Sorry about being away for so long and leaving you out of the picture. I'd like to say I was super busy and was occupied all day but that would be a lie. Like someone commented on my last blog "aren't all you students on holiday?", this is indeed the case so I don't really have a proper excuse for not updating. Although I've been having a lot of sofa time because of the World Cup. With the next match not until Friday I thought I'd use all the spare time to do a MASSIVE Runnerslife profile update. The training from the last three weeks is up and I've got the Watford BMC race report up and the U23 AAA's report will be up in a few days. Yes I know you could argue I was just being plain lazy but when you have no work etc. to do I tend to make the most of it by actually doing nothing. So even though I've neglected the site for a bit I hope all of these goodies will make up for it.

As Steve said to me once "what's up in Goolabland?". Well I had the misfortune of coming down with a cold the day after Watford BMC which happened to be the week before AAA's. The usual symptoms were all present, blocked nose, sore throat, lack of appetite and generally feeling like a bag of crap. The week in between those two races I did everything I could to get rid of it. I was taking Strepsils for the sore throat and cold and flu tablets to get rid of the rest. By the middle of the week I was starting to get better but couldn't shake the blocked nose. So I held my head above a bowl of hot water and inhaled some Vicks which did the trick, but I did it on the race morning too just to be safe. After all that I still went out in my heat in Bedford, but more on that will be in the race report. It wasn't the nicest week I've ever had but I still managed to train and didn't really lose much I think.

I was also asked to do something for Athletics Weekly. They have a series of articles called How They Train... and they wanted me to be one of the athletes giving some input. Originally I just wanted to give them the link to my training log on this site but then that's a bit boring and me being unreasonable. So I answered all the questions and gave a little example of the training I do. It was hard trying to do it as I wasn't really able to generalise what I do as it can be different every week. I tried to be as detailed as possible without giving the wrong information. Hopefully what I gave was a true reflection of what I do and an ok generalisation. I don't know if they're going to use the article or when it'll be published, unless it's already been published and I'm just lacking on current events.

Before Watford I also received the final results for my uni work this year. I'm happy to report I managed to pass so I've secured my third year at uni training on the streets of Birmingham and studying under the guidance of mathematicians. I did a bit better than "just passing" though, in fact so much better they want me to change from my normal degree course to a master's course which means staying on for an extra year. I've said all along I wouldn't take on any extra work which could reduce the amount of running due to heavier workloads. I'm here to study but the reason I chose this uni was because I wanted to improve on my running which is still what I want to do. But a few reasons have influenced my choice:

1) Contrary to my original thoughts, a master's isn't that much more work than a normal degree and some people even say the workload is the same so if I've got the work-running balance right over the previous years I should be able to do it again. Apparently it's quite do-able and it's just a case of being organised.

2) My housemate is currently working in an office doing the usual 9-5 hours. The job he's doing is Maths related, in the centre of town and like most people he gets the train to and from work so it's a fair representation of what normal work is like. He's been doing it for a few weeks now and I can safely say I don't want to be in that situation anytime soon. He seems a lot more tired than what he was during term time and he's not a runner. He has to get up early and gets back pretty late and it seems like there is less time in the day for him to do other stuff. So putting myself into his shoes, where I would fit training in I have no idea. It's made me appreciate how easy students get it so the longer I can stay in uni the better for my running really.

3) God forbid the time when I have to start applying for jobs comes, having a master's qualification will hopefully set me up for a decent job but that's not really what I want to do.

So I've decided to go for the course. If they let me on this means an extra year at uni, more debt, more maths but more importantly, more running.  I'm quite enjoying the stuff I'm learning about so there's no harm in learning a bit more and my tutor has always told me to get as much knowledge as possible while I'm young as it's harder to learn the older I get. At the end of the day, it keeps me an extra year away from a job and gives me an extra year to keep training hard, surely there's nothing to lose here...?

As far as training now goes it's going ok. I've put away some pretty good sessions just the races haven't gone as well. I'll be next racing at the British League on the weekend and then on to Solihull for a quick 1500. One of the advantages or maybe disadvantages of not updating for so long is that you get a lot of reading to do, hope you've enjoyed it.

Laters,

Goolab xxx