final day in amsterdam back to business tomorrow

for the 1500 meter race at exeter and probably my best chance of a pb over that distance that there will be this year. i am in an internet cafe at the moment as my flight isn't until 21:40, so that leaves me plenty of time to do what i want in the mean time...been to the sex museum today, i have to say that allthough some of the artefacts are quite funny it wasn't a turn on as such, some of the pornography from times gone by was quite good. i don't want to leave this place though its so good here and england is really not the place for me at the moment, everybody i know seems to want to leave. the life style on the continent is so much better far more liberal and theres no stress here. on top of that everybody is so much healthieryou don't hardly see any fat people around here and when you dou do they do generally happen to be english. a beer belly is considered some thing to be proud of in england whereas here people would frown at such a ridiculous notion. here everyone cycles every where whereas in london its bus tube train or car for every journey. you ask for directions in london and they say "ooh its a long way...its nearly two bus stops, you'll have to catch a bus" i think i'll sign off before i get too far down the road of this discussion, i haven't got that much time!

still running

in amsterdam, ready for exeter on tuesday night, where i will be racing a 1500 meters. could be the last one of the season, depending on how the fixtures pan out. it looks like for the next avon league fixture will be either 800 or 3000 for the distance people and having done nothing like enough 800 meter speed work i feel as though that would be akin to suicide to try one with that little speed work behind me. so i will be doing the 3k instead, nothing ventured nothing gained. i should have a realistic chance of running a pb in that as i have only ever done 10:23, in a race where i stood on the start line tired and gradually got progressively worse until i was lapping at about 5 seconds a lap slower than i was at the start of the race. i don't have particularly fond memories of either of the times i ran 3000 meters on the track as it was bloody hard work both times and i ended up running on my own both lapping people and being lapped. the being lapped though was only by one person a former gb international, martin hula, who just happened to lap every body else in the field as well. on the surface lapping people sounds like fun, but when you are running for a time it is at best an inconvenience and at worst quite dispiriting, as it is rather boring runing around a rubber track on your own. it also puts you at a disadvantageif you're running for a fast time as you have to fight your way past the lapped runners (sods law is that you always catch them on the bends making you run even further than you would if you caught them in the straight). it also means that you have less people to protect you from the elemnts if the weather is bad or for slipstreming effect when the weather is good.

i set my self a target of 30 complete track sessions as well as races before the start of the season and it doesn't look like i'm going to get any where near that, for one reason and another, but mostly because i just don't think i'm going to have time before the end of season kicks in. we will be preparing for the autumn relays come the last week of august/first week of september where we will be training on the grass and roads and the rubber stuff will be left well alone until the next out door season. i have said that i will do indoor track this year if i pass my driving test. yes, that will be my "treat" to my self for getting my licence.

i have only made two trips to the red light district in amsterdam. there is so much more to do there than hookers and i have to say that the city that i have seen completely defies the image of it that some tims comes across. the museums are fascinating and they are scattered every where throughout the city. whereas the red light section is only concentrated in one small area of the city. go beyond the boundaries of the red light district and you wouldn't even know it was there. the museums them selves have been utterly fascinating. today i took advantage of a special deal between madam tussauds and the amsterdam dungeons. some of the implements of torture that they showed us were shall we say interesting, including a hook where they gave us a demonstration of where they would insert it to get "confessions" out of heretics and other forms of traitors. another one was the cage where they would a small cage, which was usually only used on prisoners who were being particularly difficult. in the cage, which would be surrounded by hot coals there would be a rat which had been starved by the jailer. the result was that the rat would eat its way through the prisoners intestines. death was inevitable but it must have been a particularly horrible way to die, slow and very painful as well

there were also exhibits of people throwing up blood (the black death) and other implements that were used in the name of god such as tongue extractors. it makes the thought of hanging or being burnt at the stake seem rather appealing. tomorrow i will be paying a visit to the amsterdam history musem as well as probably the sex museum, which is really only a small exhibition but what the hell, its there so its there to be done.

