It's been a couple weeks since I last updated the blog so I thought i'd let you all know how things were going since I got back from France. 

I got back last Saturday and since then i've been feeling a little up and down. Each day has been pretty unpredictable for me where sometimes i'd been feeling great, really bouncy and relaxed on runs and at other times I felt pretty sluggish with heavy breathing. 

I had a 5000 lined up in Manchester a week after I got back so I decided to race a 1500 in Stretford on the Tuesday night to get the legs turning over quickly. I just did some steady running on Sunday and Monday and again on Tuesday morning before the race. It went pretty well for me, i've talked more about in my race report but to come away with 3:49.4, only 0.55 from my pb I can't really complain. I didn't run any quick 1500's last year, only league matches so my pb is from 2007. I'm pretty hopeful of taking a few seconds off the time later in the season.

On to Saturday, leading up to the race I didn't feel that bad, I was a little heavy on Wednesday after the race but I guess that was the race still in my legs and then again on Thursday. So on Friday I just took things nice and easy before driving up to Manchester the next day after a morning run. It was pretty hot so I made sure I was well hydrated and ate well throughout the day. I did a pretty long warm up as I felt as though my legs didn't want to get moving but after a good slow run and some tempo paced minute efforts I felt quite good. I've done this quite a few times before races and it works quite well for me as it get my legs moving well and my breathing opened up.

I've gone into detail about the race in my race report but it just didn't go well for me in the end. I'm fairly sure now it was coming back from altitude that got to me and i was fairly hopeful that things would improve not long after. For those who have been altitude training themselves they will understand the feeling I had, but for those who haven't it's quite a strange feeling. One minute your body is feeling great clipping along at a good pace and then the next, it's out the backdoor. I felt like the engine in me was misfiring and didn't want to run anymore. 

Since the race I haven't felt too bad but still not 100%, I ran on Sunday and Monday and felt a little fatigued in general but come Tuesday things were starting to look up for me. I was set a session of 4x1k, 5x400, 6x200 on the grass which I did with Lewis , it's good to see him back, he's finally starting to come back into some good shape after his injury in March & April. John told me to run with Lewis on the reps so it was all in control for me and a chance to get some confidence from the session after the weekend.

I found the k reps quite strange to begin with, I felt heavy on the first and second but then on the third and fourth I started to get in a good rhythm. Lewis even said to me he could hear my breathing all over the place on the first two and I sounded like i was struggling. Again something I have to put down the return from altitude as I was running well inside a comfort zone time wise, especially how I suddenly picked up on the third and fourth rep and my breathing settled.

The 400s and 200s went fine as well, I was moving nicely and felt good so looking back at the session I'm hoping it was a turning point for me. On Wednesday and Thursday I just got my steady runs in. I opted to do one run on Thursday as john told me to back off the steady run a little just so I could recover better and give my body a chance to keep adapting but this morning I felt amazing. It's possibly only the first day that i've really felt like I was in good shape since coming back. Fingers crossed this is it now and I can carry on with the hard work and get some results on the track.

Looking back i'm glad I did race on Saturday as now I know I can't race hard in that first 10 days of coming back to sea level if I do get to go to altitude again. Next up for me race wise is The Blaydon Race on the 9th June. Anyone form the Northeast will know about this one and it was a race I was praying that John and my dad would agree to let me run. Thankfully they have done so hopefully I can help restore some geordie pride next week by legging it doon the Scotswood Road to see the Blaydon Races!!

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