Watch out Lance, the Kenyan's are coming!

Again it's been a while since my last post, infact I only seem to be posting from Kenya these days! as you've probably gathered I'm back here again as part of my spring Marathon preparations. Having been weighing up my options in terms of my marathon choice my decision I guess was a fairly straight forward one in the end... I will be running the Virgin London Marathon this April in my pursuit of the Olympic qualifying time. Whilst I have been in Kenya London Marathon have been out here too, they announced details of the full elite field here in Iten too, as ever the field is about as strong as you will see anywhere in the World and promises to be an exciting race both from a domestic and international perspective. From a British view point pretty much everyone who is looking to achieve the Olympic time will also be running in London too. Here's a link to the elite field....

http://www.virginlondonmarathon.com/news-and-media/news-and-media/press-release-20-01-12-olympics-goal-mutai-defends/

Between my two Kenya trips there's been plenty going on, xmas new year was a fairly quiet one with the family, well as much as it can be an excitable 3 years old Thomas, we had a scaletrix set...sorry I mean Thomas did, this present was well recieved allround though though :) After new year I raced my first cross race for 12months in the form of the Hampshire County Champs, its been 4 years since my last outing at the event and another rare opportunity to pull on a Guernsey Race. I had a good race with John Beattie, as we had both decide to race seeing as we were bothing after a race that weekend. We had a pretty close race but I managed to draw clear within the last 600m or so to win by a handful of seconds. There a link to part of the race on Channel TV (not sure it will work in all regions though)....

http://www.channelonline.tv/channelonline_sportnews/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=497808

Following the race I had a good week of training at home before then picking up a cold unfortunately, it meant I arrived in Kenya a little under the weather, not ideal given we are 8000feet above sea level and with some very dusty trails to contend with this time around. The cold is now thankfully over with and training is starting to tick along nicely up here. The weather has been much better than November, no rain in sight!... ironically a few people were complaining about the dust but hey I will take that over muddy sticky trials any day! although I have said I might bring with me some B&Q dust masks to run with next time I come :)

Kenya as a training venue never fails to inspire me and our long run this morning inparticular was no different, whilst we had to contend with running through some thick smoke from a small bush fire (if you call the crop fields of Kenya the bush!) having run the long run in one direction, some 22miles plus miles it meant we got to see some fairly remote parts of around Iten. Thankfully we had drinks providing on the run and a lift back afterwards, note before a much need stop a small kenyan shack for a bottle of coke! On our drive back we saw something rather noval a Kenya peleton, at the time we thought this was just a training ride but turns out this was actually a race. A lot of them had single speed bikes that looked like something out of the 1970's, many were also had running shoes rather than cycling shoes.

Watch out Lance, the Kenyan's are coming!

Anyhow with 12 weeks to go until London the training as they say start here.. ok technically I have be preparing in the general sense since a took a break after the World Champs last year, but these next 12 weeks is when the real work take places.

OK there's Wet and there's this!

Last time I blogged I was nearer the end of my trip in Kenya and about to travel home, this I did but not without a bit of drama to make this interesting...

Usually we leave Lorna's Centre about 2 hours before our flight as the drive is only 45minutes to the airport, the airport is even smaller than Guernsey airport so you are usually safe arriving 45-60minutes before. On the day of travel though, Willy (Songok) who looks after us while we are there, came and said we would be leaving earlier due to flooding on the road between the centre and the airport (there is only one tarmac road the rest of dirt roads) in order to allow for any possible delays. We had been told that we should be able to get through the flooded area, which was also being blocked off my some of the Kenyan Matatu (Kenyan mini bus/taxi) drivers. This way apparently a way for them to make a quick buck as they were charging people to carry them (and their belongs) across the flooded section of road, where they were able to pick up another Matatu! When we arrived at the flood it was carnage...


