It’s a strange part of the season. The big Spring races are now behind us, the temperature has ramped up, and for many of us our big goals for 2025 seem some way off. For me, that’s Chester Marathon.

Spring was great. I had a new half marathon PB at Paddock Wood, and a parkrun PB at Hastings. The hard work paid off. But maintaining that at times can be tough.

I’ve since missed out a new 5K PB by just 3 seconds and my long standing 10k personal best wasn’t even threatened at what felt like a feeble attempt at Seaford at the weekend.

It’s amazing how quickly you can go from feeling invincible and in top form, to suddenly running being the most alien and hardest thing you’ve ever done.

We all have these spells. Many of the team are experiencing similar hangovers from their Spring successes. I think sometimes we can be too quick to forget what we’ve just achieved and focus on the negatives. Don’t do that.

Progress is never linear. There will always be spells when running feels harder. It’s these moments where we just need to keep showing up. We don’t need to give 100% every time we lace up our trainers, but maintaining that consistency and sticking to the plan when it feels hard, will lead to good results come the Autumn.

And whilst those big races in the Autumn seem a long way off, whether it be the rescheduled Hastings Half or the Kent Ultra, the weeks will tick by quicker than you can imagine. Before you know it, they’ll be just a month away, and that’s why it’s important in these tricky moments we trust the process. Did I really use that cliché again?

Mixing things up can help too. I originally had a hill sessions rep in my plan for Tuesday morning and feeling a little under the weather (sore tonsils) and so soon after the disappointment at Seaford I knew that was a bad idea.

But when I woke up Tuesday I actually felt like doing something different. So I filled up my running backpack with 1.5 litres of water and off I set, in the direction of Camber Sands, with vision of me running bare foot along the beautiful stretch of sandy beach.

I didn’t obsess about pace and definitely not elapsed time, stopping to take a lot of videos en route, and it was really enjoyable experience, just what I needed to remind myself why I run. Although my imagination didn’t come to life as by the time I reached my destination, I was way behind schedule, and so had to settle for a little dip in the sea, which itself meant sandy socks for my final 2 miles back into Rye.

Granted I have the luxury of changing my work hours around, but if you can find some variety in where and when you run, it can make a huge difference.

If you are struggling at the moment and need to mix things up, let me know. This week I’ve removed some of my speed work to give myself a little break. I’ll still hit my training load targets, but by doing more miles. All training plans are flexible, that’s the beauty of working with a coach.

It’s important we are not too hard on ourselves either when things don’t go to plan. I’m guilty of this too, especially Sunday. It was never going to be a PB race for me with temperatures in excess of 20 degrees and a stiff 15 mile per hour headwind after the turnaround. In hindsight I probably should have adjusted my pacing goals pre race, but that’s something I’ve learned for the future.

It was still a lovely day as we headed up the hill after the race to take in some spectacular views over Seaford. If it wasn’t for running we wouldn’t have been there, so I’m grateful for that.

So keep going, you’re doing great, even if right now it feels hard work and you’ve not on top form, come the Autumn, hopefully we’ll all be back to our best and achieving our goals.