Hello everyone! I’m back. And my, that four weeks went very very quickly. In them, I ran a lot of miles, saw an amazing race, ran about five million laps of various tracks and had a fantastic week training and holiday-ing at Club La Santa in Lanzarote.

If you’ve ever fancied combining a holiday with training, I cannot recommend it highly enough. A lovely 400m running track in the centre of the complex, multiple guided daily runs if you fancy them, every other fitness class under the sun to try, tennis courts, squash courts, no fewer than three 50m swimming pools plus a leisure pool, a kid’s pool, spa and numerous restaurants. Oh and the sea, and volcanoes and incredible otherworldly scenery, of course.

Seriously, it’s a wonder I ever left. I met quite a few staff who said they’d come to work there for a few months and stayed years - I can see why. Some people might like sunbathing for a week, but for me, this was holiday heaven. Albeit that some of those runs were seriously tough in the heat.

I’ll be writing more about Club La Santa, as well as the UTMB which I went to watch in France, before long. But in the meantime, what have you all been up to? Back in the UK this weekend I did my usual Saturday on the track, followed by Junior parkrun then my long run yesterday - 16 miles which probably should have felt a lot easier than it did, two weeks out from Berlin marathon ..

As always, share your weekend triumphs and woes below the line. As well as your tales of taper madness. My taper has most definitely not kicked in yet (65-odd miles last week) but the madness seems to have done already, seeing as I spent some time this weekend making an advent calendar ...