Thursday 31 December 2009

No new year resolutions but one eye on the big picture!

2010 is only hours away and essentially the start of new challenges or resolution for most people...however I never set myself new years resolutions, most people never keep them anyway but I figured why wait months or even a year before you deciding you are going to do something!

This year for me will see some quite big changes, going from racing 5000m as your primary event to moving up to the marathon is never going to be easy but with the opportunities that lay in wait (namely qualification for the European Championships, which will be at the Virgin London Marathon on April 25th) the carrot was there dangling. Furthermore a new event can take a few seasons to master properly so with the Olympics only 939 days away (I checked the official website) it was time to make the necessary changes in order to be successful in the future.

I have already started making some changes in training over the past few months with one eye on the spring, with this has come some sacrifices in the short term though. Most recently being the European XC Trials where I missed out on making the team, whilst training had been going ok, some areas of training certainly took a bit back seat which likely contributed to not quite having all the ammo on the day of the trials in order to make the team.

All that said this last 12 months has been a very successful period, amongst other things I made the GB team for World XC in Jordon, won my first National Medal at an Outdoor Track champs over 5000m and ran 64mins for a half Marathon when finishing 12th at Great North Run. With 2010 about to kick off its time to work towards the next chapter.

Thanks to Cannon Asset Mgmt for their sponsorship, without them the past two seasons would have been much more difficult, espicially with Thomas now on the scene. Thanks also to CMC for helping keep me in one piece.

Have a good new year everyone.

Thursday 24 December 2009

Last minute shopping

Last fridays lab test went pretty well, I'm yet to get the official results but on the days things seemed to indicate that the training is moving in the right direction for the marathon. I probably won't get the results until the new year now but will be interesting to see how it compares to the tests I did when I was racing the 800m & 1500m. Plan will likely be to get in the lab again in during the early part of the new year to keep a close eye on my progress but I will also have afew races lined up which will give me a good idea of my fitness, first race being the Edinburgh Intl XC on the 9th Jan, I think this one will be televised.



Anyway most importantly it's xmas eve and I've not finished my xmas shopping yet! to make matters more tricky Thomas has come home sick from nursary this morning when I had planned to get to the shops. The little man is currently asleep while I write this though, he fell asleep eating his lunch...its was kind of like sleep eating at one stage as he was eating with his eyes closed. He literally finished the mouthful and fell into a deep sleep - both funny and cute. All being well though I will get to the shops later this afternoon when Teresa gets back from work. Nothing like a bit of last minute shopping to get into the festive spirt.



Have a great xmas everyone and see some of you on Boxing day for the local full course race!

Thursday 17 December 2009

Miles and more miles

I'm writing this entry from Lougborough, I flew to the East Midlands this afternoon as I will be carrying out a fitness test at the university lab tomorrow morning. It will also be a chance to catch up with my coach who is based here.

As mentioned in my last post I though some pople might like to see what I'm up to in training at the minute. Oh before I do, last weekends local race went as well as expected, I won the race by about 70secs, although I was effectively running this a controlled tempo effort rather than an all out effort. My legs still felt some the hills though, with fairly high mileage in the legs and the course being somewhat up and down throughout. Nice to do a local event again, its been a while. ALso don't know if any of locals saw the Guernsey Press last Friday but they used an old photo of me from 1993 to preview the race, I was fashioning an impressive mullet and my mum called me to say she didn't think it was me! scarily its was though!

In terms of training I'm in the process of increasing my weekly mileage to new levels (for me) at minute so in terms of quality/interval session I'm not doing that much at the minute, although this will change in the new year.

basic jist of what last week looked like....

Monday
am: 7miles easy pace
pm: 6miles steady pace

Tuesday
am:6.5 miles easy
pm: Track session of 10 x 1k (total 11miles with warm ups & cool down)

Wednesday
am: 13miles
pm: Weights & Core workout

Thursday
am: 6niles easy
pm: 9miles with last4-5miles a bit quicker

Friday
am: 6.5miles easy
am: 6miles easy

Saturday
am: 30mins easy jog (4miles)
pm: Guernsey 6miles xC Race (10miles total w/ wu & cd)

Sunday
am: 19miles (2hours)

There are a few other little bits that are incorporated into my weekly routine, such as using the foam roller, running drills, stretching & mobility exercises and the occasional cold bath after hard sessions (these are never fun! but help recovery) I also usually do some additional conditioning exercises on monday evening, just not this week.

Over a 100miles for me this week, with the aim of building this up a little more of the next month or so (at least I will be able to tuck into a few helping of xmas pudding whichout a second a thought!) I think I was quoted in the local paper as saying that I may eventually get up 140 per week, although I think this is very unlikely before my first marathon, I won't rule it out in the future though. I'm having an easier week this week with mileage likely to total in the region of 70 or so.

Any how that's all for now, I will stick some details of how tomorrows physiology test goes when I get back into Guernsey next week.

Cheers for now.

Saturday 12 December 2009

Racing & Sports Personality...

Hi folks

It's Saturday morning and I'm writing this between my morning run and a local cross country race that I'm running in at lunchtime. Now normally I would have plenty of time but I've got Thomas to watch in a minute and he's so active now that you need to be watching him all the time, only yesterday he learnt how to climb up onto the sofa, climb onto the arm and then dive off head first without any thought for the hard floor below (Tom Daley eat your heart out!), lucky I managed to intervene before impact occured! but he now loves doing it... oh dear!


Speaking of Tom Daley, this weekend is the BBC Sports Personality of the year award, I love this program, it just promotes everything that is special about sport. Throw in some carefully choosen music and it motivates me to want to do whatever sport it is I'm watching. Go the BBC website to watch the promo vid's of each athlete. I'm a bit torn now though as to who I want to win, I would love to see Phillips Idowu win, as he is a true personality and surely what the programs all about, the other athlete who has shown real class though this year is Mark Cavendish. I don't often watch the end of Tour de France but i did this year and his victory on the Champs Elysees was impressive, add 10 tour stage wins to boot and it makes good reading. Guernsey also has there very own representive in the junior category in the form of Heather Watson, I will be watching with interest.

Anyway time is running out with Thomas chasing round my ankles and I need to get my gear sorted for the local race. This will be first race on local soil for a while, my memory can be pretty bad but i think this might be my first race this year in Guernsey! usually I am able to do a few races through the year but with training camps, GB selections and races away I haven't had the chance. I'm looking forward to it, hopefully my legs will too as I've run a fairly big week of mileage this week, my highest to date infact (I will post it all up next week for those that are interested). Anyway time to sort my kit out and then watch Mickey Mouse Club House on Disney!

All for now.