It is scary how quickly you lose fitness. It’s been a while since Berlin, and I’ve been battling various niggles and only in the last week or so trying to pick up the mileage and pace a bit. And it’s not easy. To be honest I’m feeling a bit dispirited about it, and rather wishing I could fast forward the next couple of months (someone make me a training montage set to upbeat music?) to a point where I feel like I’m not actually going to lose a lung doing anything over a steady plod.

Still, if you are going to try and fight your way back to fitness, a good way to do it is to find some races. Not just as goals at the end of the process, but of ways of keeping you honest along the route. Even if you know your times aren’t going to be up to much, it’s hard not to push yourself a little harder in company than it would be trying to do a tempo run on your own. Yesterday I ran in my club – the Wimbledon Windmilers – championships – my grumpy hamstring deciding I should do the 5k not the 10k option. My time was so far from PB it was practically in a different country, but at least I felt like I’d made a tiny step back towards peak fitness. Only about a million steps to go, then.

So how was your weekend running? Training for a race, parkrun, nursing niggles? As always, share your woes, triumphs, cake recommendations and pleas for advice below the line.

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