Training update (oh what an exciting post title) and racing plan

Right then folks, I'm back to the keyboard whilst sitting in bed last thing at night. Eilidh is teething like billy-oh just now so it's 6am ups or earlier every day. The time is past 11pm so I'm playing fast, loose and dangerous with sleep quotas. I'll have to be quick.

My training is back on track performance wise after a rather stuttered start to the year. I'm not managing all my planned sessions yet as various bits and bobs are popping up but I am performing as I want to be at this stage in the year and season. Progress wise I am doing as below:

Endurance - no problems, my base level doesn't appear to have diminished and I've run an 18.5 miler on the last 2 weekends. The 2nd one had about 1500' of ascent in it and I recovered within a day.
Speed - again no problems, I am up to running 6 consecutive sub 7 minute miles in my tempo sessions with the first 3 at sub 6:50 pace. I am holding 6:15 and below pace easily in my 3 minute effort interval sessions
Strength - my gym sessions haven't been as regular as I'd like so I need to up these
Yoga - I can now do up and down dog positions in Ashtanga Yoga and am enjoying it
Hills - not really started this yet but tomorrow is the day I run 15-20 reps of a 130' ascent hill near my house as the start of my 'simulate alpine running in rural buckinghamshire' training plan

I have my race and training even plan sorted until the back end of September and it kicks off next month:

March - MK half marathon (aiming sub-1:29), Wuthering Hike 31 miler (aiming sub-5:15)
April - Exe to Axe 21 miler (4500' ascent, aiming sub 3:20), Highland Fling 53 miler (aiming sub 9:56)
May - Marlborough Downs Challenge 33 miler (aiming sub 4:55)
June - 2 day Bob Graham Round
July - in Australia so I''ll grab whatever I can plsu something big when I return as a final UTMB training session
August - UTMB 103 miler
September - High Peak 40 miler

If anyone has any June or late July ultra race or training ideas I'd be very grateful for them.

Looking forward to the season, and hoping to see some familiar faces at the ultra events, particularly the Wuthering Hike, Highland Fling and HP40.

In the meantime here are some photos that were taken by my mate Phil Dickson at PSD Photography over the festive period. We wanted to get some professional photos taken to send to Kirstin's family in Australia, for my family and our own albums, but didn't want anythin too cheesey. I think he did a good job. The last photo was taken in People's Palace in Glasgow when he accidentally dropped something and managed accidentally to take a photo of us (my family - gran, mum, dad, brother, wife, daughter and me) grimacing at the noise. Funny expressions!