Nicholls is on board

The first and main news is that I'm now a 2 athlete coach after a certain Phil Nicholls twisted my arm and made me coach him, just like Gooooolab did. There are good and bad things about coaching Nicholls, the bad.......I now don't have the best six pack in the group, or the best hair style, the good........Nicholls loves to front run, so me and Goolab can just try and hang on for a ride, also he is great to have around and is the most fully committed runner I know. So step back a few weeks and I was helping Phil out with sessions etc......  then things just moved from there and I asked Phil if he wanted me to fully take charge, after a chat we decided to give it a go. I know I have said in the past I would not coach another athlete while still running, but Phil is one of my best mates and a very classy runner. We have done a fair few sessions together over the last 6 month's and he is always on time, never blasts the last rep and as mentioned above does his fair share of taking reps out, plus I love him to bits. All in all I am very excited about having 2 GB internationals to try and help out and of course I have Lindsay Dunn to help me along the road of becoming the best coach in the world.

Phil's first race is Sunday for England in Spain, he was selected after only 4 hours of coaching by me, "if only Carlsberg made coaches".

Goolab

Is ticking over nicely and ran a great session with me and Nicholls on Saturday. He will have a few weeks hard training before easing down for the Busa and National Cross where he is a junior for the last time.

Training

At last the snow has finally gone. Friday was the first day I managed to run on the road without worrying about hitting the deck and of course I ended up running far to fast. Saturday's session was pretty hard, but a part from a sore hamstring which comes and goes when its cold and wet the session went great. Phil looked really strong and Goolab looked like he was moving well too. One thing for sure is that as I get older its not going to get any easier training with these two whipper snappers, but as I have told them both, when we are on the start line the friendship/coaching goes out the window and god help them if/when I beat them. Next up for me is the Middlesex on Saturday which is just a race to try and blow the cobwebs away. As some of you may know I'm not the biggest fan of running in the mud up and down hills, but I need to start racing so this seems a good start.

That's all from me.

Run happy

Sharpy