So Day 1 started with a nice lie in, after the late night arrival last night. I was the only athlete ‘dedicated’ enough to get out the door for a morning run. I just did a very casual 15mins in order to get my bearings, but mainly to test my Achilles before the session in the evening. On Sunday, my Achilles insertion really started to hurt after 60mins but I was 10mins away from the house and so had to carry on running. It was very sore after that, but luckily I had a rest day scheduled the day after. Anyway my heel/Achilles insertion area felt fine, and so I was optimistic about the session in the evening. It was nice to bump into a few familiar faces while I was out, including Andy Bibby, Laura Park and Ricky Soos.
After getting back to the apartment, grabbing some breakfast and a quick shower, we all headed out for a wander around Vilamoura. We paid the track a quick visit, along with the marina and the supermarket. We got all the essentials from the supermarket and decided we would cook in two’s to minimize the amount of time we would each spend in the kitchen. Emery and Griff decided they would cook first, and so used the communal funds to buy the evening meal.
We got back to apartment around 1pm and had lunch. We then got a knock on the door, and Shane Kerr, our 7th housemate arrived. He thought his flight from Belfast was yesterday, but it turned out to be today so he arrived a day late! Anyway it had been a while since we had all seen him (as he graduated in the summer) and so it was good to have a catch up.
The rest of the afternoon was spent lazing about as we had our first session at 5pm. We warmed up at 4.30, by running the scenic route to the track and then did the usual stretches, drills and strides. There were two sessions from which we had the choice and these consisted of:
1500m Group: 1200m (10mins recovery to jog to the hills) 4 sets of a 30sec hill, a 40sec hill and a 20sec hill all off a jog recovery. There was then a further 10mins to jog back to the track before 2x600m off a 200m jog.
5k Group: Virtually the same session but just a 2k rep to start instead of 1200m and then a 1200m rep to finish, in place of the 600’s.
Unfortunately Griff is struggling with a sore Achilles, and so just went for a 15min jog. Seb and I are also coming back from injury, and so we did a slightly different session, 2k (5mins recov) 2x800m (2mins recovery) and then 2x200m strides. We were just easing into running on the track again, hence the very light session! Everyone seemed to have a good first session out here, and from a personal point of view I was pretty pleased I could run 5.56 for the 2k without pushing, so I must still be reasonably fit.
5k Group: Virtually the same session but just a 2k rep to start instead of 1200m and then a 1200m rep to finish, in place of the 600’s.
Unfortunately Griff is struggling with a sore Achilles, and so just went for a 15min jog. Seb and I are also coming back from injury, and so we did a slightly different session, 2k (5mins recov) 2x800m (2mins recovery) and then 2x200m strides. We were just easing into running on the track again, hence the very light session! Everyone seemed to have a good first session out here, and from a personal point of view I was pretty pleased I could run 5.56 for the 2k without pushing, so I must still be reasonably fit.
The evening was a very chilled out affair. After we had all showered, we all ate a great first meal of Spag Bol, prepared by Emery and Griff. We then went to the bar 100m from our door, and watched the United game on TV. Fairbourn threw his toys out the pram when Ollic coasted past the United defence to put them in the lead, which was quite an amusing end to the day!
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