At the back end of the marathon I was really looking forward to getting my lungs burning in shorter sessions and races. I've done two track sessions since the marathon, the planned session with Dave's group is eight 5k paced efforts that gradually longer with 2 min recoveries. The idea is the group are going to run the same session leading up to Christleton (which I've just entered).

I planned to do 6 of the 8 as I feel 5k distance at 5k pace is enough for me and the good recoveries mean I can go a bit quicker. I've been doing 5 mile tempo's in work with Russ, he's a similar pace to me so we start out together and if I've felt good I've would it up a bit. All the tempo runs have been sub 30 which is encouraging. I'm back doing 90 mins or more on Sunday too, the first was a trip to Manchester to cheer Martin Swensson on in the marathon.

I popped over with Capt Dale the layout of the course meant we could catch the Swenssonator at four points. Martin looked great all the way and managed to smash his PB with a big neg split - you'd think me and Dale had ran the time, such was our giddy enthusiasm at the end! Martin truly deserved it, he's such a tough competitor and it was great to see his hard work in the winter pay off with a massive run. Andi Jones won the race at a canter, hitting it hard from the gun to basically run it solo.

All Dave's gang are in Portugal for 10 days doing some warm weather training. It sounds like a great trip but I'd feel a bad old man in a the Villa with all then 20 year olds! Luckily I'll be occupied with the Spring 5 Wednesday, I've just had a pair of New Balance RC5000 delivered so doubly exceited now!