Day 2

Last night we agreed to meet some of the lads from Preston at 10am outside the supermarket for our morning run. Wednesday usually means a medium to long run and today was no different, just in the much more pleasant Portuguese climate. Myself, Mariani and Emery met with Pete Street, Nathan Bibby, Stephen Bennett and a few more the Preston gang and set out on our way to the cross country course at Alfamar. I believe this was used for the World Cross in the 90’s?! Anyway we met another large group from Loughborough and Liverpool on route and so a huge group of around 40 of us made our way along the trails to the cross country course. The run was very pleasant and I ended up doing 55mins with just mild discomfort in the heel area when I stopped. When I got back, Bennett showed me where to sign up for a massage with Leslie (the OCWK masseuse) and then we stretched by the pool, before icing our legs. I then went back to villa, showered and had brunch consisting of museli, a banana and two marmalade rolls. I am trying really hard when I am out here to lose some weight, as I am currently close to half a stone over racing weight. The weight should come off naturally in the heat, but I am being careful to eat enough but not too much in order to help this process along. So far I think I have found a nice balance.

Last night I labelled today as a key tanning day, but unfortunately the weather was a bit overcast, and so sun-bathing wasn’t a great option... So instead Fairbourn and I went down to the bar and used the internet for a couple of hours. We then spent the rest of the afternoon playing Chinese Poker and Fifa. In Seb’s case he spent most of the afternoon playing Championship Manager on his Ipod Touch, presumably trying to broaden his football knowledge! At 5pm most of us trained again, with Shane doing another 60mins, Fairbourn 45 and Emery 20 whilst Seb and Mariani did nothing. When Emery got back, Griff and I joined him to do some core and stretching out on the grass. Shane cooked for us tonight, and came up with a little surprise. For everyone else the chocolate cake he made for desert was a pleasant surprise, but not so much for me! I have given up basically all nice things for lent, Chocolate, Cake, Sweets and Biscuits..... All I can say is I cannot wait for Sunday! Anyway he made a tuna, pasta and sweet corn dish in a creamy onion sauce, which went down a treat. I finished it off with a coconut yoghurt, whilst everyone else smashed the chocolate cake! We then went back to the bar to watch the Arsenal game, which wasn’t actually on (it was the Inter game instead) so we just used the internet and debated over whether Phil Hinch should have been picked for the World Cross. Whilst we were there I had a chat with Heather (my girlfriend) on Skype and she seemed pleased to hear from me!

Sensible Emery 'ladding' it up!

We got back to catch the last 5 minutes of the Arsenal game and then played a little more Chinese Poker. During the game, when discussing the hierarchy of Queen’s, Seb came out with the quote of the day; “That’s like saying the Queen of England is more important than the Queen of Scotland”. On that note we all hit the sack, in anticipation of tomorrow morning’s 8am run. I am hopeful we can run on the golf course, whilst Emery insists he will not be out of bed to join us! We shall see....

Day 1

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 7^th 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.

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!

Off to Portugal....

So, the 29^th March was the day we set off to Portugal for our 3 and a half week warm weather training stint. A large Loughborough contingency is descending on Loughborough this Easter, with the main group of us travelling from Gatwick. Andrew Mariani, James Griffiths and myself took a train from Loughborough, however upon arriving at Gatwick we were greeted with huge queues for EasyJet check in.... The rest of the group travelling on our flight had already checked in and gone through the usual security checks, and after just over 2 hours of queuing we finally joined them. Surprise, surprise our flight was also delayed, and after sitting around in a bar for a couple of hours we finally boarded the plane and departed for Faro. The flight went by quite quickly with numerous games of Chinese Poker, mostly won by Stephen Emery, who used all his wisdom that comes with old age! The other highlight of the plane journey (apart from screaming babies) was the drawing of our rooms in the villa. This was a very tense ordeal that we managed to draw out over an unnecessarily long period of time. With the room partnerships already sorted, Mariani drew the highest card, a measly 10, but that was enough to secure us the en-suite room! This turned out to be far and away the best room, with a walk in wardrobe and balcony to go with the beauty of not having to share a bathroom with 4 others.

When we finally arrived at the airport, we found that James Fairbourn had waited for us. His BA flight was 20 minutes before our flight, but then with our huge delay, we thought he might have just set off to the villa without us. So at this point, the 8 of us got 2 taxis to the Old Village in Vilamoura, where we are staying.

Now seems an appropriate time to introduce everyone:

Andrew Mariani               Woodford Green 1500m runner, who is my housemate in L’boro.
Seb Foy                           Another of my housemates, who is a XC specialist from Cheltenham.
James Fairbourn               Belgrave 5k man, who has prolonged his stay in L’boro by doing a Masters.
Stephen Emery                 Technically a fresher at 22, the Cov Godiva transferee has a great range.
James Griffiths                  800m runner from Vale Royal who is in his 3^rd year at L’boro.
Blue Haywood                   Steeplechaser, Mountain and XC runner, and Lufbra fresher.
Jess Burns                           Another fresher, who is an 8/15 runner from Plymouth.
*Shane Kerr                       Ex Lufbra student who has been working in Paris.

