Snow, showers, sunshine, and finally the summer season begins over a grueling 3 mile road relay course in Birmingham's Sutton Park. The National 12 Stage road relay brings together the UK's top club teams in a monster 4+ hour event, where the all-time fastest lap list features greats such as Brendan Foster and Dave Moorcroft.

After the hard miles clocked up in Australia and the New Forest, it's great to get back into the racing mentality, and pit myself against the hilly course and some of the UK's best road runners. I relish the challenge, and despite a tough previous week's training, the 2nd leg sees me able to haul my team (Harrow AC) from 38th back up to 15th and clock the 5th fastest time ever. In fact 13.39 over the 3 mile course is only 2 seconds behind Brendan Foster's time from 1976.

The sunshine in Birmingham proves too good to last, and back in London, my training group and I battle torrential rain and biting winds on the track, with my coach bravely standing by, keeping us motivated as we swiftly become the only remaining training group!

With the wonderful bank holiday weekend weather comes a reminder that there are no public holidays in athletics, and each day continues much as the day before - hard training and a strict schedule... roll on the track season!