Hi all,

Still not a great deal to say. Training is building up gradually and I'm starting to put some tempo in and London has thawed quite a bit more now so this should become easier as long as we're not hit with more tundra. I should be reaching 90 miles a week or so by the end of the month with some decent threshold work and longer runs included.

As far as races go, I doubt I'll be seen much on the XC scene before London! I'm now entered for the CPC half marathon in Hague where Sammy Wanjiru ran his WR. I've never done what I call a 'fast' half marathon course so hopefully I'll take full advantage of this super flat course and have some company to push me on to a decent PB! I'm also planning to do Wokingham I think after another South of England farce where they rang me up to do the Barcelona half-marathon; I lost the number to call them back (ok, that was my fault) and so they didn't bother checking if I was doing it or not and just picked someone else. Brilliant. Anyhoo, no massive deal, would have just been nice to go to Barcelona! Aside from these races I haven't got much planned. I'm off to the Algarve with Tom Payn and Toby Lambert for the last 2 weeks of March to do some decent training which will be very constructive I hope.

I've also made a bit of a conscious decision to look after myself a bit more. I'm hardly a party animal but I'm prone to relax in the pub some evenings and with me getting my afternoon run in earlier to catch the daylight, I often have fewer excuses not to go! I'm not stopping going but will make sure I don't overdo it and get my sleep and feel good for training. With Sunday runs being so important too, I'm not going to have any late nights on a Saturday and make sure I'm fresh for my Sunday training. Another conscious change is to make sure I graze throughout the day and not let myself get hungry. This will stop me eating rubbish, and will also keep my glycogen levels steady, so more good things!

Well, I'm now off to run round the road outside Regents Park. I hear it's quite good for tempos round there at night as it's lit and pretty free from traffic.

Bye all.

Ben