i am now starting to think about thing s i shall be doing in the time between the end of the summer season and the start of winter training. number one obviously is that i will be watching the world championships in osaka (they start their season laterthe elite athletes do not like the mere mortal club runners like my self). there will be more weight work coming in to the equation as we start to think about strengthening up again rather than speed work and horribly painful lactate acid. so i suppose there will be stints on the rowing machine and the exercise bikes to ease the enormous amount of strain that running and carrying heavy (thats heavy mr crozier not light as you like all the public to think in your propoganda war) post bags around puts on your legs

an amusing incident on the tram

more of that later...i am amazed about a few things about amsterdam. 1 it is so clean...an example that our own capital london could follow 2, contrary to london (again this could be a reccurent theme) it has an abundance of places to run. since my last post i have been for two runs around rembrandtpark. i did about 40 minutes in total that was two laps of the park and in fact it was probably safer and nicer than running around portishead-and thats without the bastard hills that i seem to spend forever running up and down

now on to this incident on the tram...nah i'll save that one for later. bye bye ;-).

50 posts....not out!

thats right, but i expect there will be more to come. well i know there will be really, its just a question of finding something to write about running wise. someone i know might count visiting a sex or peep show as training but really it isn't. i'll go for a run tonight in one of the parks, so i don't get lost being in a strange city and all that. its strange being in amsterdam no one really mentions the red light district, but if you mention it in england and its all people talk about. running wise i'll try and squeeze in about 30-35 minutes tonight, before i go out for some thing to eat, and then i don't know what i'll do theres so much to do around here in the evenings!

well here i am......................................

.................................................................in an airport departure lounge waiting for a flight to amsterdam that has so far been delayed by about 1hr 30 mins. great fun. not, but they say that the best things often get off to slow starts so maybe thats a sign of things to come.

i managed to squeeze in a run this morning of about 45 minutes or so at a relatively brisk pace but certainly not too quick. the miles have started to come back up in training recently. thats not a conscious thing and not some thing that you should be doing in the summer, but then does this feel like summer at the moment? there is a distinctly springish?late winter sort of feel at the moment with all the rain that we've been getting recently,

i read in the bristol evening post that rich peters who i think i mentioned in my last post got in to zagreb (not budapest as i originally stated) at 3:30 in the morning after rather hellish delays at heathrow, which makes his feat all the more commendable. if its a slow racehe has as good a chance as any one of gaining a medal with the flat speed he has. however every time i see him race, it seems quite apparent that he hasn't learnt the lessons of past races namey that he doesn't have what it takes to go with the tougher guys early on in the race...but the pace always seems too slow for him and he goes to the front tries to run the legs off his opponents and ends up hurting himself more than he hurts the opposition. of the three brothers that train with us he unquestionably has the greater natural talent, while older brother craig has the dedication and the commitment. younger brother matt is a good cross country runner and some thing of an enigma and seems to lack the concentration skills, but he is still growing and developing at a quite frighteningly fast rate.

as for the the tour de france, well what can be said about that that hasn't already been said. whilst machael rasmussen hasn't failed a test, the evidence of him cheating is quite damning if not conclusive although he has responded by saying that the entire case about him lying about his whereabouts was based on one person saying that he recognised him on a training ride in italy when he had told the team thathe was supposed to be in mexico, his winter residence. we shall see what we shall see on that one although several riders said in inteerviews today that they "knew" or were "convinced" that he had done some thing naughty. as for alexandre vinokourovs protestations of innocence claiming that having two different types of blood globules because of the crashes, and that he was being "stitched up", well change the record please mate its broken. the sooner they start jailing these people and treating them like the criminals they are, the sooner they'll start thinking twice before they break the law. they are depriving the hard working innocent cyclists whoo are prepared to put themselves through pain in search of glory of the income that they rightly deserve above these scumbags that cheat.

i am looking forward to exeter on tuesday night where it looks, weather permitting, as though i will be running a 1500 meter race and the target time that i set at the start of the season was 4:30 but i would take 4:32 now considering the difficulty that i have had in finding races. still got to sort out transport for that one that will be done at about midnight on monday!

