Welcome back. I’m delighted you are rejoining. I think we should take a moment to celebrate what you achieved the first time round. Improving across all distances, building up to the half marathon, winning a Merit Award (if my memory serves me correct).

Consistency is the key word. And whilst life might sometimes prevent us from being as consistent as we want, the flexibility in the plans now means we can always reshuffle.

Given you’ve not done as much running as you may have hoped over the summer months I think it’s important we approach the beginning of the plan with a little bit of caution.

I think Rye Ancient Trails 15k should be fine, after all you did 10k at the Barry Richards and that will have been at a quicker pace. You could run 10k, walk 5k if needed.

Hastings Half I think might be too soon on this occasion. I can understand the lure of the event and wouldn’t say a definite no, but based on your recent training my advice would be to sit that out on this occasion. But we can discuss again in a few weeks if need be.

So the plan, number 5! That’s impressive. 3 runs per week, every week. As the plan progresses we’ll add to the long run as well as introduce efforts.

Don’t think you have to do the efforts on the plan. We have so many options now as Hastings Runners. Monday track, Tuesday AM or PM, Anthony’s Thursday session, Sedlescombe efforts with Nick or a quick parkrun. So each week can be different depending on your availability.

I’ve created some short S&C sessions which have been working well with the team. I think starting on them straight away will help and we’ll make them slightly more challenging as the plan progresses.

Any questions just ask. I’m not sure how different things are since you were last on the Team. The TRAINING POINTS approach has confused a few. Some just ignore the concept but it can be helpful to have an understanding of how it works.

I’ve done the ratings myself but obviously if you feel they are different, then please feel free to edit them. I think they just highlight the potential for improvement, more that being a negative on your current fitness.

Let’s smash it and get you back running at your best again.