Heres the update then from Maderia so far. We arrived last night at the hotel, which is situated at the bottom of a huge mountain. The idea of running from the hotel was soon put to bed when we looked at the two massive climbs that would great us either side of where the hotel is situated. Flight went okay- landing was a bit scary as you sweep in to the airport over the sea and the end of the runway is on stilts-- yup- stilts.

Sharing with wicksy, as the two of us make up the mens team, so gave us a chance to catch up on training and races and have a general natter about things. Hotel is really nice. Overlooking the sea, and our room has a sea view, so UKA have come up trumps on that front- its like we are on our honeymoon! lol. Sharing the hotel with the spanish and french teams. The french are their usual friendly selves ( moody bastards), the spanish are a bit more chatty though. After an early breakfast we went up the mountain this morning to see the track. Now ive never walked the course for a track race before but guess it was to look at facilities, warm up areas etc. Similiar to the hotel though, the track is situated in a valley like position. The views around it are amazing as it appears to be cut out in the surrounding area. The track itself is mondo and looks rapid so im looking forward to racing now. We did a shake out run from the track (me and the wicks) which invloved going downhill for 10 mins then back up for ten mins followed by 3 thousand laps of an astro turf pitch (get the picture?-- flat running is limited!).

Weather is nice, although we are all cowering in the shade for the day now and resting up. Wicks is topping up his tan on the beach doing some work (YES- wicks is tanning not me--- the things I do for runnerslife). I might go for a walk in a bit, do a spot of sight seeing as I wouldnt normally just laze around the day before a race due to work, so dont want to change my normal routine. ( might go see if a local school have any kids they want teaching). Other than that today is just about chilling out and enjoying the down time. Gonna do another light run later on the flat outside the hotel- just to kill some more time.

All is good here, the team is ready to race and although a small team, as always with team GB we are all out to support and help each other and hopefully return with heads held high. I will blog again tommorow and hopefully put some pictures up.

This is phil nicholls reporting for runnerslife from the Ribeira Brava.... Peace out. Im off to join wicks in the sun, got time to make up. lol.