Little update from last time. Training has been rather frustrating the last two weeks to be honest. Even though I've managed to start up sessions again the weather has been awful almost every day and made it pretty difficult to get decent training done. Following Ribble, my sessions have been:
29/12/11: 5min Tempo (90), 8x3mins (2mins), 5min Tempo
31/12/11: 8m Tempo
03/01/12: 5x4mins (2mins)
Tempo went pretty well but I'm struggling quite a bit on the longer intervals which I was expecting.
Racing hasn't improved much either. I ran the International Race at Edinburgh today for Great Britain seniors in the GB v USA v Europe Select match and finished 18th (8th GB) in 26.50. This is a great race which I did last year and was keen to do well in at the start of the season. The race was 8km consisting of 4x2km laps. The first 300m was pretty quick - quicker than I thought it would be given how windy it was and how muddy most of the course was- and then settled down for the rest of the 1st lap. Most of the guys were together at this point and all 9 GB were up there. At the start of lap 2 the leaders put the boot in and I got dropped instantly and the rest of the race was a bit of a slog to be honest. Luckily I still had James Walsh for company and he helped me stay reasonably in contact with others who dropped off later on in the lap. Lap 3 Walsh pulled away slightly but I managed to pass Ryan McCleod who was struggling a bit after hurting his back on lap 2 and an American. Going into the last lap I was just adrift of Walsh and James Wilkinson and had to really dig in deep to hang on to them. I managed to pass Wilkinson with about 800m to go but was totally spent by the time I reached the home straight and could do nothing when he passed me with 100m to go. It was six to score for the team and that final spot was only 5 seconds away but as hard as I tried, I just couldn't get back on to Walsh. The team had a pretty strong performance finishing 2nd behind what was a pretty strong European side. I'm pretty frustrated with the race because I know it's no where near what I can do/have done but I knew going into that it wasn't going to be spectacular. Considering how the last 4 weeks have gone, I guess it was solid enough. I'm back into regular training so onwards and upwards!
On a more positive note it is only 2 days now until I go to Kenya for 4 weeks. I've never been altitude training before and really excited to see what it's like. I saw the trip advertised on the UKA website and thought it was too good an opportunity to go and train in the world's most dominant distance running nation. Scottish Athletics have been kind enough to fund me for the trip and can't thank them enough for it. Without this support it probably wouldn't be possible to go. Never been away from home this long before either which should be interesting and will also be away from my girlfriend, Joanne. Luckily she's quite understanding as she will be away a lot this year competing in various Equestrian Vaulting competitions (World and European Champion by the way)!
Will post at some point during the trip at some point. Cheers.
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