I can't quite believe that it is mid-November already. So much has happened this year and yet it has gone really quickly.  People always tell me they go quicker the older you get, certainly feeling that!! 

Training has gone well last couple of weeks, although trying to get a bit quicker in reps has made it pretty tough, especially as trying to run fast through forests with leaves covering the paths.  I have really had to concentrate for all the runs else chances are I will twist something.  Training partner Philip Bandi is starting to ramp his training up a little, which means the runs are getting faster, longer and harder!  Still for me it is really good, and I think I have jumped another good level these last two weeks.  On the longer stuff the Achilles is still behaving itself which is a relief, and I shall continue on this course of training for the time being.  I am now up to nothing less than an hour or more a day including the sessions, so I am hitting a reasonable mileage base given I am only training once a day.  I had my first race since the relays this last weekend in a local town not far away, and I shall write about the race in my race report later.  Still got to say that I think the best place to go and win a race is in Africa, because they all seem to be travelling around racing :-)  I turned up expecting a good challenge, but not the best competition given it being a small race, although there was prize money and there were about 20 Africans.  I ended up coming in 13th, with one other European from Italy in front of me in 12th!!

As said shall write race report.  I shall also update my training from the last couple of weeks.  Have been getting my head down with training, German and business so been really busy.  German has been well hard, seriously a tough language to learn, well it is when you have no talent like me!!  All the Akusativ and Dativ stuff.  Not sure how true this is, but I have been told you can learn English enough to get by in 3 weeks, French in 3 months, but German 3 years.  It doesn't help that all the locals speak Swiss German which is a dialect in itself and can be vastly different from high German which is what I am learning.  The only example I can make is if you were fluent in English, and had a conversation with somebody in full on Cockney Rhyming Slang you wouldn't understand it.  That's what it is like, except I don't speak the German yet!  Still i will persevere.

Not much else has happened, had the brother-in-law come stay this weekend because there is a really great downhill mountain bike route about 5 mins from the house and so he has been enjoying that.  Last week we got the train up one of the mountains and walked down to Grindewald which takes in the famous North Face of the Eiger.  Really great scenery, and it is also a ski resort, so the first half of the walk was in the snow as it has started to fall higher up.  They were testing the ski lifts so don't suppose it will be long before all the resorts open and we get chance to whizz down the slopes, can't wait for that!

Sp8y