I thought while I am away in Portugal I might as well make use of my free time and write a daily blog about what i've been up to training wise and what i've been doing in my free time. Just to give you guys a little more of an insight to what we do while we're warm weather training to relax between sessions.

To save clogging up my blog screen i'll just keep each week on the same page then create a new one each Monday.

Since last weekend there hasn't really been much to tell with my training due to the achillies problem I had. It didn't clear up with steady running so I stopped on Friday, seen a physio and was given exercises and stretches to help cure it.

Monday 30th

I had rested all weekend and felt asthough I had to do something so I went down the Hipac and did some core with the group along with a spin on the bike for 30minutes.

Tuesday 31st (day 1)

Bright an early start, we were off to the airport around 8:30am for our flight at 10. Everything went nice and smoothly with the flight, I watched a movie to pass the time. You can't beat bringing your laptop! Something i've never done before but  I thought if I'm here for 4 weeks it'll help keep my entertained so I watched Slumdog Millionaire on the flight! What a cracking film!

We arrived just after lunchtime and collected our car made our way to our accommodation in Vilamoura. The apartment we're in is really nice and a great home for the next month!

I hadn't ran since Friday so was a little nervous to do a jog and test my achillies but off I went. I started off trotting at 7min miles around the little park next to our complex. 20mins later all was fine so called it a day and went back to do some stretching and then cooked dinner and hit the sack around 10:30.

Wednesday 1st (day 2)

As there's only 4 of us here until Thursday, Morrow was doing a track session and Ruth a grass one. Myself and Lewis doing running and cross training so I dropped Lewis and Morrow at the track and I drove Ruth to the cross country course about 3mile away. We thought we'd get it out the way before 10 so she cracked on with her session and I got on with a run. My achilles felt fine so just ran at regular pace and did 6 mile with no problems.

After the run we headed back to the apartment, had some lunch and then we decided to go towards Albufiera for the day and had a look round the shops. I spent a big of cash on some new trackies which I've needed for ages, can't go wrong for 15 euro!

Afterwards we went back to do our 2nd runs of the day about 5pm, I decided not to run again as it would be a little silly with getting this mornings run in the bag. So I did some stretching to keep on top of the old injury while Lewis did his aqua jogging session in the -20C degree pool!

This evening we cooked a huge Sheperds pie for us all and we've just went to the local restaurant in the complex to watch the England game which we've just won by the looks of it! 

Thursday 2nd (day 3)

Today we were doing our longer midweek run because the Tuesday session was a day late. At half 9 Morrow, Ruth and I set off for an hour run towards the old cross country course. Those who have been over here will know of the great course there is up in Alfamar, those who haven't it's a 2k cross course of grass with parts of sand ideal for running. This is what I ran round yesterday and it's around 30 minutes away so we headed towards it for an out and back hour run.

It was clear blue skies this morning so I suncreaned up as I don't fancy getting burnt and off we went along the dirt track towards Alfamar. Everything was fine with the achillies so i'm happy to get an hour in at a solid steady pace. Since getting back from the run we've sat in the sun for a bit on the roof terrace of our apartment and the noisy Preston lot arrived an hour or so ago so the place is just going to keep filling up with runners from now on!

After finishing up online I went off to do some core in the apartment, using a makeshift medball... a 5L bottle of water and some towels on the floor. It did the job though and the abs were burning afterwards. We headed down the marina for a walk after dinner and then I picked the girls from our group and Abdi up at the airport around 11pm. I was in bed by 12 so it wasn't so bad.

Friday 3rd (day 4)

After a late night I still woke up at 8 so got a good breakfast in as Morrow and I had arranged to run with the Preston lads at 10. We only did a stedy 40mins but we still managed to get dropped off the younger lads as I didn't fancy going much quicker than 6:30 pace. Certainly one of the benefits of having a garmin!

So far so good with the achillies pain, however the left one now seems a little tight so i'm constantly keeping on top of the stretching and making use of of the t-roller and foam roller. I think once Hannah gets out here (the masseur we've all paid for) then I can get a good massage on my calf and things will be 100% so until then I'm going to be cautious. 

I'm going to get a 20min jog in later to loosen the legs off before tomorrow mornings session, it'll actually be my first one in a couple weeks and really looking forward to it! There's a lot of tempo running mixed in with some 400's all on grass so should be good!

Saturday 4th (day 5)

Today was my first session of the trip and my first session in a few weeks so I was raring to go this morning! up at 8 and got a good breakfast and a few litres of water and electrolytes as it was going to be around 25degrees! We set off jogging to the cross country course, it's around 4mile to get there and I was the only one to run it all whereas the girls started their session on the way there. We had a tempo, some k reps then 400's then a 2k rep to end with. I was training on my own as Morrow did the 800/1500 variation of the session and the girls and Abdi who doing the 5k/10k session are too slow for me. Luckily Nick has arrived today so i've got him for company now, or him to chase I should say! Then Vernon arrives on Tuesday and Lee next Saturday so come next weekend we should be working well together.

I set my garmin up as I was on grass and it gave me accurate splits and off I went, I don't want to go into the sessions too much as I don't really like too on here at the coaches requests but it seemed to go pretty well. I was probably running a little better than I would have expected for my first session so i'm pretty upbeat now. On my last rep I did cut it short after just over 1k of the 2k as my left calf began to twinge. Nothing serious, I was just playing it safe and I got a massage straight after i'd ran back and it's 100x better now! One error I did make was not putting sun cream on my back when I was getting the massage on the roof top and my back has burnt pretty bad, but i'm sure i'll live!!

Tonight I did an easy 3 mile just to flush the massage out my legs and then we cooked a nice chili and had a walk around the marina for an hour and got a treat for the week a couple creps which were amazing! I'm going to get an early night in now as we're running at 7:30 because the World Rally Championships are in town and me and Ruth being car fanatics are going to watch in the next town along from Vilamoura so hopefully i'll get some good shots on my camera!

Sunday 5th (day 6)

Sunday was a very tiring day for me after yesterdays session, massage and evening run. I covered around 17miles in total and it was one of the hottest days yesterday so I was certainly feeling it this morning! We were out at half 7 for the run and I must have average about 7 1/2minute miles, but Sunday doesn't really worry me, it's just a case of getting out and doing it, more just time on your feet. I felt better in the last half hour of the run but I was glad to get finished. I got back and had another breakfast then we got ready and headed to see if we could find the World Rally. We drove for miles and mile looking but we couldn't find any part of the rally stages. We asked for directions and some local sent us into the mountains, well they were probably hills but I had to drive up them in first gear! We found some cars driving between stages so I tried to keep up, my crappy fiat rental didn't really hang onto the 300bhp Evo I was trying to follow! Eventually we made it to the top of a mountain/hill and the cars were disappearing off into the dirt track that was blocked by the police, so that was the end of our rally adventure! 

I'm now looking forward to next weeks training as the real hard work begins!!