600's yesterday 69's tomorrow

final training session before the trip to amsterdam tomorrow, four nights oflying on my back and thinking of england...the session last night was a down and up the clock session. two 600's lap jog recovery, 4x300 lap jog recovery 2x500. i hit the target times for all of the repetitions that i did so i was quite pleased with that...a sure indication that i can go under 4:30 come tuesday night. the next challenge for me is to find some where to run around amsterdam. i have no doubt that there will be plenty of parks that i can go around of an evening time but we'll have to wait and see on that one.

the next bit of news is that after a few years of promising my self that i would do it, i have booked myself in for a VO2 maximal effort test on tuesday the 20th of november at a cost of £108. a lot of money i know but money well spent if it helps to point me in the right direction. some people have said to me its a waste of money, but people like jo pavey, helen clitheroe, paula radcliffe, mo farah, et al all use them quite regularly and find them quite useful. its a long way off i know but when you're a reserve post man working for the royal mail, its can be quite hard to get time off when you need it.

which brings me on to the next subject. front page of the daily mirror yesterday, our pension funds being slashed/raided while the managers pension fund will remain unaffected (isn't that a coincidence, why do the people at ground level always pay for the errors of the top lavel managers?). all i am saying is that yet again crozier and leightons true colours have been shown in spite of all their posturing and denials and other bullshit that comes out of their mouths. like the now infamous "we'll have you on £400 a week asap" they told us last year. make your own minds up....

the last chance saloon

for a pb this summer of 1500 meters will quite probably come at exeter in the 1500 meter races on tuesday night-providing i come back intact from amsterdam. all the indicators in training point towards me running some thing in the region of 4:32/4:34 which would be nice. not what i was hoping for at the start of the season but when you consider the lack of opportunities that have come my way to run decent times i would take that now. it's unfortunately a catch 22 situation with me not getting the opportunities to run fast times because there are no races for me to do it in and not being able to get in to races because i haven't run the fast times. and then when an opportunity does come my way i have just found at, to compound my frustration, that the meeting at cheltenham has been cancelled due to an act of god called major flooding. if i don't get any more pbs this summer i will just have to take it on the chin and hope that the 1500 meter specific training on the track that i have done this summer will benefit me come the winter when i return to racing over 5ks 10ks and half marathons.

i have been looking at possible races for the winter and the first ones that i have definiotely decided that i am doing are the bridge inn races (held every month at shortwood) and the avon ten mile championships along with probably the bath half marathon. there will definintely be more added to this list probably races in london and brighton as well as bristol. one thing is definitely confirmed though. i am giving up 800 meter races next summer. official, you heard it here first. back to the immediate future though, there's a track session to get through tonight though, one of just a few that remain until the summer is over and we can reurn to running on the cross country and the road. what fun

mixed feelings about today

what was bad about today? not setting a new 1500 meter pb, when i know i'm in good enough shape to do it is very annoying. the weather is a fucking joke as well. no wind today so there was no excuses on that part, it was though pissing it down with rain, not that rain makes much difference to the times, it just makes the mood worse.

the good things? well there was just one small thing...it was the fastest 1500 meters i have done in afternoon race and also the fastest i have done at yate track. sorry i'm being a bit of a tony blair here trying to put a positive spin on some thing that really deserves not very much credit at all. but i am getting better at putting a positive spin on any thing that doesn't go exactly how i want it to. in the past i might have gone in to a bit of a sulk especially if i had been utterly humiliated by people that i would usually utterly humiliate in one of my many disasterous cross country races. but i'll save any gripes about that til the cross country season.

