Well it has been a good week for me all round, training has gone pretty well, the German course has been great and the weather fantastic!  

Since I got back from the Southern Relays I have upped the mileage slightly especially at the weekends, last week I hit my first 90 mins of the winter and have just got back from another one this morning.  Today was much easier and I also ran with the Swiss Athlete Phil Bandi.  Helps to have him there and the fact he is from here so knows loads of trails that I didn't, so we ran without hitting a single trail twice, which was great.  The better half has been working crazy hours and has one more night to work before a week off.  6pm to 8am the following morning is pretty tough and she is fast asleep so gave me time to get out and enjoy running in the weather.  It has also meant that I have been home alone in the evenings, but I did get time to watch the first episode of the live X-factor last night on Zattoo (online) It makes me laugh when someone is rubbish and they get good comments and then someone who is good gets a hard time, purely in my opinion so that the public is tricked into voting off the competition for certain judges.  Like the guy who went last I thought was great and then the judges said he was cocky arrogant etc ect, but probably because they know he is a threat to their act, yet he said before he can't believe he made the top 12, so that is hardly arrogant.  It is not about the acts whatsoever, simply the egos of the judges.  Although it is car crash tv, I love it and Simon is brilliant.  

I believe the weather might change tomorrow, but it doesn't really matter as the whole summer and autumn has been amazing and I am still just running in shorts and vest and we are nearly mid October.  Last week it was 25 degrees!

My German course is going really well and starting to make progress now (well I think anyway!) although it is strange being back in the classroom after so many years but I am strangely enjoying it and looking to further develop my vocabulary over the next few weeks, but in my opinion German is bloody hard, or maybe I just have no talent for languages!

I have started my new job as a Sales Executive for a start up company in Switzerland which is great and although it hasn't launched officially yet the website goes live on Monday so check it out www.go4birdies.com  A sports and wellness networking company, bringing together young professionals, graduates and entrepreneurs at sporting events.  Obviously this is a shameless plug, but if anybody knows, or works within a global company and want to get involved in terms of aligning yourselves with a niche target market then drop my a line!  We have some massive interest already and looking to develop this further over the next few months.

Friday (after my lecture of course) myself and Kati fly back for the relays and to see the family for the weekend, so really looking forward to that. Hopefully all the guys will be fit and well and we can be competitive, although I think this year might just be one of the toughest races for a long long time, well that is if all is to believed about various team line ups and who is running.  Shall be really interesting to see what happens come the day.

Regards

Neil