TOM Lancashire is looking to storm out of the shadows and race back to the scene of his greatest moment in athletics.

The Bolton 1500m runner has become the forgotten man of British athletics due to injury and illness setting back his career over the last few years.

But he aims to put that right over the weekend at the British Championships when he could put himself in line for a return to the GB team at next month's World Championships.

And he is going into the weekend on the back of running his second fastest time for five years last weekend.

He sent out a clear message he is back approaching his best form when he ran 3mins 38.36 in a British Milers Club race at Watford, just 0.36secs slower than he ran in 2012 which itself was the fastest he had run since 2010 when he was Britain's number one, regularly running around 3:34 and a constant presence on the European elite Grand Prix circuit.

He is a long way from matching his personal best of 3:33.96 set that season, but he is confident he will be able to get the World Championship qualifying time of 3:36.2 if he can provisionally grab one of the World Championships qualifying spots by finishing in the first three in the British Championships final on Sunday.

Lancashire, who was 30 yesterday, runs in the heats tomorrow at 5.20pm and then hopefully in the final the following day at 3.40pm.

"I chopped a sizeable amount off my season best last Saturday, which was very pleasing," he said.

"I felt comfortable at that pace which I haven't done before so hopefully things are starting to move on a bit."

Lancashire has put his plans to move to a longer distance on hold as he has found good form at 1500m this season.

But he still intends to go to 5,000m next season when he hopes to go to his second Olympics – his first being seven years ago in Beijing, the venue for next month's World Championships.

"The plan was to practise 5k this year to set myself up better at that distance next year," he said.

"But I feel more comfortable at 1500m at the moment so my coach and I have stayed with it.

"We decided that if I have a chance of going to another World Championships I shouldn't pass up on it.

"I've felt better this year than for years, it's the first time I've had a consistent period without any injuries.

"I've not even had any niggles, nothing since last October which may have something to do with my training changing.

"Depending on what training you do you can be just on the right side of the line or just on the wrong side of the line for injuries, and I feel like I'm on the right side of the line.

"It would be great to go to the World Championships again, especially as it is in Beijing again, but I've got to get through this weekend first.

"If I can get in the first two this weekend I think I'll be able to get the qualifying time because the problem has been getting into the right races to get fast times.

"Last week at Watford was the first time I've been in a fast race, but I should be able to get into some good races if I do well over the weekend."