This week marks the change of one training phase to another. The initial training phase consisted of trying to run in the snow, falling in the snow during sessions, eating loads of junk such as tins of Quality Street and Roses, unwrapping presents and having a few nights out. I like to call this phase the "Christmas relaxation phase combined with lots of hard miles". Unfortunately the time for binge eating, doing Sunday morning runs at 4pm and playing Xbox are over. Monday saw the start of a new, running-focused phase.

The adventure started at 6:30am on Monday morning at my home in London. My alarm woke me and then I went to wake Wilko. He was staying at mine as we had a very early flight to catch from Heathrow and he didn't want to travel from Leeds in the morning to be at the airport for 8am. As I only live a few train stops away from Heathrow it was easy for him to crash at mine then we head to the airport together. So we jumped on the London Underground and made our way to Terminal 5. We met other members of our party at various stages of the check-in, security checks, boarding process. Then at 10:10am our plane took off and we began our 9 hour flight. Now I actually haven't said where we're heading but the clues 9 hour flight, running-focused phase and the title Blogging from Altitude may hint to as where we we're going....if you haven't already guessed (or already heard via the many gossip channels in running) we were flying to Kenya. I wish I could say our getaway was for a safari holiday but it's actually for a stint of altitude training (no surprises there).

So we land at Nairobi airport 9:30pm Kenyan time or 6:30pm UK time. The journey doesn't end there though as we have another connection to Eldoret but that isn't until the morning so UKA were nice enough to put us up in a hotel. It was a flash hotel too! It backed onto a safari park and the restaurant overlooks this park. We had another early start (had to be out of the hotel at 6:30am) so breakfast had to be got early. We got down there at around 6:10 just as the sun was rising and the view was amazing. All you could see was miles of grassland (no lions hunting antelope unfortunately) and the temptation to go out and explore was immense. Instead we got on a bus to the airport to catch the next plane. Although there was an unexpected trip back as a certain Runnerslife athlete who shall not be named who is also out here left their hand luggage at the hotel.

The flight from Nairobi to Eldoret was only 45 minutes so flew by pretty quickly (no pun intended). We were then met by a couple of guys who were driving us to Iten where the training centre is located. They packed the suitcases onto the top of a jeep and we were off. The journey from Eldoret to Iten summed up whet Kenya is all about. It was just one road with one crossroad and no other little roads branching off it. There weren't any traffic lights and no road markings; it was literally just one long road. We passed loads of little towns which were made up of shacks and there were loads of people riding bikes with water tanks on their back. Obviously you hear about this stuff back at home but it's surreal seeing it for yourself. We made it to the training centre and after a bucket load of travelling the training can finally start (after I've caught up on my sleep of course).

And on that first day at the High Altitude Training Camp (HTAC) the training did start. It began with a run at 5pm an hour or so before the sun went down but with the temperature still fairly high. The whole run was on trails which were orangey-red in colour. It's a nightmare on your running trainers as all the dust goes on them and satins them that colour. Also when you run on those trails the people running in front of you tend to kick the dust back so you're constantly running through a cloud of red dust. It's a good motivator though as it makes you go to the front so you don't have to run through it. The route we did was quite up and down (apparently there's no flat running here) and we were told beforehand running easy may still feel hard because of the altitude and the nature of the route. They also say that one of the reasons the Kenyans are quite strong is because if these undulating routes. We're under instructions to go really easy during these first few days so I literally ran at warm up pace for 40 minutes. It was a 5 mile route so I was running 8 minute miling which is the slowest I've ran in a while but it was very easy. I actually felt really good and the breathing got a bit heavier as we went up the steeper hills but most of the time I was comfortable. I wanted to wear my heart monitor during the run so I could keep an eye on the heart rate and make sure it doesn't creep up too much but it's not working at the moment. As expected we saw Kenyans out running when we were running and as expected they were running in their packs. They all run in their tracksuit bottoms and tops and I reckon they were going slower than me. Their easy pace is ridiculously easy, but then again their hard pace is ridiculously hard. However within these running packs you could spot a world champion or two, as you do.

Travelling through Nairobi, Eldoret and Iten you notice a few things. Firstly it seems like a different world. It's not like London or Birmingham where you have loads of office buildings or huge shopping centres; there's open land everywhere. No wonder these guys are so good at running, there's somewhere to run pretty much wherever you go. Life is also so much simpler here. Now I'm not talking about that third world stuff with the shacks and running miles just to get water, I'm talking about the attitude these guys adopt, everyone just seems so relaxed. There's no rush to get things done and everyone is extremely friendly. In the training centre if you walk past a member of staff they'll stop you, shake your hand and ask how you are. And if you haven't met them before they may even ask for your name and 9 times out of 10 they'll remember it. They say the attitude thing is another reason the Kenyans are so successful. They all seem so chilled but then when it's time to work they work hard and make sure they do things right. It's a great mentality to have alongside their amazing work ethic.
I think that's all I'll say for now. I've already said a lot and it's only been 2 days out of 24! I've had a few ideas of blogs I could write about while I'm out here and a couple I've had are what a typical day out here is like (I know Ryan McLeod has done this already but hell I'm going to do it again) and what trying to do a session at 8000ft is like.

I'll end by telling you one more fable from the first day at HTAC. We were at dinner and I was sitting there chatting and a Kenyan woman comes up to me and says "I want to shake your hand". I was slightly confused as I didn't know who this random woman was and at first I didn't know what to do. So I shook her hand and she said back to me "welcome to the High Altitude Training Centre". She did this for every British athlete that was there (I don't think I was the first one she approached, I only noticed when she was putting her hand out in front of me). After a few moments of remaining confused and still dazed by what had just happened I'd been informed that this "random" woman was only World Cross Country Champion Lornah Kipligat, the founder of HTAC. I then went from being confused to being star struck. I really hope I didn't look like too much of doughnut in front of her. Also, after finding out that little bit of information I may have even said I may never was my hand again...

Take it easy,
Goolab xxx