After April my right knee and hip were very painful, and hurt mainly after exercise. After attending a local physiotherapist on numerous occasions, I went to see a specialist in Crawley, who informed me that I was suffering from tightness in my muscles in my legs, but he told me that my running style was good and relaxed. I have been trying to stretch on a daily basis and have again been to the local physiotherapist for massage.

I managed to run in the local 5 mile YMCA fun run in July, which was my first event since the Marathon. I can tell that I have really lost fitness, but having said that, although I've had a cold and a pain in my knee since, I'm now hoping to continue to build the freqency of my runs, and gradually increase the distance too. I think that I am at last getting back into regular running.

In my last newsletter I stated that I would run the Dorking 10 in June, but I simply was not ready for the race. However, in September I have an entry for the Great South Run, and I'm hoping to be fit enough to be able to run ten miles by this date - I'm hopeful.

I have the Great North Run coming up too, but I've decided to start prepartation later this year - putting in runs greater than ten miles after January, but not before. I want to run in the Reigate Priory Athletic Club's club championship 10K around November time, and I wouldn't want to miss the Tadworth 10 in early January.

The website has been very busy, but I don't have much sponsorship yet. I am however now registered on Justgiving.com, so I hope that this will be a good source of revenue.

I've had mental health problems over the last four months, and this has compounded things really with my running problems. I will soon start selling computer equipment again in urnest with all of the proceeds going towards the MSRC fund.

The main point at the moment is I feel that I am at last running again, and I now hope to build from running success to success, gradually getting fitter, faster and further. Please keep your fingers crossed for me!