the time i did today was 4:42.8. i have accepted the fact that i will never be an olympic champion, but i would like a greater reward for all the hard work i put in than a slap in the face like that time is. oh well back to the drawing board for the next race which is more than likely to be the 1500 meters at exeter in two weeks time, but i really hope that i can find some thing before that.

but then if you want to put some proper perspective on things i would rather be in the position that i am in than that of the long jumper who got hit by a stray javelin on friday night. he was one lucky boy to survive an accident like that...

a nice realxig easy day

ahead of the pain that will come tomorrow and the chaos that the result of the strike will bring on monday (hopefully) although i did rear in a communication that there had been developments in talks between the union and the top bods at royal mail. they didn't elaborate on what these developments were though.

today though sees the first time the english schools championships is televised and there are several local athletes of note attending including rich peters who should be one of the favourites to win the 1500 meters providing that his legs can hold out if he has to run heats and emma reed (sister of gb international kate reed) in the senior girls 1500m. its televised on sky sports this year so its a real opportunity to showcase some of the talents that will(hopefully) be medal contenders come 2012.

as for myself i can for the moment only dream of being that good...maybe i will be a lot better but unfortunately i think where my strenghths lie eg road running is only an olympic sport at marathon level although there is a seperate world championships for the half marathon. but i'm not even good enough to compete at midland championship level let alone national or international. thats just a home truth that i have to face up to difficult though it can be. silly though it may sound, it can be quite difficult some times to remember that your levels of natural ability aren't your fault, they are just some thing that you are born with and you have to like it or lump it and just make the best of what you have got and try not to think about what you haven't got.

i decided to ditch the idea of running a 5000 meter race tomorrow after consulting with mike about it. we both agreed that i haven't done long enough intervals on the track to make it worth going for. but i know what will happen now i'll have to make a point of turning up after the start so i don't get conned by the team manager martin davies into doing it "for he club" as he puts it...

another day another painful track session

speed work just doesn't get any easier, but as the americans say, no pain no gain. an old saying maybe but there's still as much truth in it as there was when it was first said. last night didn't turn out to be the 5000 meter session that was promised, thank god, so it will be the 1500 meters on saturday after all and i will be trying at least for a pb. don't hold your breath though, because yate is not a track where i have run particularly well in the track, so the wheels may yet come off.

i have looked at the target times to get on the national rankings i need 4:24 to get on the rankings for 1500, 950 for 3k and 17:00 for the 5000. all of those will surely be attainable within the next couple of years. they also want 35:00 for the 10k road and 36:00 for the 10,000. surley those two should be the other way around though?

thinking positively

i am refusing to think that last nights showing in my mile race at cheltenham was a disaster after all it would be quite easy to think that it was. i was after all 3rd in my race a long time since i have hit such heady heights. really i need to shake off some of the cobwebs from not racing in time for the bmc 1500 meter races down at exeter on tuesday the 31st of this month. that race will represent the best chance of me getting a pb. there is also an avon league meeting on sunday where there is a 5000 and a 1500. i will probably do the 1500 but for the first time evere i find the thought of doing a 5000 meter race quite tempting. not sure why that is as we haven't done any 5000 meter specific work this year at all. with the guys doing the 5000's at the bmc grand prix on this weekend i may well find my self thrust in to a longert session tonight though unless mike decides to give me something to do. yate has never been a track that i have run particularly well on in the past i would be pleasntly surpised if i did manage to squeeze out a pb there. i have to take advantage of this opportunity because the way things are going i am struggling to find races at the moment which is annoying because it just puts more pressure on me to get my targets when i do race.

as for last night for the early part of the race i was well in touch with the leaders but they gradually pulled away from me and the more detatched i got the harder it is to run hard. the annoying thing about it is that i came away feeling like i could have run harder and i was in a training mindset where i was expecting there to be more repetitions after the race hopefully it will help to focus my mind ahead of sunday though!

