I am finally updating once again, I find myself always apologising for my lack of contact via RunnersLife, don't worry though I haven't for gotten about you guys. It's just a case of me not getting on my laptop as much these days.

I'll be doing my best over the coming weeks to get some good quality updates in as I'm off to Font Romeu next weekend and I'll have loads of time on my hands. Currently I'm in Vilamoura in Portugal but I've been flat out with uni work whenever I've been on my laptop and internet is pretty limited here.

Back to the important stuff... the running. As I mentioned a while back I said I was injured and hoping to get back into training pretty soon, well that didn't go to plan.

I started off in March with some decent running and got onto the Alter G for some altitude training followed by a tempo the next day but my calf didn't like this too much and I was struggling to walk by the end of the day. I was left puzzled and frustrated so off I went cross training for the rest of the week. I took 6 days off running waited to get a massaged on my calf's. I managed 20mins easy jogging on the grass that day (Wednesday) and it went ok so it looked promising.

The next day I got out and ran 30mins fairly steady and then again the following day a good solid paced 30mins. This is where I made my mistake- I told the North East team I'd run the Inter Counties as I knew we'd have a good shot at a team medal. Nuttall wasn't so keen on the idea but he let me do this as the training runs had been going well and I was optimistic if I raced the problem would disappear and I could put it behind me. I told the manager I would just be running around steady and not killing myself as I just wanted to finish to help close the team as we only had 6 runners on the start line. Personally I think it's disgraceful that the lads in the North East didn't turn out, we are one of the strongest regions and we could only just scrape together 6 athletes. So if you were asked to run/ruled yourself out of running and decided not to run then hold your head in shame. I was determined to make the start line off the back of 3 days training just for the sake of the team and I know there's some class athletes out there who just couldn't be 'arsed' to do it. So congratulations to those who did run, we gave a brave effort and hopefully next year we'll get a better turn out.

The next couple of days I paid the price for racing, I really struggled on the Sunday and Monday and had to see the UKA doctor on the Tues who referred me to a physio. I originally had to wait around 10 days to get into the physio but because it was an old training partner Cat Riley, I knew she worked at another clinic and she managed to squeeze me in. She treated me with acupuncture which was very effective and she gave me the all clear to jog the next afternoon. From then on I was doing some running everyday just building up steady until I flew to Portugal on Monday the 29^th.

The plan was to do all steady running before I came here with the intention of getting back into 90% training the first week here. The day after I got here was my first session in ages- Id actually forgotten how it feels!

We started off with 20mins of tempo running on the Alfamar cross country course then did 12x1minute on the cross course again with slight uphill's and then onto the track for 8 laps of 200 on 200 off. It felt good to be back running well again and thankfully I didn't feel like id actually lost any fitness because I was going strong for the whole session.

Due to the sizes of the sessions we were told not to do any sessions on a Thursday so it was just Tuesday and Saturday that we were working hard mixed with some mileage. The next session we did was a fairly big track workout- 1mile tempo, 5x400 off 30, 1mile tempo, 6x300 off 45, 1 mile tempo, 8x200 off 90.

Again that went well and I was feeling good throughout so I went away got some miles in before the following Tuesday where we did 25mins of tempo on the cross course followed by 12x45second hills. My calf's weren't feeling too good so I called it a day after 6 hills because I didn't want to jeopardise my future training.

So here I am on the Thursday, I head home in a couple days after my Saturday session where I am on the track once again with some K reps and 400's.

I'm only out here for 12 days but we've got some quality work in and been staying with the lads from Liverpool which has been a right laugh. A couple of the Tipton boys are in my hotel too, Nichols and Martin Williams along with Jason Ward...who'll be a Tipton runner if we get our way but I don't think he's budging!! I've really enjoyed it but now I'm looking forward to getting back home and preparing for the 12 stage with the Tipton lads.