We're just over a week into my altitude experience now and things seem to be going pretty well. I've managed to put away two sessions and get quite a few runs in. Unfortunately the internet here isn't too good so I'm not able to put training and race reports up because I can't log in to the admin side of the site and update. I can get blogs up by messaging them to Simon Jones over Facebook and then he puts them up for me. So a massive thank you to him for doing half my job for me and also the advice you gave me. This minor inconvenience means I'm also not able to get any pictures up so apologies for not producing any of them. Not to worry though, as we have Mark Shearman here taking snaps and I've asked him to e-mail me them over when he gets home.

Mark was one of the many new recruits who came over a week after my arrival. We have a fair few athletes here now all of which have run for GB in any shape or form. Looking around though I think me and one other could be the only ones who haven't got a GB vest on the track. Some of them have brought their personal coaches so there is a wealth of knowledge with us. I think this is the last batch to arrive before my departure but I think there will be a few who leave before me. I know the first set of athletes to leave will be on the 26th/27th when I leave but there're meant to be coaches and staff members leaving before that. One departure we've had was the physiologist Barry Fudge. The guy had an amazing amount of knowledge and seemed very clued up in the whole Kenyan operation and altitude training. He's very easy to talk to and will answer any questions you have. It was great sitting down talking to him and learning about how the body adapts to training and the effects of altitude can have. I'd say he's a great asset to UKA and to have someone like him to talk to on a regular basis is a luxury any athlete should be after.

Like I said above I'm not able to load up stuff like training so I may as well talk about the first couple of sessions I've done while I've been here. I got here on Tuesday and up until Saturday all I had was very easy running. We then saw my first workout on Saturday morning which was a tempo session of 2x12 mins. We were warned that at altitude you should expect your pace to drop but I wasn't by how much. So I set off and just let my heart rate monitor dictate my pace. The place where we trained didn't make things easy though. It was an out and back thing and going out was great! It was downhill with the wind behind me, which of course makes going back uphill with the wind against me. Even so I managed to average 5:20 miling on this demanding session but as you would expect going back was horrible! I especially found the last two minutes of both reps really painful but they say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger... Another positive was that my heart rate was good. I was hitting the right numbers and this was confirmed by Barry who took my lactate levels in between the reps. He had my lactate levels at 5 point something which is perfect for a tempo session. This was my first intense piece of running and I like to think it was a good opener.

We then moved onto the Sunday long run where I did 75 mins and for the first bit Colin McCourt took us a 9 mile loop which had an absolute beast of a hill in it. I then turned out a couple of runs on Monday and a Tuesday morning run with Wilko which brings us to the Tuesday night session. Like back home I was on the track and so were many others. I was on my own doing 10x400m off 2 mins recovery. Well I say it was 10x400m, but the track we were on was measured by someone and it came to 416m! It was also one of those cinder tracks but it wasn't in great condition. There were little bumps and it was quite uneven the whole way round. It was also a bit rocky which wasn't too good when you're in spikes. To make things worse I had 9mm spikes screwed in, don't ask me why. Even so I still turned out 63, 64, 63, 63, 63, 63, 63, 62, 61 and 59. I was over the moon with this session and Lindsay Dunn was on the side timing me and he also said it was a good session. It was weird running on that type of track but I think I held myself together well. I found that there was lactic accumulation a lot quicker than you would get at sea level but that's not really a surprise, it just make things a bit harder.

So the usual routine of sleep, eat and train continues with bits in between to fill the time up. I think next blog I'll talk more about what a day may look like. As far as superstar sightings have gone there haven't been any since the last blog. A guy who works in the gym called Hilary (who claims he has four girls on the go...) said that Asbel Kiprop and Moses Masai were meant to come in this week and use the gym but they never showed. This was unfortunate as he said he'd send Kiprop to knock on my door. Apparently though Linet Masai is meant to show next week and Lornah Kiplagat is meant to be back after racing in Europe so I may spot someone next week.

Til next time,
Goolab xxx