here's an idea

its one for a trip down to brighton. they now do a weekly time trial in hove park every saturday at 9am. jon waymont if you're reading this please get my number off martin greenwood and get in touch and we can discuss it further...back to the subject of training it was noses back to the grindstone yesterday night at coombe dingle for tyhe hardcore few who turned up a session of 6 mins, 2x4mins, 4x2 mins, 4x1 mins finished off with a 6 minute effort was a painful start to what will be a prolonged period of training for me with the exception of a weston prom run on thursday. i was pleased with my efforts last night as i felt i was able to stay in touch with some of the people i wouldn't usually have much chance of beating. the 10k i did at weston is well and truly out of my legs now and i am able to focus my efforts entirely on getting fast times at cardif and bourton-on-the-water, which rumour has it is one of the fastest courses in the south west region. there can be no excuses!

upping the miles

i'm on track to log over 60 miles this week. that'll be the first time i've ever managed to pull that off, even with an easy day today. wednesday i managed an 8 mile tempo run. i had to run fast really because the light was closing in and i was running on unlit roads. this ws followed by a session at better bodies gym, soon to be rebranded as something else but i'm not quite sure what yet. with two hard days in a row i was quite sore yesterday, but thats ok as i don't plan another hard session til i do my long run on sunday morning. my biggest concern though at the moment is that i don't pick up this stomach bug thats been sweeping the country. they say it gives you 3 days of diarrhoea and vomiting, which sounds highly unpleasant. the longest i have ever had off from running due to injury or illness or just rest and recouperation is 48 hours, so i expect if i do catch it i would be climbing the walls to get out and do something by the end of the third day.

this year i have decided i am going to try and help the club out a bit more on the track and field side of things with doing some of the league meetings. with no open meetings to speak of on the track any more apart from the ones at exeter and a few bmc ones here and there, which don't represent very good opportunities for myself due to various circumstances which i a trying to address, i will be attempting to get time off work on the saturdays in question, but don't hold your breath, this is royal mail we are talking about here, not an organisation that is generally too considerate to its low level employees. the midland mens and womens leagues have been amalgamated this year so it should represent a good oportunity to chat up some hot totty as well!

happy new year

so the year ended on a negative note and started on a positive one. lets get the bad bits out the way first, starting with the annual club handicap on sunday morning. with a time defecit of 8 mins and 20 seconds to make up i only managed 20th place although i did knock over a miute off my best time for the course. special mention has to be made though for naomi speake a 14 year old who is currently on a journey right to the very top of athletics. tearing around the course just slightly quicker than i did, she smashed the course records for u15 females, u17 females, and u20's with a faster time than the u15 boys record to boot. to put it in perspective she is faster than both paula radcliffe jo pavey and kelli holmes were at that age. it would be no over exaggeration to say that she is a potential international superstar for 2016 or maybe 2012 if her rate of development continues at the current frightening rate.

the positive start to the year was my run down at the hangover 10k at kewstoke village yesterday. 9 secs outside my pb on a slow course, with 2 big hills on it, 9th place out of 172 finishers. the guy who beat me in 8th luke quillam only beat me by 7 secs and has run under 36 minutes for 10k before. annoyingly he walked away with a bottle of champagne as a prize and i got sweet fa. i have just entered my next 10k, the cardiff valentines 10k love rune, which sounds a bit gay really.