Food.

Whenever I'm in a foreign country I always like to try the local food, in Kenya they have ugali, sukuma wiki, ndengu, chapati and they love their really sweet chai. Here in the Algarve we went to a festival where we tried the Portuguese version of a donut called a farturas, really good especially if you have a sweet tooth as it was dipped in sugar and cinnamon. On visiting a fish restaurant right next to the local fish market we ordered a seafood cataplana and it was absolutely delicious. A cataplana is the name of the recipe and the dish it is cooked and served in, similar to a tagine. In the cataplana we had it was filled with a huge range of seafood including, sardines, sea bass, golden bream, prawns, muscles and clams, plus as you can see from the picture below it was also filled with potatoes.

The Seafood Cataplana

Still Perfect Weather....

No Internet for a while, hence no blog updates recently. Nearly three weeks in Portugal now and I think I spotted one stray cloud the other day, apart from that it's been perfect weather, in fact yesterday I got a very sun burnt face after relaxing on the beach for too long. Both myself and Tom Bigham, who is out at the moment to keep me company, have nasty panda faces as we both left our sunglasses on, we look quite ridiculous and I'm sure some of the locals have been laughing at us!

Relaxing on the terrace with Mark

Training has been going well, some really good longer sessions but a few below par shorter ones which I put down to a little bit of fatigue. I think one thing that a lot of athletes struggle with is recovery and this has always been one of my problems. I never like to have rest days even though I know how important they are. I took a rest day last week, plus a few days of very easy running and feel much better because of it, you would have thought after running for over 20 years that I would have learnt to take my rest seriously!

Apart from training I have spent my time relaxing on the beach or on the sun terrace at the apartment I have rented, plus maybe a fresh orange juice at Villamoura marina, it's not a bad life being a full time athlete!

Villamoura Marina

Out of the cold.

All settled in here in Portugal. So far I have been very lucky with the weather as everyday has been blue skies and between 15 and 20 Degrees, perfect for marathon training. On my first full day here I did a marathon distance training run which felt good then three days after that I had a 12km tempo run which although my legs were still a little tired from the long run it went well.

I have been joined out here by my Dutch friend Mark who has been enjoying the good weather as much as I have, before he flew out to meet me he has temperatures of -23 in Amsterdam!

Today we went to the cross country course in Albufiera as there was a local cross country taking place. There were some good competitive races both in the men's and women's divisions.

Most of my morning runs I have been enjoying the long beaches that they have out here, really good for running on when the tide is out. This time of the year down in the Algarve it is really quiet which is nice although it does mean that a lot of places are closed down until the tourist season starts up, at least I don't have to worry about dodging tourists when I'm running around the marina.

The beach, just a few minutes jog from my apartment.

Quick Update

Another stinker of a race at the Chichester 10km on Sunday has left me slightly down in the dumps. When training isn't going too well a bad race result can be explained, but when training is spot on a bad race result is very frustrating.

I've now escaped the freezing UK weather by flying out to Portugal for a month. On arrival I was greeted with blue skies and 20 degrees, and that was more than enough to cheer me up!

I've got myself a nice apartment in Vilamoura and enjoyed a solid marathon distance run this morning along the coast to Albufeira and back.

I will get some photos of the area and do a proper blog update later this week.

A track session on a previous visit to Portugal

The University of Birmingham

UPDATE ** My room mate for most of last year Edwin Kipyego today won the 2012 Discovery Half Marathon in Eldoret beating a world class field including Emmanuel Mutai, the 2011 London Marathon Champion! Definitely the biggest win of his career so far, read about it here: www.iaaf.org **

Coming to the end of a really positive week of training which included a good 30km run down in Torquay and my best track session for ages on a chilly evening in Braintree. As the life of a full time athlete consists of not much else apart from training, eating and sleeping I haven't got much to talk about so thought I would continue the theme of my last post and publish some photos of my running days at University.

When I arrived at University I was an 800m runner but after my first British University Champs I decided to have a bit of a break from athletics to live the "University life", after a year of this I returned as a steeplechaser with some decent success including 2 silver medals at the British Universities, a UK inter-counties championship, 4th place in the AAA's and a best ranking of 7th in the UK in 2007 with a best time of 8.47.

A good team effort at one of the BUSA cross country championships.

On my way to a 2nd place finish in the BUSA 3000m S/C behind the winner Nick Talbot. You can just see Andrew Lemoncello behind in the green vest.

Another 2nd place at the BUSA's, behind me you can see Frank Tickner, Chris Warburton and Luke Gunn

Next on the agenda is the Chichester 10km on the 5th February, after this it's Portugal for a months training before a real test at the Bath Half Marathon on the 11th March.

The Good Old Days....

As my training is progressing quite nicely and I have no gossip to report from the streets of Tiptree, I thought I would post some old photos I found recently.

There is one photo that I have been searching for that I can't find anywhere and my mum is starting to think it only exists in my imagination, but as I recall my Grandad took a photo of me having a crazy sprint finish with a guy twice my height in my first non-school race, the Tiptree fun run (which was about 4miles?), it was a few years before I joined Colchester & Tendering Athletics Club so I must have been about eight years old. If I ever find it I will be sure to post it here.

Here is a small selection of the ones I have found.

Tiptree Fun Run

This is possibly my first non school race, it's the Tiptree Fun Run around 1989, I'm not sure if I had done it the year before? In this picture I'm running with my dad.

Colchester 5km Fun Run 1991

This one is definitely 1991 so I was eleven years old.

These three are from my multi-eventing days in which I am competing for Essex as an under 15 in a pentathlon. I am quite impressed with my technique over the hurdles and high jump!

Essex Cross Country Championships 1995

Winning the Essex Cross Country Championships as an under 17, I love the expression on my face in this one.

With Eamonn Martin after the Essex XC Champs

I think Eamonn had won the senior title that year but can't remember for sure. The other two guys are Scott Sterling and Neil Heppel, both were good rivals and friends throughout my younger years.

I'm off to Torquay tomorrow for three or four days, hopefully I will have time to catch up with the Torbay AC guys and maybe join in with one of their sessions, it's always nice for a bit of company!

Ultramarathon Runner

The day after my disastrous race at the Stubbington 10km I had possibly my best steady run ever, I don't think I have ever felt so good, shame it was a day late!!

Yesterday my training had me down for an "easy" 40km run. I roped my dad in to come with me on his bike and we started just as the sun was rising oven a very picturesque frost covered Essex countryside. It was freezing to start with and both of us had very numb hands but these soon began to thaw as the sun came up. We had a rough route planned but a few wrong turns early on turned an initial small loop into quite a large one, but when your running so far it doesn't really make much difference! When I'm doing a long run I try and run for as long as possible before looking at my watch and told my dad not to let me know how long we had been going, the first time I had a look I had been running for a little over 2 hours and more than 20miles, I wish my dad had told me now! This was good in one way as I thought it would be a lot less than this, but bad in another as the shortest route back was going to be at least 7 miles! I ended up covering 28miles feeling great the whole way even picking up the pace over the last few miles. I think my dad suffered more than me as he is still recovering from recent surgery to one of his legs meaning he only really had the use of one leg and cycling up some of the hills near the end was a bit of a struggle! This was my longest run ever in time and distance and as it was longer than a marathon I guess I can call myself an ultra marathon runner!!

Frosty Morning

A good few well earned easy days now until my next hard session later this week.