two sessions have been run by me on the track since the last update i did. the firrst one was 3 x 800 with 1x 400. sounds easy but it sure as hell wasn't. times i recorded were 2:28, 2:28 and 2:26 with a 69 400. the last 800 would have been quicker had it not been for a fall by one of my training partners which forced me to check my step. last night was 3x500 4x400 5x300 with long recoveries. i recorded 91, 90 and 90: 68, 69 69 and 70; 48 49 5051 and 52. the last one would of been quicker had i not dallied getting to the 300 start w=due to breathlessness.

switched to running on grass and will try that for the rest of the season and i could certainly feel a difference in my legs in terms of how bouncy they feel last night. whereras before i was feeling quite often like i wa taking a while to get going after a thorough warm last night up i was tearing it up all night. voted to go on strike today

another day another session...

but its all in the good name of getting fit and healthy and looking after ones self etc etc. tonight will be the eighth track session of my season, my how time flies. soon it will be time to start thinking about times for 800 meter races and posibly the odd 400 as well. the training has been going quite well recently but the distinct lak of track meetings makes it very hard to run times on the track. the recent trend towards mass participation road running has meant that we have bred an entire generation of people who are just joggers rather than competitive athletes. the league structure does absolutely nothing as you can turn up at a meeting and there is no guarantee that you will be in a race. very little gets advertised in athletics weekly that is suitable for my self in terms of venue or time which is where the problem lies with regards to my lack of improvement.

there are also more technical aspects of my running that i feel i could improve a lot more such as using my arms more, learning how to run a bend (they say the way to do it is to run it like it is three straights) and being more onmy toes when i run ie not being so flat footed. hayfever has been quite bad these past couple of days, my eyes have been a bit sore and my nose qite runny, but the runny nose bit i suppose is no ddiffererent to usual.

on a different note i was disappointed not to be able to seeany coverage of the loughborough meeting this year and i know nothing about how the brits got on. i think the bbc's attitude towards athletics demonstrates a complete apathy towards any thing that is not a major international meeting or a world (or aaa's) championships in any sport apart from football and even then there are some of the football fraternity who are saying that the number of games that are on tv are damaging the game becaues the quality or the status of the match is not good enough. maybe one day i will appear on tv, who knows but i feel that my real strength lies in short distance road races, where there is no real profile apart from in local newspapers. that may change once i get truly used to running on the track but how often does a leopard change its spots?

well the track session on thursday night was longer than i expected. given the factr that the evening was quite warm i was expecting something quite short, but i was disappointed in that respect. 1x1600 meters, 2x800 meters 4x400 meters. the mile was done in 5:17, the 800's in 2:30 and 2:31 while the 400's were 68, 68, 70 and 71 followed by a collapse in a pathetic heap when i crossed the line for the final time. the internationals do their traditional season opener i'm not making any predictions though but i think this could be a break through year for the european 60m finalist ryan scott, who was disappointed to run 'only' 10.59 for 100 meters at the busa champs, hoping he could get a pb of 10.51. back to me mike said that the reason he feels that i'm not getting used to the track is that i'm to flat footed from running on the roads all the time but i think i'm naturally like that whch is why i feel the road is my strongest surface. must shoot now

still reeling

from the realisation that i could have won the county championships this weekend. and from running badly (or well according to everybody else) at millfield. but then it was windy but you shouldn't start making excuses for bad performances. the frustrating part is that i now have to wait until the tues day after the may bank holiday weekend before i can race again unless by some miracle i get a saturday off for a league meeting or an open meeting. some how i just don't think thats going to happen though, considering the answer has been 'no' virtually every single time i've asked for time off this year. with all the talk of strike action going on at work it looks like it could be a long summer. even at this time of year i don't fancy the thought of standing around outside in the cold at 5 in the morning. it usually gets resolved though but being asked to take on extra work 5 door 2 door items intead of 3 and only getting paid for 3 and being offered only 2.5% when infaltions at 4% is an absolutely disgraceful offer. its equivalent to a pay decrease in return for doing more work and a lot of people are quite annoyed about this insulting offer.

back to matters athletics another list of targets has been added to my list of targets for the season. a county vest on the track at the south west inter counties championships. thats if its not on my amsterdam weekend. but athletics is not my main target for the summer or at least for the next couple of weeks. passing the driving test is the main target as that will give me so much independence.

on to mondays session for the 1500 meter guys which was basically me and err me and no body else it was as follows: 4 x 600 with a long recovery. took me a while to wake up but in the end i did 1:49, 1:47 1:45 and 1:43, so two seconds off every time. it wasn't effort it was just a question of waking the legs up

on track

well it was windy last night so times were almost completely irrelevant at last nights track session. the session was split in to 3 groups, depending on whether you were targeting 1500, 3000's or 5000's for the summer. the actual session was 800, 1 min recovery 400, up to a maximum of 6, which only one real hardcore member of the group completed. 4 for the 3000 guys and 3 for the speedsters doing the 1500's, which was just me and youngster matt peters. in my case i would use the word fast in inverted commas though. still haven't actually put my spikes on yet but i have a feeling that i will be doing it for the first time for tomorrows session with a race on bank holiday monday which is just around the corner i feel it is now time to get down to business. i feel as though the speed and strength are there to run a pb for 1500 meters but it would require much better weather conditions than last night. the wind was just too strong. the track at millfield though is much more sheltered than the one at filton and hopefully that can work to my advantage. times for last night, in the order that i did them were 2:30, 1:12, 2:35, 1:15, 2:32, 1:09. 0n the last rep i inadvertently deprived my self of 15 seconds of recovery by going with a different group to what was planned for me. i even managed to pick off a few of the quicker guys who had gone off too quick and they were clearly paying for that by this stage.

tomorrows going to be a real test for me in one other sense as well as how fast i am. i have very little confidence i the spikes that i am wearing. i do need to sort out a new pair but with driving lessons and a trip to amsterdam to pay for this summer finances are rather tight, so that will probably have to wait. they were always ok over the longer distances like the 5ks 3ks and 15s last year but they seemed to lack the support necessary to be able to run fast over 800 meters. it sounds like a small thing to the uninitiated i know but a track runners relationship with his spikes is like a snooker players with his cue or a like a golfer would feel about his clubs. new 2mm studs are needed as well as they quite often come loose when you run in them as well.

i still feel confident about this season its just that i need a couple of fast races as a confidence boost before things really start to materialise in terms of times