an easy weekend by the seaside

or at least i slept two nights by the seaside in brighton as abase for going to watch the tour de france in london and kent. hyde park was where wed decided to gop and watch the race on saturday afternoon with the aid of the big screen. there were around 1 million people in the park alone i think all hoping for a victory for local boy bradley wiggins but he had to make do with fourth after a remarkable performance by fabien cancellara gave him a 13 second lead going in to the next day.

canterbury in kent wasn't so good in terms of the racing but was a far more delightful town than london and we were even shown a ducking stool which witches were put on trial on in medieval times. they were dunked under neath the water and if they drowned they were inocent and if they lived they were guilty. a very primitive form of justice a which sounds more like an excuse to kill people thenany thing else.

as for the running this weekend it was very much a case of less is more as i stuck to a diet of shortish steady runs, which was probably just what the doctor ordered after the beasting my legs have taken over the last week or so. i didn't even bother doing a long run this sunday, oh well missing one of them wont hurt too much just don't make a habit of doing it! my legs certainly feel much better after doing some thing easy.

time is nigh that i started planning my winter race schedule. i wont be saying anything about what i will and wont be doing untile i know for definite but what i will say is that it will be roads with the odd bit of cross country all over 5k and 10k with a 10 miler and a half marathon chucked in for good measure...but thats for the future and this is the here and now. next race is the cheltenham midsummer games open mile onwednesday, which will mean missing training on tuesday evening and doing hard stuff two days in a row quite possibly. this will be followed by a 5000 and/or 1500 meter race at a league meeting at yate. i am quite looking forward to doing some more endurance related stuff at the moment as out and out speedwork/speed endurance work can be rather painful at the best of times. endurance training for 1500 doesn't involve any thing ;ike the same amount of discomfort that you would get either for 5k/10k work or marathons, even so its still tiring, but you don't get to that point at the end of the session where you just curl up in a pathetic heap gulping for air, with lactic acid coming out of your eye balls (yes i've pushed my self that hard some times folks and it hurt)

i'm back!

after a long absence i have finally decided to get off my arse and do some thing about updating this blog. still training on the track and i feel a hell of a lot more comforatble about running on the track than i did at the start of the season. one thing has been decided though...this will be my last year of running 800m races unless i get a pb which by the looks of things isn't going to happen as there don't seem to be the races around. there are two race options that are open to me next week. i could do a mile or a 600 (as opposed to a 1500) at cheltenham, or i could make the long jaunt up to watford for the bmc 1500 meter graded races. that sounds more appealing, but i think most of the people who would be likely to do that are on holiday or some other excuse.

the most recent session we did was a 1500 meter session 4x500 then 4x400. i managed to hit 1:30 exactly for all the 500's, thats 72 second pace which translates to 4:30 and the 400's i managed 68 68 69 and 71. the problem i have had with doing sets of 400's at the end of a session is that i have been going reasonably well for the first three of them and then the last on is like i've just run in to a brick wall or something. it is not some thing that i have encountered in my winter training, so this leads me to two conclusions. firstly that this is a problem that is symptomatic of this thime of year and is therefore likely to be realted to hayfever. secondly to my uninitiated mind it is a problem that is specifically affecting my speed endurance but NOT my speed or my endurance. it may need blood tests to get to the route of the problem. i never realised until monday that it may be a medical problem until after mentioning it to several of the guys in conversation after the session that they were a) all having the same problem and b) were all hayfever sufferers (why do so many endurance athletes suffer from hayfever?)

since monday its just been a diet of steady paced 5 or 6 mile runs once a day although i might go out again in the evening tonight. we're doing some 1200 meter time trials tomorrow on the track so mike wants us completely fresh for them. if i don't race atwatford or cheltenham though the next race isn't until the 15th. i am getting very frustrated witgh the lack of track races being advertised....