Whilst it was all pretty amusing initially the novelty soon wore off, particularly when a number of the locals saw we were in a 4x4 vehicle and starting climbing onto the roof. I can only presume they thought they would be able to get across the flooded road without getting wet but I must admit for a minute it didn't feel particularly safe!


After trying initially to get across the road things proved unsuccessful and so our driver decided we would take the detour via the various dirt roads in order to bypass the flood and then rejoin the main road further on. Literally no sooner did we back up and turn off onto an already muddy and flooded dirt road it started lashing it down with rain! The dirt road were proving a challenge even for our 4x4 and there were a few times I thought we were going to slide into a few Kenyans walking between villages.


We had only driven a mile or so before we came across our first major obstacle, which was a broken down car blocking the road we were on. Our driver decided to try and get into the adjacent field in order to drive. Unfortunately we became stuck and despite our drivers best efforts it didn't appear we would be getting out anytime soon as the wheels had dug themselves a nice deep grove into the mud. A Kenyan guy in our vehicle managed to find some rocks which were thrown in by the front wheels in an attempt to find traction but it didn't seem to help. Fortunately by this point a local man had joined us and he basically dug us a pathway for our driver to able to negioate his way out, although not before we had all got thoroughly socked in attempt to help push our vehicle out.


Despite being on edge for much of the next 2hours we did at least make it through to the main road eventually, through some pretty hurrendously muddy and flooded sections. The usual 45min journey from the centre to Eldoret Airport took us 3hours and we arrived only 20mins or so before our flight but we made it at least!


On a lighter note, early in the day myself, Hannah England and Luke Gunn had met up with Tom Payn, a british marathon runner who bases himself Iten. Tom whilst renting a room elsewhere spends much of his time with a training camp called Run-Fast and he invited us into visit the camp. We met Edwin Kipyego who is one of probably the camps star athlete and one to watch out for, his 10k PB is already 28.12 and 61.23 for the half marathon and so I've been told has only been training serious for a couple of years.


We were invited into his accommodation for a cup of chi (kenyan tea) or at least Edwin's version of it, as he had added a sachet of hot chocolate to the original flask, however having not had anything particular sweet for the past few weeks it was a bit of treat to satisfy my sweet tooth!
(myself and Edwin outside his one room accommodation which sleeps two people, a room no bigger and 10 feet by 10, includes 2 bunk beds, a sofa, a tv and a sink, its compared to most Kenyan homes this is luxury)

The camp was situated slightly off the main dirt roads, near to Iten town centre and meant we had to walk through a few back streets (which were basically muddy paths) to get there and we passed lots of Kenyan kids en route. They apparantly have all of December off school. Myself Hannah (England) and Luke (Gunn) couldn't resist a picture with them.

Update from a wet Kenya

Hi folks

I’ve been Kenya a couple of weeks now, in fact my trip is nearly at an end! but my altitude camp has gone really well for me. A couple of weeks before I got hear I had to pull out of the Great South Run due to illness but I now feel I have found my feet again and I’ve put in some good 100mile weeks, alongside all the little things too. The added benefit of being on a training camp is having the time to utilize recovery with daytime naps the order of the day… I do manage to squeeze a few in at home but logistically it’s always more challenging, out here its part of the daily routine.

This now my third time in Kenya, I also came out in January and March earlier this year before the Virgin London Marathon, so I feel quite at home. Things have been a little different this time around though as there’s been a substantial amount of rain, somewhat unusual for Kenya in November. There main rainy season is usually April & May and whilst there is supposedly a short rainy period in November, this has been anything but short. Previously we there has been rain it’s mostly been over night and not that regularly but since we’ve arrived there has been rain most days and some heavy down pours during the day too. I don’t feel it has affected my training all that much in terms of quality but we have had to adapt the surface, the trails are all ground/clay based so as soon as you get any persistent rain they become very stick and sometimes just not run-able. The only option for running when its been really muddy has been the solitary tarmac road which goes through Iten, so this has lead to a few out and back on the bad days. Whilst the rain has not been a big issue for us, with perhaps the exception of the crazy drivers when we have taken to the road, no pavement here! For the people locals it is a little more serious, as the heavy rain is delaying the harvesting of crops and this for many is there only source of food or income.

