going for the gold

sorry for the long time in posting. if you are a distance runner and a postman, then december is one of the busiest months of the year, for the parcels, christmas cards and the fact that it is generally considered to be a good month to considerably step up the quantity of training that you do. add on to that the fact that i am also taking driving lessons again, this means that i have very little time to my self apart from the 2 hours that i set aside in the afternoon to sleep. this though didn't stop me from making the trip down to millfield school for the avon and somerset cross country championships, where my efforts over the 10.1k course (some people thought it was longer than that, but that doesn't matter in cross country as it is all about positions and not times) were rewarded by firstly beating jerry hogan for the first time in a non track race, by over a minute, nearly beating jonathan goodland for the first time being thwarted by a attack of stomach cramps on the final lap, 7 seconds being the closest i have ever got to him, and a gold medal for being the sixth and final scoring runner for bristol who were the champion club for 2007, although wells city harriers international runner ben tickner was the somerset champion and avon champion was craig peters, although why they run seperate competitions for avon and somerset is beyond me as it unnecessarily dilutes the quality of the competition.

in the race, which also incorporated the final race of the south west league and the wessex league i finished 39th out of about 120 ish and 14th in avon, although thuis by no means makes me the 14th cross country runner in avon as there were some highly notable absentees like rob whalley ben noad frank tickner, who last year completed a clean sweep of all the cross country championships (european trials, world trials, 'the national' and the inter-counties championships) and together they formed the inter-counties winning side so they would be fairly formidable opposition. the course it self was fairly muddy but flat, not that that forms any worries for me as i am starting to get to grips with cross coutry a lot more now than what i thought i ever would. maybe one day i can repeat the succes at the avon and wiltshire track and field champs one day or at a higher level. i am still progressing as an athlete and whilst science dictates that i wont make it to the top, you should never under estimate what hard work and determination can do.

the next race for me on the country at least is the south west intercounties champs which also doubles up as the south west club champs. with the strength in depth that avon and somerset have it is highly unlikely that i will be picked for the county team as the previously mentioned athletes will almost certainly be picked it would be a huge confidence boost for me if i could beat some of the runners from the other counties as this would confirm my belief that one day i will eventually be capable of competing at this level, whether it is one the track (unlikely) the mud or the road (there are loads of inter counties road champs that don't get much publicity. i'm going to try and further my cause at weston tonight on the 5 mile prom run...its as good a starting point as any

hit on the hitman!

well theres good news and bad news...the bad news is that work is shite at the moment. its busy they're conveniently "forgetting" to pay people for the over time that they do. well only the strikers. isn't that a coincidence? the scabs get all the favours as usual. we did them loads of favours before the strikes and the later starts and they've just thrown it back in our faces and more. i along with many postmen and women around the country am exceptionally pissed off with the breathtaking incompetence of royal mails management. for example, after saying that they couldn't afford to give us a wage rise which we have had to fight so hard for at portishead office they have now employed 5 agency workers yes 5 to cover the work of one person. now where is the sense in that especially when you are paying agency rate and they can barely speak english? on top of that we are the ones that have to take the brunt of the criticism for the decisions that the management have made over the past year, and it has dented the pride that the guys and girls at portishead offfice take in the service (yes get that word mr crozier, service, not profits) that we deliver. don't get me wrong is still enjoy the job but the circumstances are becoming far more awkward for us to do our job properly.

there have been two very good training sessions since we last spoke. one on clifton prom and the other at clifton college one the road both. clifton prom is a hill session, with varying lengths of repetitions one long one just over a mile, one just over a k, one just under a k and the other about 700 yds. we covered one long one, 3 of the 2nd longest and 3 of the shortest and whilst my times were slightly down on my fastest from last year that was to be expected with the appalling weather. i managed a 5:45 for the first one the next set were all smack on 3:50 and around about 2:15 for the shorter ones

the weather was even worse for the thursday so only a hardy half dozen or so turned out for this one. apart from craig peters and his gb u20 international brother, i was leading the group for all of the reps closely followed by claire willer, who i can always tell because she has a very distinct breathing pattern when she is strugling for breath. we did three times two laps and 3x1 laps and i recorded times of 4:42, 4:37 and 4:32 which equalled my best, which i only realised when i checked it out in my training log this morning. pleasing given that the conditions were better that day and it was done in a much shorter session. on the shorter reps i did a bit of a pedestrian 2:15 on the first one and gradually got it down to 2:08, which in good conditions would probably be worth 2:04 given that it felt like we were running in to a head wind the whole way and that by the time we finishedthe peters brothers were 60 or 70 yards clear of me and i was 20 or 30 clear of the rest.

finally i'm predicting that ricky hatton will win tonight. he looks fired up, while mayweather looks washed up and he wont know whats hit him when when he walks out in front of the "barmy army". when he gets in to the ring the hit man wont give him a moments rest, and floyd mayweather does not like being roughed up. i see a knock out at about the 11th or 12th round or maybe a points decision in what could be one of the greatest contests of all time. this is a fight thats as big as the leonard-hagler-hearns-duran battles of the 80's and i haven't been this excited about a sporting contest in years. what makes my mind up is that all boxers (not media) are saying ricky will win. even george foreman called mayweather a coward! bring it on!

change of plan-portsmouth victory 5 cancelled

thei title says it all. so instead i will be doing a longish tempo run tonight followed by a long run and a gym session tomorrow and probably sitting around sulking in the afternoon because i should have been running. on the other hand i might have a bad nights sleep and think thank god for that. the reason for the cancellation was because of the xtreme weather forecast, 50 mph winds storms which would particularly in a place like portsmouth harbour mean that you are very exposed and any mention of fast times which is the reason that we were all going down there in the first place, is just completely unrealistic. there is the opportunity to do a cross country race in wales but long cross country in this weather would kill your legs stone dead for a good couple of weeks afterwards.

i am looking for a race next saturday though as its my day off and it also happens to be the day we get our xmas bonus and our backdated strike pay. nice so i might take advantage and pay a trip for a race up to some where like london or anywhere come to think of it if there is something worth doing. the librarys now about to close for lunch and i'm soaked from work today so i think i might go home now. bye bye.

pete