Well this is my first ever blog and I must say a big thank you to Jonesy for setting this site up for all us guys. Hopefully in the coming months things will really take off and I'll look forward to reading the blogs from the other guys.

These last few weeks training has been going very well after an awful few weeks in the back end of October and November. I managed to pick end up with food poisoning while at a race in Belgium in October; this left me very weak in training and racing. Having never had food poisoning I wasn't aware of the drastic effects it has on you in the long run! After a shocking run at the Euro trials I took a few days off, got some advice to take iron tablets from a mate who'd been through a similar situation as myself and then had some blood tests later in the week.

On the tests everything came back all normal so on with the training, and since then I'm delighted with the progress over recent weeks. Probably my best session was a 10xk off 200 float in 90. Alternating between 13:45 pace and 15:15 pace.

In the last week I've had a couple races, both of which I won last year so I was out to try repeat that feat. First up was England's oldest road race, The Saltwell 10k; a race my father won 17 years consecutively, so it's a bit of a family tradition now.

I took up the running early on and worked hard for the first 20mins on the very hilly course and got a 50m gap from Nick Swinburn of Morpeth, however I suffered a little on the 3rd and final lap and with him being a mountain runner he caught me on the steep uphill. I latched on and tucked in for the penultimate mile and then with around a km to I worked a downhill stretch to open up a margin of around 15 seconds to win in 31:07. I was delighted to win this race for the 2nd time, only 16 more to break my old man's record! If I'm even running when I'm 39 I'll be delighted never mind winning at that age!

Next up was the charity Boxing Day pudding run; this is just a fun '5k' that gets a good turn out from the local lads. Last year's event had a better field than the North East 5k road champs! I had a great run then winning in around 17mins but I think I was close to a sub 14:30 through 5k. This year's race was a bit closer to 5k as I won it in 15:07 after a windy first 10 minutes where I tucked in. I kicked on when we turned into the wind to push on and open a gap of 11 seconds from Lewis Timmins of Morpeth.

Both local press articles about the races are linked above.

Now my attention turns to the Great Edinburgh 4k on the 10th January, I'm hoping to have a good solid run out here, so fingers crossed all goes well I'll update on here in the near future.

Thanks for your time,

Ryan.