It has not been all bad weather though, as we did manage to get on the Iten Track a couple of times. This is always an impressive spectacle on ‘session day’, that being a Tuesday morning, as you will always find large number and various Kenyan training groups in full swing (assuming its dry day). We were even witness to something other than distance running on one occasion with some crazy high jump techniques going on.

My sessions have gone surprisingly whilst here actually, as after picking up a stomach bug at home a few weeks ago I must admit to did struggle with my training somewhat in the aftermath. It been nice to train in group again though and having been on previous UKA/London Marathon training camps I know that these trips work well for me and it has been just what I needed to get my fitness back and set the wheels in motion for the next few months of training.
Its certainly tough training here though as you won’t find too many flat runs but I’m sure that is one part of what makes so many successful athletes here. I did have an unscheduled day off the other day however, feeling dizzy and generally under the weather, fortunately it turned out to be just a 24hour thing… or as I've since heard it call here ‘a little malaria’. Whenever a Kenyan person gets sick, whatever shape or form it takes it is usually referred to as malaria, it seems this is just a word for someone who is ill! Whilst of course genuine malaria is a serious issue here and across many areas of Africa it seems to me that the Kenyan’s version of man-flu is this ‘small malaria’, don’t let the reference foul you. When I was here in January one of the Kenya guys who works at the centre was off ill with malaria, only to be back at work the next day!

Just a few more days here now and then off to Preston to catch up with a Sports Psychologist and then on to Loughborough for some physiological testing to measure how well the camp has really gone.

Planning for success

It’s between a while since my last blog even by standards but plenty to update you on, despite my lack of racing…

I took my usual break after the World Champs as planned, actually that’s a little bit of lie as I actually started running a few days earlier than planned. I usually get out on my push bike just to do something in the second week to fend of the boredom but unfortunately my bike was out of action so went out for a few easy runs instead. Nothing major just 20 to 30mins of easy jogging on a daily basis but it at least kept the cabin fever at bay.

I have since been building things up again training wise and despite not feeling particular fit I ran the National Road Relays for my UK club Newham & Essex Beagles only a few weeks after starting back. I have only competed for Newham a small number of times over the last 2 years, mainly due to events clashing with other racing plans but I enjoying doing something as part of a team when the chance arises. On previous outings for Newham in UK competitions I have always been on a winning team, but with a slightly weaker team (partly down to me not being in shape) and coming up again a strong Aldershot team we had to settle for 3rd spot on this occasion. I ran 4th leg for the team and whilst my time was somewhat short of what I would expect to run I came away thinking I can now kick on the training. Unfortunately no sooner did I touch down back in Guernsey airport that night after the relays did I come down with a stomach bug, this let to no running for following week and when I did start back again things took a good few days before I started to feel a bit more like myself again. For those reasons I decided against running the Great South Run which I was down to do originally and decide I would be better just getting myself back to full health.

Since the Daegu Champs I have a lot of time to analysis my past season and also look ahead to the next 12months and most importantly how I will tackle it. One of the main things I have done is sit down and think about how I can improve things and find those little difference, the one percenters which will all add up to an overall better performance. I have always set myself targets and within that the little processes which will get me there. A book which first encouraged me to start thinking like this was ‘Gold Minds’ by Brian Miller, a book which my old coach recommended to me. The book is a few years old now but the principles are still useful, although recently it’s been useful to fine tune things following a meeting I had with a guy called Tim Newenham. Tim runs a company called Javelin Consultancy and the Guernsey Sports Commission have been using him to help develop a support programme for athletes in Guernsey. Tim helped me fine tune my goal settings a little more which helped identify a slightly clearer path to achieving success. I still have one or two things I need to finish off in terms of my full season plan, namely the marathon I will run in the spring, but I plan to decide this over the next couple of weeks.

