Firstly a huge apology to everyone for lack of contact on here over the last couple of weeks. To tell you the truth I don't like writing about negative experiences and after the way things were going with my running I was beginning to get very frustrated and just wanted to forget about things.

I ran the Blaydon race and finished feeling very angry and a little depressed as I'd put all this hard work in and nothing was happening. I had a whole host of people telling me to be patient, don't worry, things will happen, it's in there, you don't become a bad athlete over night etc etc but I just wasn't seeing it! 

I can see how athletes come back from altitude and their seasons go down the pan completely if they don't do the right work there and they don't do the right things when they get back. So after Blaydon I wasn't feeling great so the coaches and I decided that a week easy is what I needed. I spent the next 6 days doing single runs of an hour at 7 minute mile pace. I went away for the weekend in Manchester and just took my mind off the training and felt great to just relax and not have to worry about how the next session would go. 

I got back to Loughborough Sunday evening and got 1 more steady run in Monday before I got back into my normal routine. Because the track was shut Tuesday morning/afternoon we did an early evening session. I was pleased to see Thommo (Chris Thompson) back in Loughborough for the day and he was joining the group for a session. John set Nick and I K's and 800's whereas Chris and Nick were doing 400's. 

The session for me went great, Nick was doing full K reps whereas I was starting and finishing with a K and doing 6 800's in between so I ended up taking most of the reps for Nick, which I didn't mind doing. As soon as I got the first couple reps done I knew it was going to be a good day as I was feeling very easy! At half way I looked at John and said, "It should not be feeling this easy!" He just laughed and told me to keep in control as things were clicking. I saw the session out nice and comfortable hitting well under the times he'd set and finished by stretching my legs on the last K feeling so relaxed and felt absolutely amazing as I was so happy to be running relaxed again!

John told me after the session just to keep things under control again with steady relaxed running for the next few days just to make sure my legs don't react to the hard work. Good news was that nothing went wrong on the Wednesday, Thursday, Friday so again it was back to the track on Saturday. This time we were doing a couple sets of 200's to get the legs turning over. Things again went well for me, I was feeling very relaxed and comfortable striding out with Lewis. I even had my dad on the side of the track for the first time in ages as he was down Loughborough for the weekend. It was good to let him see my train as he doesn't get the opportunity to do so very much anymore.

After the session my calfs felt a little sore from wearing spikes so on the Sunday I took things easy and cut 15 minutes off as I didn't want to aggravate them. I had planned on running a fast 3k this coming week but I couldn't find a race anywhere and the only one I did find was in Sweden and I couldn't get full expenses paid which was a shame. So I had to settle for a BMC 1500 in Stetford, but I was going to help Lewis out as he was chasing a fast 1500 time before the U23 trials this weekend.

On Monday I just took things easy before the race and got a steady hour in and then again on the morning of the race got out and did 35 easy to get my legs moving. Going into the race I didn't really have any expectations of what I was capable of having not really done that many 1500's in the last few years. All I really wanted from the race was to see Lewis run the Euro U23 champs standard so I was there to push the pace on if need be really. I'll leave the ins and outs of the race to the race report which I'll add later on as I have to get out for my long run now.

I'm glad I can finally say things are fully back on track and at full steam ahead now! It's only taken 4 weeks of pulling my hair out but I got there in the end!!