Holidays over,time to prepare for Barcelona

Hi everyone,

Im back in Guernsey now after a 10 day family break in sunny Turkey, I must admit it was kinda nice having my days evolve around things other than running for a change. However after a week of no running and the body feeling much better for it I did start to miss the routine!

Whilst away I had my selection for the Great Britain team confirmed for European Champs/European Marathon Cup event, which will be in Barcelona from 27th July until 1st August, the mens Marathon is on the 1st August. The Guernsey Commonwealth Games Association also confirmed my selection for the Delhi 2010 Commonwealth Games which are in October later this year, so plenty of big races to train for and look forward to.

Barcelona and Delhi will not only provide a very competitive stage to compete on but both will provide a challanging climate to cope with too, Barcelona inparticular could potentially be very tough. Running a marathon is hardwork enough but with temparatures likely to be in and about the mid 30's this will be a whole new ball game. This sort of thing can make races more open though so I see this as a excellent opportunity to surpase expectations and to make a name for myself. I plan to run on the track in Delhi in either the 5k or the 10k (yet to be decided) as I don't want to race three marathons in such a short period of time, it would also be nice to finally record a fast track time that i know I am capable of doing.

So with 12 weeks to Barcelona my recovery seems to be coming along ok. I am just steady running at the minute and probably will do this for at least another week to ensure that London is completely out of my legs.

One other I would I like to mentioned is the overwelming feedback and messages I had following London. I had a tons of messages (i tried to reply to most of them although I did lose track of which ones I actually replied too!) I also had a lot of people just simply coming up to me to congratulate me. I think this is one of the reasons why Guernsey has so many people doing well in sport for a small place, as the recognition and support from local people makes it all the more rewarding.

Until next time.