I am now a couple of weeks on from the road relays and I’m actually out in Kenya at the minute on a UK Athletics & London Marathon funded altitude training camp. I will be here for just over 3 weeks with the plan to use the altitude and extra time away from my usual environment to focus on things like rest and recovery a bit more. I have to admit I have found the past 8 weeks challenging at home with our little girl Jessica (who is only 13 weeks old) still not sleeping through the night yet. I do find it hard to be away from the family these days but the training camps and the altitude exposure in particular are something I see as a an essential ingredient if I’m going achieve my targets. Our boy Thomas is a really good sleeper at night fortunately so all being well Jessica will follow suit, I joked with my wife that it she could get her sleeping through the night for when I return that would be sit nicely with me :) I won’t repeat what she said to me!

I leave you with something which made me laugh following a conversation with my son on the phone the other night (sorry I have become one of those parents who talk about their children all the time). He has been given the part of father Christmas in his nursery nativity play and he has to sing the song quoted below, however he when he sang it back to me he replaced the final word (the word out) with the word ‘off’, hopefully he gets it right on the day!

Father Christmas got stuck in the chimney,
So he began to shout,
If you boys & girls want your toys,
You better pull me out.

You can see our concerns at his mistake!

I will try to post up regular while out in Kenya, with what Kenya & the camp in general has been like but in the meantime if anyone has any questions please feel free to leave comment or questions in the comment box below.

Down but not out

For those of you who have seen the result, you will probably already know that I finished 22nd place in the Marathon at the World Champs in Deagu, unfortunately narrowly missing out on a top 20 finish and subsequently missing out on achieving an Olympic A standard that I was after. It's been a rough couple of days having got so close and initally it left me feeling particularly frustrated with myself being that I was only 18seconds outside that 20th spot. I only found out how close that 20th spot was after the race which only compounded my frustrations with myself. My thinking being that had I known I was in touching distance that I was sure I could have found that little something extra required over the closing stages. Whether I would have is another matter, I will never know but even having that conversation with myself immediately following the race left me double guess myself as to whether I had exhausted every possible ounce of energy in the race.

In terms of how the race unfolded I came very close to executing the race plan I had set out to run, for all but those two places! I started conservatively with the aim of running a more even paced race than my fellow competitors with the believe that many people would get it wrong and start to fast. In general most of the field did exactly this. Whilst conditions on the day were not as bad as expected temparatures were still 25c and around 60% humidity. I think because the weather was cloudy and there was a breeze many people under estimated the conditions. At half way myself and Dave Webb were 51st and 52nd place, well down the field but only gaining in places until the finish. At 35k I got a shout out from the sides to say I was 33 place and in front of me I could see half a dozen people coming back to me, 3 of whom were the three spanish athletes who had beaten me last year in Barcelona (where I finished 8th, in Daegu I was the 6th European finisher). During that last 7km I figured I had passed approx 7 or 8 runners, hence assuming I had worked myself up to around 25th place, however I may have miss counted and also not allowed for drop outs, which evidently was the case as I crossed the line in 22nd place. Whilst I fell short of my target the performance itself is probably one I should be more proud of but because of what was at stake one I can't help but be disappointed by the result. Had the race just simply been a World Championships for me and not a chance to gain Olympic Qualification I think I would have probably taken much more positive from the race but it was difficult to see past that at the time.

Moving forward now though I have to run the Olympic A Standard time (which is to run under 2hr 12mins for the marathon) and I have already starting looking at how will go about doing that. My thoughts and disappointment of last Sunday have not completely left my head just yet but my appetite to succeed remains as strong as ever so I will do everything I can to ensure I achieve my goals.

Currently I am now enjoying a break from training, no running and more time at home... which is proving just as much of a challange as the marathon as our little girl Jessica is proving difficult to settle in the evenings. Whilst she is now 5 weeks old my wife was almost a single parent pre-South Korea so it's been a bit of shock to the system for me! I no can longer be excused due to preparing for a World Champs and there's nothing like a bit of real life reality to ground you again and remind you it's not just about running... at least not all the time :)

Its a girl!

