THIS is one of the busiest weeks of the running year. On Sunday, I was competing at the Bull Run 4 in Gloucestershire, on Friday I'm in Devon to take part in the Round The Tree 3 race, followed by a Cani-X event on the Sunday at Stonehenge (more later on Cani-X), with a May Day race on the Monday in Northamptonshire.

I've also got a fund-raising reception which I am hosting at the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth for 120 guests tonight (Thursday).

So last night (Wednesday), I was in Birmingham. In Kingswinford to be precise for the DK10km race. Speaking to a guy from Birchfield Harriers, the big club locally, this is "the London Marathon of 10km evening races".

It is a popular one. There were more than 1,000 runners at the Dudley Kingswinford Running Club for the 22nd running of the race on a beautiful sun-kissed Spring evening.

Before the race I met up with Neil Fereday, a 53-year-old lorry driver from Tipton who has run all 21 previous races. He was struggling with a hamstring injury, and ordinarily he wouldn't have run. But Neil wasn't going to let a niggle like that stop the unbroken run, and he was on the start line with everyone else.

I don't know what it is about the brain and the body, but they seem to have separate identities. I wanted a nice steady run, but I blasted out of the blocks running the first kilometre in close to four minutes, and by half way I was running 21 minutes for 5km. I was telling myself to slow down. I had all these races lined up, and the time was irrelevant. But the body just kept pushing on the shoulders of other runners, moving ahead along the quiet lanes around Kingswinford.

It was Neil, however, who put the brakes on. I spotted him just after the 5km mark and drew up alongside him. He was struggling and his hamstring was hurting bad. I decided to slow down and stick with him. This was a wise move as we chatted and ran in together.

Everyone seemed to know Neil. People were shouting encouragement to him, and we ran through this throng of cheering people outside a pub which was fantastic.

Neil had to drive to Nottingham the following day and knew it was going to hurt after this run. The course was undulating, and there were a couple of stiff climbs. At one of these, Neil pointed out how this was the route of their Boxing Day run, and at the top of this hill was the spot where he was always sick!

We had a pedal cycle escort towards the end from one of Neil's mates as we ran to the finish. We both clocked 45minutes 1sec for 10km and received a lovely glass goblet at the end.

For Neil, running is about getting rid of the frustrations of lorry driving. He loves his sport, and today he's going to be hurting!