using my own body as the resistance. The main areas it works are my glutes, hamstrings and quads. The core and prehab session has two parts, funnily enough, its a core part and a prehab part. The core part is different to what I used to do becasue the aim is to work the deep muscles with the trunk, rather than the six pack. Apparantly these muscles are the main ones that stabilise the trunk when you run and help keep your hips high. The prehab stuff is just basic exercises which help set you up for more demanding strength work. There are no weights involved in any of the sessions, that will probably come in the winter.

With the combination of a break, S&C stuff, more relaxed runs and better quality sessions I've been feeling much better when I run. I've only done a few weeks of this but its made a big difference and I've got a bounce back in my legs. I even raced yesterday in the BMC Solihull Grand Prix and ran well, I'll put the race report up soon. So, I'm running good again and Runnerslife is back, in summary all is well in Goolabland.

Thanks for the read,

Goolab xxx