* Shane actually joined us a day late, after flying in from Belfast! He turned up at the airport on Monday, but then realised his flight was actually for Tuesday, so went home again!!!!

The rest of the Lufbra group consists of (in no particular order): Stevie Stockton, Jordan Kinney, Charlotte Best, Danni Christmas, Charlotte Wickham, Ben Green, Chris Parr, Rob Hodges, Ed Womersley, Luke Sebit-Berridge, David McQuarie, James Dean, Chris Warburton, Gary Bradbury, Matt Sullivan, Tom Gayle, Ryan McLeod, Lewis Moses and Pete Street, Nathan Bibby and Stephen Bennett who have travelled out here with Preston Harriers.

Back to the journey, we finally arrived in the Old Village at 1am, but had one other problem, we had no key and didn’t know which villa we were staying in!!! We finally got in touch with Alistair Donaldson (UKA assistant coach), who got out of bed and brought us our key and between us we finally found out which villa the key was actually for. Great organisation! After some quick un-packing we finally got to bed at quarter to two!

Right that’s enough for now, I will try and get daily blogs up as frequently as possible.

Hope you enjoy the read,

Pete

Portugal

So I sit here, with the rain lashing down outside my window. As depressing as this is, it doesn’t bother me too much! Why you may ask? Well on Monday I will be in sunny (hopefully) Portugal for a full three and a half weeks!!! I cannot wait.

Since my last blog I have had yet another setback, in the form of an inflamed Achilles insertion, which forced me to take a few days off and then come back very slowly. However I am on the mend now! I saw the physio for the 2^nd and hopefully final time this afternoon and got pretty much the all clear. I have been running for 30-40mins a day, and so am not loosing anything, and yesterday I even did a big bike session with the triathletes. So it’s just a case of easing back into faster running now, either on Saturday or on Tuesday when I’m out in Portugal. I’m just praying for some solid and consistent training and then hopefully I will be running at BUCS (British University Champs) on the 1^st May.

Whilst in Portugal, we are staying in the Old Village in Vilamoura, and I know there are a lot of other British athletes staying in the area, which should be great for training! My brother is also going to be out there with a big group from Blackburn and Preston, which should be good.

I am going to try and get very frequent blogs up while I’m out there, and may even try and get a pre-trip blog up before we go! Let’s hope the next few weeks are both sunny and successful wherever you are training!

Daily Exercise Routine

After seeing the physio yesterday and agreeing I could be more pro-active as far as conditioning is concerned, I decided to act upon what we had said. My lower legs could be better conditioned as could my glutes, and this will hopefully help reduce the number of 'niggly' injuries I keep picking up. I shall now try and carry out the following routine everyday, as after all it only takes about 30mins!!!

Daily Exercise Routine

Foam roll calves for 2mins per leg

Calf stretch against doorframe
Soleus stretch against doorframe
30 press ups
15 calf raises
30 sit ups
15 heel drops
15 single leg squats
Ankle rotations
Shin stretch

30 press ups
30 sit ups
Calf stretch against doorframe
Soleus stretch against doorframe
Mo Farah core circuit
20 eccentric press ups
Heel raise held
Glute exercise lifting leg
Glute exercise swirling leg

Mo Farah core
15 heel drops
Hamstring stretch
Quad stretch
Hip Flexor stretch
Calf stretch against doorframe
Soleus stretch against doorframe
Hamstring stretch
Quad stretch
Hip Flexor stretch

N.B – All stretches 30secs per leg

No news is bad news!

So as usual, I have had a number of problems which have interrupted my training and racing, and as always, I lost motivation to write on here. But as you have probably guessed (since I am writing again) things are back on track. I have been running for 14 days, and touch wood, haven’t run into any problems. I did my first session on Tuesday, which consisted of a 20min tempo (5.18’s) and then 8 x 40sec hill @ 3k pace, 30sec hill @ 1500m pace. The two hills were of differing gradients, the first one slightly gentler. The recoveries were a slow jog down to the bottom of the next hill. Surprisingly the session went pretty well, but the main thing was I came away in one piece.

Just so you know, I tore my calf the week before the Northerns, but still tried to race, which ended in me dropping out, and in turn led to me missing the National. This was what my whole winter had been built towards so it was a big blow, especially as it would have been my last ever junior race.... However I did keep fit in the mean time, with lots of cycling, aqua jogging, and conditioning.

I will try and give you another update next week, with some more exciting news, and hopefully I will still be in one piece!

Thanks for reading,

Pete

Lancashire Cross Country Championships

The picture above pretty much sums it up!!! Cannot believe the race went ahead, however it did and full credit to the marshalls, course builders etc!!

I finished 8th, which was a steady run, considering the time I've had off over the last 6 weeks with illness. Would have liked to have made the top 5 or 6 ideally, but it wasn't to be. It will be touch and go if I make the Inter-Counties team with the likes of Ben Lindsay and Anthony Ford to come in, but I'm not really fussed as I'm 75% sure I won't run anyway!

Lets hope I can get my head down and put in some solid training now in the build up to the Northerns and then the National! Until then.....

