Going over the past two weeks, I have had a pretty consistent run of quality training. From 12th March i spent the week in Spain with another 3 athletes from my training group and club, Notts AC. We were sharing a villa with a group of tri-athletes, who had notified me that there was room to squeeze in a few more keen athletes to join them, so I jumped at the chance. The villa was called casa pino solo in Iznajar, about 1hr30min drive from Malaga airport. We had all the facilities we needed, including an outdoor pool, which was used more for dipping in to cool down after sessions! The Jacuzzi was used so much that it actually broke down after the 3rd day. I blame the tri-athletes for cramming way too many people in at the same time!
 
In terms of running, the terrain was very hilly for a good 10 mile radius, so this gave our hamstrings a real workout! The flattest stretch we found was 3 miles from the villa (up-hill), which we used to do our two main sessions. The final fartleck was on the morning of our flight home, so we decided to go straight from the villa which worked out pretty well. The hilly landscape meant there were some great views of Andalucia, with the never-ending olive groves. One attempt to explore the area lead to near disaster... I borrowed a top-class bike from one of the tri-athletes (an awesome bike, but with brakes that had been pretty well used over the past couple of weeks!) and decided to take it for a spin. I didn't count on the back tire bursting as I flew at top speed round a bend, sending me flying over the handlebars and scraping my arm and back fairly well on the tarmac. I was a little alarmed by the grass I had to pull from my helmet (thank God I remembered to wear one!)
 
So after this I decided I'd better to stick to running, where I only need to co-ordinate my legs! With the exception of a rock-climbing trip with one of the tri-athlete vets, where i definitely had an un-planned upper body work-out! It was a lot of fun, but don't think i'd recommend it as part of a regular training schedule. The other Notts AC lads decided to try and show-off their swimming acumen in the lake, only to find that they'd put their wet suits on back-to-front, and tried unsuccessfully to walk forwards into the water with flippers on! 

 So here's to only having to put one leg in front of the other...

 After a week back in England of training and work, I arrived in Chamonix, in the French Alps yesterday afternoon. Despite the altitude being only 1035m, I felt a definite difference on my first training run of the trip. Tomorrow the skiing begins (very carefully). Can't wait!