This week has gone really well for me.  The last few weeks regards the German have been really hard work, but things seem to be sinking in a little more, I just need to improve the vocabulary at my disposal, which is woefully lacking right now.  I seem to use the same four or five Verbs when constructing sentences, but still progress is being made, and this from someone who is not good at learning languages!

Training has also been really good this week.  The weather has been great again, and although a little nippy in the mornings, the sun has been out the whole week and been up towards 20 when out running.  I have managed to link up with the Swiss Runner the last few days and do some hard runs in the woods, something that I really need.  Tuesday was tough with a 20k run up and down hills, through forests and we ended up running the second 10k in about 36 minutes, so given the terrain not hanging about.  Yesterday we did a continuous loop whereby we increased the speed every 12 minutes by a few seconds per K (They all use kph here!) so we started off at 4.00, then 3.40, 3.30, 3.25, 3.20, and finished with 4 minutes around 3.05  It was pretty tough but I felt it was exactly what I needed and really enjoyed it.  The two time (I think) World Orienteering Champion also joined us, really nice guy, and although he was breathing pretty hard early on, he kept up with the session, so he is pretty handy! Don't suppose you get to be World Champ without being pretty fit...

Of course things would not be normal without a little pain, and lately i seem to have not noticed any pain in the Achilles, which has been great!  However, throw in Hills on Saturday, 90mins on Sunday and a 50 min with tempo on Monday and the aforementioned runs and this morning they were aching somewhat!  Still the odd ache and pain never hurt anyone, so an easy hour this evening and hopefully all should be fine.

The company that I now work for is pushing forward before our official launch in January and everything is coming together nicely and looks really promising for the future.  I have been tasked with raising income and sponsorship for the events that we will put on, so if anybody knows of any good contacts within International Companies that might want to get involved with a young and interesting network of people based within sport events then give me a shout!

Regards

Neil