You may have seen this classic quote on a well known message board recently, but I can tell you that after rolling around in it on Saturday there's nothing to be afraid of. If you've seen the UKA website recently you may know I've been selected for the Euro's. I can tell you I did get a bit nervous at one point, I wasn't sure if I'd get selected or not. My history in those championships isn't very good and seeing as I fell twice I thought the selectors may not take to that nicely. Mind you, I better get pretty use to the mud as I hear that I'll being doing another 6k of boggyness in Dublin, fun times.  

Fortunately there have been no repercussions from the falls, no injuries or anything. I know after Steve fell at Mansfield he was hurt for a few days but I'm ok. Yesterday I did start feeling a bit under the weather but cracked out my normal run. Lately I've been getting pretty stressed from my work and had a fair few later nights than I wanted, and I think it's starting to catch up. Just last week I had two tests and an assignment to do and this week I had 3 assignments to do. I did get a good sleep last night and felt better this morning, but to be on the safe side Steve reduced me from a double day to just a single, what a nice guy. Luckily now all the work's in and I'm in a stress free zone. I've only got one piece of work to be given in next Thursday and I'm not even bothered about it at the moment. All I'm looking forward to is sitting down, rediscovering what TV is and getting at least 10 hours of kip in. It helps knowing this term finishes next week, as it puts me very firmly in chillax mode.

The prep side of the Euro's is going along smoothly. I put my kit order in yesterday so should get that gear next week. I've also been told that I'll be flying out from Birmingham, which is pretty handy as it's only a 10 min train from New Street. Even though it's happened before, I do enjoy going through this two week period of getting the admin stuff sorted. It's nice getting the e-mails from the staff over at UKA and the letters through the door, it just makes it seem that little bit more exciting. It's probably why I haven't run well for GB in the past, I don't focus on the race and just get excited by the fact that I'm even going. But the build up for me is different to the other two occasions. Before I felt like the two weeks before were just about staying fit and healthy (and both times I failed miserably), whereas this time it feels like I'm building up towards something. Steve's been talking about sharpening up and feeling fresh for the race, which has kept me focused on still training well. Even though all the hard work has been done prior to the trial, it still feels like there is so much to be done. I think this is a good thing as it stops me getting complacent and thinking "yeah I'm in good shape, nothing to worry about" like I used to, to thinking "I'm in good shape, but let's get into great shape". Don't get me wrong, there's not much difference I can make to my fitness in these final two weeks, but it's the fine tuning I do which makes a difference to my race fitness. 

Anyways, I'm going to get some dinner and try to remember what channel the Simpsons are on at this time, was it 3 or 4?

Take it easy,

Goolab xxx