To Folkestone in Kent to do an England Athletics Flying Coach seminar with the county’s athletics network coaches. The theme is Marathon, which in early March is very timely. Folkestone was the base of Cliff Temple, one of the best athletics writers there has been, who wrote for The Times and Sunday Times through the 1980s and early 1990s as well as authoring a couple of super books on endurance training.  There is a lively audience of coaches and runners, with running levels and goals that reflect the growing diversity in the world of endurance running. It’s nice to hear the tales of one runner who pushed his training up to 3 consecutive weeks of 100 miles and lived to tell the tale, which is one more week than yours truly ever managed on the trot, as it were.

Away from the seminar room and out on the roads and paths, it was a busy weekend with races like the Finchley 20 (held in Ruislip, fully 15 miles from Finchley), Thames Towpath 20, Surrey Half to name a few. And for those not racing, some very long training runs, in several cases the longest time on feet as they prep for April marathons.