If you've come on here to read a depressing entry like last week's you're fresh out of luck! A week on I'm happy with my running again and I think it's fair to say Sports City was just a blip. The Tuesday after the race I had a great session which hurt a lot on the last couple of reps but I was running some decent times. The next session was just as good and I had a great race in the British League on the weekend. I'd say my mindset has gone back to where it should be, confident and relaxed.

I just missed out on my PB in the British League which is good going seeing as it was a bit of tactical race. But the times aside, these are good races to learn how to run and Steve thinks they are an important part of athlete development. It was in these events he learned how to race and he wants me to do the same. Although he says the way I run my BMC's I already have the ability to run tactically sound he wants me in the British Leagues as they tend to start slow and end on a burn up. He tells me that when he did these and he was able to go through in 2:07 and finish in 3:48/3:49 he was ready to make the AAA's final. He's seen athletes with low or sub 3:40 PB's get knocked out the heats of the AAA's because they ran a bad race and were only good at time trialling. It's all good going to BMC's and running fast times, but when you go to a race like the AAA's  you have to produce a kick off a slow pace or be in a position ready to respond to anything anyone does, this is where the British League has its uses. If you had pacemakers in championships the time triallers would get the medals everytime, but there aren't any pacemakers so only the "racers" are going to walk away with medals. Now you get a time-trialler with a racing brain on his/her shoulders and you have yourself a classy athlete. Steve reckons learning to race is one of the hardest things for a runner to do and a quality which is crucial for success.

Yesterday I had the Sports Awards evening at the uni and I was fortunate enough to win Sportsperson of the Year with Non Stanford (uni runner/triathlete, Runnerslife interviewee and one of Simon Jones personal heroes) runner up and Wilko one of the nominations. Although this is completely unrelated to my track season it was another event which made me feel better as its always nice to win an award. But that's not what I want to talk about, I want to talk about the brief conversation with one of the special guests, Dave Moorcroft. It's not often you meet a 13 min flat 5k runner and when you meet someone like him you it's always natural to try and mention the positives about your running to big yourself up. So when he asked me "what's your 5k PB" I did feel slightly embarrassed/ashamed because mine is pretty pathetic compared to his. After a few seconds of hoping for some sort of divine intervention to prevent me from answering the question I did eventually say "14:40". But after that I came out with various statements like "but we went through the first k in 3:20", "the last 4k was at 14:10 pace", "I ran a 60 last lap" to try and make 14:40 look like the new 12:40, I don't think it worked though.

I only managed to talk to him for a few minutes but it was a good conversation. I explained to him Steve won't let me move up to 5k until I run at least low 3:40's and he thought that was very good idea which is encouraging. He said a lot of the races nowadays are won in the last lap so I'm doing the right thing working on my speed. I also asked him what I think is the million dollar question in distance running and I've asked Lindsay Dunn the same thing..."is it possible to break 13 mins without going to altitude?". Both of them say it is do-able. Dave almost did it himself without going to altitude and Lindsay coached Brendan Foster and Barry Smith to run low 13 mins without it. Look at Andy Vernon, he recently run 13:28 and he trains at St Marys and will probably get faster as he gets older. Now I'm not for one minute suggesting I can break or attempting to break 13 but what I'm saying is that it may be possible to run fast times without being a full time athlete spending months at a time at altitude.

Next for me is the BMC at Watford over 800m. I was originally down to do the 1500m but Steve wanted me changed because I'm doing the 1500m at the U23 AAA's and he thinks an 800 would be better prep. Of course this inconveniently ties in with England's first World Cup game. You'd think the BMC and FIFA would have better communication with each other to avoid catastrophes like this.

Til next time,

Goolab xxx