I’m so pleased you reached out again. I looked back at your Bewl race last year. Fantastic running by the way. Average pace of 5:09 per km.

On Sunday you averaged 5:02 per km. Now I am aware conditions were better Sunday, the distance was shorter and we missed the climb at the end, but I think it highlights you don’t necessarily have much to make up in terms of fitness over the next 14 weeks to arrive on race day as well prepared as you were 12 months ago.

My main concern about this plan is it’s stacked with races. Possibly a few too many in my opinion. I think the Weald Trail half is an obvious prep race, so I would prioritise that. Racing Alan Corke hard two days later would be madness and could ruin your Bewl aspirations.

That said I’ve left it in the plan but as an easy run. If this doesn’t appeal then we can adjust things, but those two races in three days, if hit hard, is just a recipe for disaster.

I have limited the number of fast parkruns, simply to ensure there is the right balance between high effort and easy miles.

The runs per week has dropped from 3.6 to 3.29, but that’s purely because of the number of races in the schedule and the need to get more rest in.

But I’m happy. The training load is the same to what you’ve just done in the build up to HHM. I really don’t feel we need to push any harder, especially with so many races in there.

I’ve included all Wednesday runs as hilly 60 minute runs now so there’s never any nagging from me to do a flat one. If you do, then we can always adjust the weekend run slightly.

One thing that is slightly different is a couple of back to back longish weekend runs. This will mean the Sunday run will be on tired legs, which is good preparation for the final 6 or 7 miles of Bewl. It’s an approach which has worked wonders for my longer distance runners and I think it could work here.

In terms of the S&C, if you let me know where you’re at with the reps/weights. I’m happy to progress that a touch if you are feeling strong. That’s an area you could continue to make gains.

But I really feel if you continue to train smart, work hard at the right moments, keep the easy runs at steady pace, you’ll perform really well at Bewl again!

As always the feedback is great. If we get 4-5 weeks in and you feel like you could push a little bit harder we could add an additional 50 pts to the training load. I’ll be honest, I was nervous when switching from miles to training load to create my plans but the results have far outweighed my expectations especially the quicker runners. So I’m confident this plan is better structured that the one we had 12 months ago.