2010

Well it’s here, 2010, the start of a New Year and a new decade! How exciting and with it came buckets more snow! Let’s hope 2010 is a successful one, not just for me, but for you guys too! To bring in the New Year, I have made a few changes to the blog, mainly just making it more aesthetically pleasing! I hope you like it!!

Training has re-started today, with a 30 minute jog, and I feel I am finally over this chest infection (touches wood!). I’m looking forward to getting back into full training over the next few days. My New Year’s Resolution this year is to have to the perfect diet and get really lean. This means absolutely no death until after the National! Death is what we (my housemates and running friends) call any kind of unhealthy food! I really want to put 2009 behind me, and hit my targets for 2010. These start on the cross, where I am targeting 3 big races. The first is the Northerns on 23^rd January, at my home course, Witton Park. My next big race is for Loughborough, at the BUCS XC Champs up in Stirling, Scotland. Finally I hope to produce my best performance at the National XC Champs, at Roundhay Park in Leeds. This is my last ever race as a junior and I hope to make it one to remember!

In the mean time, this next week is one of serious revision, as my University exams are getting dangerously close, and a return to running! I’ll report back after the Lancashire Cross Country Champs a week tomorrow. Let’s hope I can put in a half decent performance and get picked to run for Lancs in the Senior Men’s Race at the Inter-Counties.

Happy New Year,

Pete

Back to Blogging!

Well, It’s been a good 6 months since I last wrote anything on here, and so it’s about time I got my blog going again! Not a bad time to start as well, just in time for the New Year!

So after a very quiet summer, I began to realise I was ‘mincing about’ and needed to get stuck into some proper training again! This all kicked off in August, and I raced for the first time mid-September. I ran the 3^rd leg for our 4 man Blackburn team in the NW Road Relays, and I was just treating this as a very low key run out. Anyway I took over in a lowly position, after our first leg runner, hobbled home after injuring himself. I can honestly say I ran the best I have done on the roads since winning the 1^st Leg of the National Road Relays as an u13!! I set of steady, picking off a few runners on the first lap, before giving it hell on the 2^nd lap, and hauling us back into the top 10. I knew if I could get us somewhere near being in contention we would have a chance with Tom Cee on the last leg! He smashed it, running in the 14.30’s through 5k! My official time was 15.27, which I was shocked by! Like I said, I gave Tom Cee a chance, and he caught Warrington with 200m and this gave us bronze, to go with the title of Lancashire Champions! Also my 15.27 equates to 15.13 through 5k, so a huge p.b!

I went back to Loughborough the next day, and moved into our new house! I live in a ‘runner’s house’ with 3 Southener’s, Seb Foy, Matt Sullivan and Andrew Mariani. So far it has been a great laugh, the perfect environment to get the best out of myself and have a load of fun at the same time! Training continued to press on in earnest, and I hit some good mileage pb’s of 58, 59, 67 and finally 69! My sessions were also getting better every week agreeing with one of George’s Gandy’s infamous quotes, “In your face progression”!!! My best arguably 4 x 1mile in 4.49, 4.47, 4.46 and 4.39.

Anyway back to the races. I did the Fell Relays up in the lakes, and although the team had a disaster with our leg 3 runners getting lost and ending our hopes of a top 10 finish, I had a good run! I managed to come home 5^th on the first leg, behind 4 senior internationals! Next up were the XC Relays at Mansfield, and I ran a solid 1^st leg, but got a little carried away, virtually leading after 2k! Anyway I ended up 9 seconds off an overall top 10 fastest leg (which was my target). A guest appearance and 4^th place in a Manchester League was my next task. I think this was my first 10k XC and I judged it pretty well, starting off very cautiously, only being beaten by some top class runners in the shape of Dave Norman, Gaz Raven and Andy Nixon.

  My final race pre-Xmas came at the Liverpool XC Challenge at Sefton Park. My target was top 25 u23’s and a position in the 50-60 region. However I came down with something in the days leading up to it, and probably shouldn’t have run... I unsurprisingly underperformed coming 97^th!!! And was then forced to take a week off ill!

Anyway all in all the last few months have been very solid and I am looking forward to some more big (for me) mileage in the New Year, along with some good championship performances! I must stop waffling now!!

See you in the New Year,

Pete

Light at the end of the tunnel

Well its been too long since I last blogged. This has mainly been down to the fact there hasn't really been much to write about. I have been running on and off for the last month or so, with no real breakthrough. Weak tendons in my ankles kept meaning I had to take a few days off at a time, but I finally go through it and am back up and running (*touches wood*)!

The last 3 weeks have been solid. I have put together a few 40 mile weeks, and intend to keep it at this whilst gradually increasing the intensity of my main sessions. It was only 3weeks ago when I managed to stride on the track again. Since then I have done 5 'sessions' ranging from 4x300m striding, up to 3x600m at 1500m pace. So I'm definately taking steps in the right direction.

I am back home this week, as I have done 2 of my exams, with my next 2 not for another 3 weeks. The main reason I am back home though, is that on Saturday, I am racing on the track for the first time in 2 years!!!!!! Exciting times!! I'll be sure to let you know how it goes, even though I'm not expecting much!

Chow for now!