I was browsing through my previous blogs the other day and in the The Good News blog I found a few questions from Ken who is from Canada!! Well Ken left this comment a good few weeks ago now and I've only just found it, sorry for the delay. Hopefully the following will answer your questions:

1) Yeah I'm not too crazy on the miles I do. My coach Steve (who is also an athlete on the site) started coaching me in September 2007 and he started me on 50 miles a week at that point. The next year (which is the year I made my big breakthrough) he stepped me up to 55-60 and this year I'm mainly running 65-70. To be honest I would've liked to get more weeks in at 70 but hey, nobodies perfect. As I get older he does intend to increase the volume but I don't know what he plans to limit me to (if there is one!). Pretty much everything you said is spot on, increase the mileage while working on the speed. He believes that developing pace over the middle distances will ultimately help improve performance over the longer distances in the future. The recent cross-country races I have run have been 11k and then a 10k. Whether or not talent has anything to do with me getting through these distances despite low volume I couldn't tell you because I don't know, but I can guarantee Steve will say it's because of the coaching!!

2) I'm not sure what a maintance type session is but I suppose if I tell you how I feel during my Sunday run hopefully that will answer your question. I never set out on a Sunday morning intending to run a hard 75 mins, simply because 75 mins is a long time to try and kill yourself and it'll probably hurt...A LOT! I just run at a pace I feel is comfortable and I should be able to hold for the duration of the run. But if I do a hard session on the Saturday then sometimes an easy pace which should be comfortable is hard to hold! I have heard rumours of Kenyans starting off slow on their runs, getting faster and then finishing at ridiculous paces. Sometimes when I feel good I may pick up a bit so I finish fast but this only happens in the last 5 mins or so, and the pace I finish at isn't even that fast, I just open my stride a bit. I like to keep this run sensible so when I wake up Monday morning I feel fresh ready to start another hard week.

3) The plan this track season is to stick to 800's, 1500's and 3k's. Like you mention, work on the speed before I start moving up to 5k's. However, the people trying to convince me to run 5k's will be pleased to know I will be running one at the BUCS outdoors (our equivalent of the NCAA). This will be my first ever 5k and the only one I run of the season. From last year's track races Steve said I ran well tactically in all my races, even the time trial ones with pacemakers. So one thing I would like to keep developing is the tactical side to my running, trying to make the right decisions and be in the right places at the right times. I also want to keep improving my closing laps. Last year I managed to run quite a few sub 60 last laps and in all my track seasons prior to that I had only run one. Keeping the finishing speed good is the only way you're going to win races so I want to make sure I have a kick. Last year I set a final lap PB of 57s in a 3k, so to improve on that would be good going and one step closer to matching Bekele's 51/52 last laps (I wish!).

Hope those are informative enough and feel free to ask me anything else and I'll try to be more punctual with my responses!

I didn't want to talk about the World Cross trial but someone took the time to ask so I thought it's only fair I take the time to answer. At this time of my life I don't think the World Cross process would be, for me personally, a positive experience. Take the possible cases that could've happend:

-I go to the trial and bomb out

-I go to the trial, make the team, but bomb out in the World's

-I go to the trial, make the team, run great in the World's but struggle to finish in the top 100.

For me the potential 24k's worth of racing just isn't worth living out one of those situations. Yeah it would be good experience being in that type of environment, but the physical and mental drainage outweighs the experience gained at this point in my career (if you can call it that). Don't get me wrong, all of Sunday and Monday I was haunted by the possibilites of what could've been. I was reading those results thinking "why on earth was I sitting at home on Saturday afternoon?". By Tuesday I was over it and I was fine with the decision made, whether or not it was the right one who knows, but what's done is done. There's no point sugar-coating it, I'm a million miles away from the top end of that race, knowing that thought is enough, living it out is something I'm not too keen on doing. Nicholls has been to two World Cross's in his time and he says it is one of the hardest, most depressing races you can do, so at the tender age of 20, I think I'm ok with missing it and Steve's ok with me not running. I'm happy enough looking back and only seeing a good National Cross performance capping off a great winter campaign, and that's what I want to see.

Yours in living with no regrets,

Goolab xxx