If my maths is right (and I like to think it is) it's been 37 days since my last blog. I've spent a good month at the bottom of the athlete pile which is poor to say the least. I haven't been purposely neglecting my responsibilities to Runnerslife and any followers I have, it's just that I've been extremely busy. I've had class tests to revise for and a fair few assignments to get done which take up a lot of time and of course a bit of running to do here and there. When I have so many things to get done the important stuff tend to get priority and unfortunately a Runnerslife update never quite materialised. Don't get me wrong, there were many times I said to myself "need to do a blog this week" and I set aside times to do it, normally a Friday night, but after a week of stress I was brain dead and ended up vegging out in front of the TV. Shocking I know, but its hard work solving those x's and y's.

Every time I did intend to write a blog I had a few ideas about what I was going to say but they came and went as the weeks went by. So I may as well start talking about the hot topic of the last week, the European trial. I was 14^th in the race and 5^th U23 and fortunately did enough to make the team for the Europeans. To be 5^th U23 yet 14^th in the entire race shows the sort of depth we have in this age group at the moment. It was very competitive at the top end and Wilko especially did well mixing in with the big dogs.

For me personally a week before the race I was aiming for a bit higher than 14^th, but then a few days before the race if someone said I'd finish 14^th I would've taken that without any hesitation. The Sunday night before (which is the same Sunday I did the Brighton 10k) the race I came down with food poisoning and it wasn't pretty. Fortunately though the projections were restricted to coming out of my mouth rather than the other end; I say fortunately, but no projections would've been better. But the stuff coming out was a horrible shade of green I've never seen before and hope I never see again. I also got a second look at the Haribo I ate after the 10k and it didn't look as appetising as the first time. I went through a period of a few hours where I was throwing up every 20-30 minutes. This in a normal situation isn't good, but when you've done a 10k in the morning and all you've had to eat after is some Haribo this is very bad. I was depleted after the 10k and as I didn't eat I didn't put any fuel into my body but then throwing up the only fuel I had was much less than ideal. I spent most of Sunday night next to a bin/bucket of some kind getting vicious stomach cramps and heavily shaking. At one point I was curled up on the sofa holding my stomach and shaking like a leaf and I thought to myself "I'm not running the trial".

After a 15 hour nap I woke up Monday feeling better with all the excitement behind me. I spent that day in bed and didn't eat anything, or maybe I had a cracker or two. I had the choice to eat and possibly bring everything back up again or not eat but at the same time get weaker and weaker. Not a choice you really want to make but I think I chose the lesser of two evils. Tuesday came by and I was starting to eat again but still hadn't eaten a decent meal. Foolishly or not I tried a track session on Tuesday night. Out of the 9 400's I was supposed to do I only managed 3. Lactic built up so quickly in my legs and they started to feel sore, like I'd done a weights session. Someone had told me they'd been through the same thing and when they tried a track session on the Tuesday it wiped them out completely, even beyond the weekend after. With this in mind I decided to stop after 3 reps.

After a lot of discussion with Steve about whether I should run for the rest of the week let alone the trial he decided to see how I managed a 20 minute jog on Wednesday. This I got through with no problem in the legs but my chest was really tight, although I think that was from the cold. Thursday went ok and by this point I'm eating again but wondering whether it's too late to replace everything I'd lost from the food poisoning. If I was racing or not was still up in the air.

Steve left the decision to race down to me. He said he couldn't make the call because only I know how my body feels and there's so much risk involved only the athlete knows what to do. The risk of course came from whether I make the Euro's team. I could not run and hope and pray the selectors put me in the team off good previous performances and previous championship performances, but then this means it was out of my hands. Or I could run and hope I hold myself together and finish in the top 5 (not top 6 as at that point we'd seen Lee Carey's run in the States and pretty much knew he was in the team off that) or run and completely fall apart and definitely not be in the team. Like I say masses of risk involved as there's so many unknown variables. There's no option I had which guaranteed I'd be in the team. This is why no one else could make the call, I couldn't let someone else decide and pin the blame on them if something went wrong. Steve said if it was him he wouldn't run and I think Lindsay backed him up on this. I was so unsure as I wasn't in the selectors minds so wouldn't know if I was a dead certain in the team even if I didn't run, but then again what if everything collapses in the race and I'm outside the top 5; 10k is a long way to run hard and if you're not ready you'll be found out. So many unknowns and no clear cut solution to any of them...what would you do?

But as it says in the results and like I said a few paragraphs ago I finished 5^th (by the skin of my teeth) so clearly I made the decision to race which luckily resulted in a place on the team. Although that sprint with Ash Harrell was pretty unnecessary as he also made the team, makes me wonder why I bother sometimes. So the good news is I'm on the plane to Portugal and as if that's not good enough, I'm also feeling good while running again and more importantly back into my normal eating habits...like a fat kid in a sweet shop. My luck didn't keep going that far though as the flight is outrageously early. They say Friday morning but I think it's closer to Thursday night than Friday morning.

I'm not sure if you noticed, but it's been snowing this week. Those who have stuck with me since January will recall the brief spell I had doing all my runs in the park my house backs onto, Selly Oak park. Like then all I've done is laps of the place but this time without my MP3 player to keep me company. Not much has changed, although there is a new bench on the far side which I think had been fashioned to look like someone carved it from a tree. I think they're trying to make it look like this thing grew out the ground and just so happened to shape itself into something people can sit on but they're not fooling me. And to anyone who regularly tours Selly Oak park and reads my blog major props to you all as I didn't have one snowball thrown at me the entire time I was there. It's nice to see such a considerate community; you just don't get that anymore.

Although I was away for a month I didn't completely neglect Runnerslife. Those of you who scroll down to the dark abyss that is the bottom of the Runnerslife homepage will see I was putting race reports up and keeping the training up-to date. Liverpool race report I still need to write along with this week's training so if I fix up hopefully they'll be on soon. I'm sure there was more I wanted to say but its 12:04 on a Sunday and I still haven't done my long run so I need to get my butt out. It's been nice catching up, we should do it again sometime (meaning I'll get a blog up just before or while I'm in Portugal).

Much love,

Goolab xxx