This is a little bit late as per normal but now I'm In the holding camp in Ulsan ahead of the World champs I have a bit more time to write and post this up...

Firstly baby news! on Thursday 4th September we had a baby girl, Jessica Yves who weighed in at 6lb 15 0z, the middle name(pronounced Eve) uses the male spelling as we wanted to use my late grandpa's middle name in his memory, he passed away last December. Other than lack of sleep mother and baby are doing fine and my wife has been a bit of a star taking the brunt of the baby duties so I could get the rest I needed from training. Our son Thomas celebrated his 3rd birthday the other week too, so with a cluster of kids running around house for his party and people popping in to see Jessica there's been plenty going on.

In terms of training I am now into my easing back period here in Ulsan, but prior to that the last few weeks have gone really well, certainly as well as my preparation for the London marathon earlier this year, if not better. I've also managed to get some good acclimatisation prior to the holding camp, with a few sessions in a greenhouse, made available to me thanks to the local vinery the Clematis Nursary. Unfortunately the treadmill I was initially using packed up though, due to getting too hot apparently. It was 36c and 100% humidity on one occasion mind! The greenhouse sessions went well though and i felt pretty comfortable in the that environment, certainly more so than Fae the BBC Guernsey reporter who joined me for part of one my sessions the other week, I think she lasted about 5mins :)

As I say I'm now out in Ulsan in South Korea after a fairly long journey out here, taking the best part of 24hours. Certainly staying awake during the last few hours was a challenge and slept well that first night! the jelag doesn't seem to affecting me too badly either but I understand most people have taken a good 4 or 5 days to get used to the hour time different. I will try to update again here with a bit more info about Ulsan and my final prepations, although that will only be if I can get a new battery charger for my laptop as I left my at home! If I can source another I get another update up here in a few days.

Camping out at home

I'm now back home after my month in the Pyrenees, ironically c0ming home to better weather than I left in Font Romeu. The weather for the last few days was not the best, all most constaint rain for the last two days, not what you usually expect for the South of France in July! but training went well so can't complain. The 4 weeks of training was arguably my best period of training at altitude and the last week was particular good with a solid track session and a very good 25km tempo run, the latter so much so that the person who accompanied me on a push bike couldn't keep up :)



Now I am home I feel a little bit more at ease, as Teresa has not given birth yet, so this means I will definately be here for our new arrival. As the doctor has suggested the due be a little sooner than first thought, Teresa only had to be a few days early and I would have still been in France. The due date is basically this weekend and I'm told that they never let it go more than 2 weeks overdue and I am home now for 3 weeks before I leave for the holding camp in Alsan.


As mentioned in a previous post I would normally be at altitude closer to the race but came home sooner to be around for the birth, however in order to maintain the benefits I have gained from my trip at altitude I am sleeping in my altitude tent. Which has cosily fitted into our conservatory at home, much to my wife disappointment :) The only probably with using the altitude system that I have is that because it's an old system the generator needs to be inside the tent, rather than outside, which is the case with the more modern versions. This makes means getting used to the noise and also the temparature (as the generator increases the temparature by 10 degrees C inside). As those of you with conservatories probably know these places tend to warm at the best of times so I'm not going to getting cold at night to say the least! BBC Guernsey came around to my house yesterday for an interview and seemed particularly interested in the tent that's inside the house. They are not the only one amused by the tent, my son Thomas loves come in there too.


Anyway just a brief update for now, next time I post something I should be a dad again so fingers crossed everything goes smoothly with that...I'm not sure who's more terrified about the actual birth, Teresa or myself! Our first, Thomas was delivered by C-section so the thought of a natural birth seems a little bit more scary. Running marathons seem a much easier prospect to get my head round than child birth.