I always find the day before these big championships are quite slow. I spend so much time in the hotel room just relaxing and doing nothing. Obviously that's what I should be doing as I'm racing tomorrow, but when you're in Portugal, it's almost 20°C with the sun gleaming in a blue sky, all you want to do is chill on the beach or kick back next to the pool. Instead, I'm blogging in my hotel room.

Normally the highlight of the day is when we spend an hour or so at the course checking out the course, seeing how sharp various turns are and how steep the hills are. It's also the only time I walk the whole course, literally from start to finish. They ensure we've experienced every section of the course from the starting pens to the finishing funnel. I've never experienced such an in depth course analysis like the one when away on these trips. My team manager is Mick Woods and those who have experienced his input before will know how thorough he is so he makes sure no hole is left uncovered when it comes to inspecting the course and making sure we're ok. In my opinion the course itself is very good. There's not really any flat running and the phrase "it's tougher than it looks" is floating about quite a lot. We have 7 laps to do (I know, 7!) which is more than the senior men's however ours is 3 small laps and 4 big ones whereas theirs is 6 big ones. The small lap is only 500m so expect chaos during those early stages.

I had an unexpected visit from the nice guys at anti-doping today. Through their "random" selection it happened that me and Wilko got done, and so did a lot of other runners who medalled or ran very well last year...very "random". This time it was a blood test (although I would've preferred the pee as I quite needed to go at the time) so the woman stuck a needle in me and took however much she needed. The usual preliminaries were in place, give them your passport, fill out some forms, wait around, pick your own apparatus for test, match the numbers on the bottles etc. The team doctor, Dr John Rogers, was nice enough to be present at my test when it happened to keep an eye on proceedings.

We also had a team meeting for the first time today so all the technicalities were taken care of. Race times were all read out and call area opening times were made public knowledge. Details of where other places are in relation to the start/finish were covered and the whole process of going over to the start (believe it or not, it's a very complicated procedure). We've also been given our pen number and as usual all the Great Britain teams are in the middle on the start line. In the end we separated into our various age group teams to discuss times for leaving the course, meeting to go to the call area etc. If you're interested in watching any of the races I've been told they're either on Eurosport or BBC red button, and my race is at 13:20 GMT.

The team itself is more than capable of holding its own against Europe's finest U23's. We have 6 good runners and I can't see how many other countries will be able to match us. Saying that, I don't really know many runners from other countries so I'm not sure how strong they are so comparing us to the rest is probably redundant. But I think we have such a good team you could pick any combination of 4 and they would be in the mix for team medals. Just in case you don't know, the team is as follows....

James Wilkinson aka Wilko- he's been mentioned on my blog many times before and I'm sure by now you all know what this guys about. Great guy, great runner. End of.

Ricky Stevenson- I'm rooming with Ricky and it's been a great laugh so far. There's been some great chat and a good viewing of 300 pre-race.

Mitch Goose- I'm sure most will know about how unorthodox this guy is. In one word, he's an enigma. Most probably don't know what he's trying to be and I don't think he himself understands his own being.

Ash Harrell- I've been away with Ash before and he's always good fun. Don't get me wrong when it comes down to the business end of the trip he's very serious but is a good laugh when just hanging out.

Derek Hawkins- Like last year I'm in a team with one of the Hawkins clan. And like his brother Callum he's a really nice guy and he's representing the north of the border very well.

Well it's getting on a bit and it's probably time I started thinking about going to bed. Next update will come when I'm back in icy, cold England.

Til next time,

Goolab xxx