Out of nowhere I've suddenly become speedy (relative to my previous 'speed' anyway) and I can't quite work out why .

Its almost certainly a culmination of various things - I started running with my club twice a week pretty religeously from April, my overall mileage went up from 15~20 to 30~40 mpw (which of course for two or three months slowed me down if anything), I've got rid of another 7 lbs in weight too since then, I've run the 3 peaks (twice), Wharfedale offroad marathon and Borrowdale and I also ran a 4 mile leg in Otley's Friday night relay races around Swinsty Resevoir.

This last run might have been the start of my metamorphasis thinking about it; I was running one of the two longer legs and decided to do the first half at an incredibly painful sprint. I now hate short races completely on the back of this but it may well have given me a new gear and a bit more speed.

I ran my Pen Y Ghent route on Sunday morning in a new Stolly world record of 58:49