Absolutely buzzing to get this plan underway and super excited to work with you. Having the chance to work alongside runners like yourself and Stephen Gates is great for a new coach like me. I’m proud of the work I’ve done with Steve to date, but the most satisfying thing for me, is that he’s injury free and really enjoying his running. That’s my priority with all my runners.

The plan is focused on Glasgow Half. What I find with training plans is often you reach week 6 and they need rewriting almost. Whether it be injury, illness, quicker progress and feedback on sessions you just didn’t like. With that in mind paying too much attention to any sessions deep in the plan just isn’t worth it.

For you, once the sessions go on the dashboard each week that’s where the attention should lie, as come week 8, all those sessions currently listed may change. Crikey, with George, I don’t think one of his weeks has matched the original plan what with his eagerness to race at every opportunity and his dodgy calf. Again though super pleased with how well he’s running and the fact he recommend me means a lot.

So to summarize we’ve got a few weeks of base building, as the plan progresses the interval sessions come in, as do the threshold sessions you were keen to include. I’ve not put many races in there but that can be changed if you fancy racing, no problems there.

The mileage builds up slowly and peaks at 80km. I really feel like with a few S&C sessions and possibly a couple of bike rides, that’s a very big volume and no need to stretch beyond that to achieve the goals you want. More is not always better.

I’ve created a stretching routine which will be on the dashboard. Doing that daily if possible would be ideal and should help those hip flexors. Warm ups? For yourself, if you’ve got the time then yes do the drills I’ve included, but honestly at your age and fitness levels a 2-3km warm up jog will have you ready for any sessions. It’s about making the best use of the time you have and that easy jog is always the priority.

In terms of feedback, just be honest. If sessions are not working, tell me. If you don’t hit your paces in sessions don’t be hard on yourself or make a negative judgement. Keep working hard even if the pace is off and you’ll still make gains. If any of my runners are off pace on a given day, as long as they put the effort in then I’m happy.