This time of year is always weird as an athlete. Some people race right through on the track till september, some people have a break early and get ready for the roads, and some people like me just aint got a bloody clue what to do!! Ive spent the last week doing bits and pieces, throwing in the odd fast run, and the odd session.. but a runner without structure is like a sports car with no wheels, ready to roll but going nowhere fast. It is now that I really need to start putting a plan in place. I need to really nail the structure of the next year and start plotting what goes where, and how.

This is where a coach comes into play. Over the next week or so I really need to up the ante in the search to find someone. I can get by on my own, but doing bits of this and bits of that has never really suited me. Ive always been the type of athlete who prefers a plan, a set of goals and an idea of what im doing each week. The short term plan is to do the Berlin 10km next saturday, then the Bristol half in early september. With the world half marathon champs in Brum this year it would be nice to do them on home turf, but i'm under no illusion that qualification will be easy, there are a great bunch of guys in the UK at the moment who have all ran well over the distance and the battle for places is very tough......... All of this also depends on whether it fits in with new ideas/ plans that may arise over the next few weeks.

School is now out for the summer, which is perfect for me as it means I can now concentrate my efforts fully on the running. I would be lieing if I said that ive been fully committed to it over the last 14 days. Ive struggled with motivation and lost a bit of the running "mojo" that makes you want to get up and fly out of the door. As a runner, sometimes, you lose that urge to crack on with things. At the start of last week, thats how I felt. I didnt really want to train and each run felt like a bit of a chore. Something clicked this week though and I started to get the buzz back. I started to think about training well again and as I put it "grew some balls and got on with it again".

Away from the running, the "home gym" is taking shape in the garage. Im in the process of setting it up so that I can do circuits etc in there, and hopefully get a treadmill in place so that in the winter if the weather is bad I can be a wimp and run indoors. Ive just put the punch bag up.... yes punch bag (with a job like mine its either come home and hit a wall, hit the bottle, or find something softer that wont hit back!) No seriously they are great for warming up on, and good for toning up..... plus weighing in at just over 9 1/2 stone, its probably the only thing you can hit that wont end up killing you afterwards. The usual things have also been thrown in there, a gym ball, med balls, dumbells, bosu, wobble board etc. In my quest to get even more serious with the sport im hoping this is another positive step..............or as the mrs puts it " a waste of bloody space that could house a utility room".

Good luck with your own running/ sports over the next week, keep your eyes on the targets you have set and keep in touch with responses below.... good or bad, its always nice to hear from the people who take the time to read these blogs. I appreciate your support!

Best wishes, Phil.