First interval training session

Thursday morning involves another early wake up, this time 6am. We are then driven to the countryside next to Eldoret airport and told to go on a "communal run". The group consists of nine Kenyan athletes and myself with Sri Lankan internation Chaminda departing for the run before us as he is only a week or so into training after recovering from a foot injury. Watching in the following minibus is Kenyan coach Joseph and Gert from Germany who has been hired to teach German in Kip Keino's High School for a year and who is also very keen on his athletics. In theory a "commuanl run" means running at a sociable pace for the about 11km route to finish in about 75 minutes. In practice the group can only maintain the slow pace for about 45 minutes before athletes get impatient and the pace pickes up. I finish the run in 71.31 minutes, only three and half minutes faster than I was meant to (and I was definitely not the first person to finish), and when I get back to the training centre I go back to sleep to catch up on sleep missed by having to get up early! Later that evening I use the gym in the centre for the first time. Interestingly I haven't seen any of the Kenyan athletes in there yet and when I ask Joesph he explains that they do not use the gym often and do not tend to do weight training because they are worried about putting on too much weight. Perhaps they know better than us Western athletes. Perhaps the Kenyans would be even more forminable if they started using weights.

Friday morning involves my first interval training session since arriving. The session is around Kazi Mingi, a field next to the centre owed by Kip Keino used for running. After a 30minute warm up we are split into pairs and told the session we will do. Most of the Kenyans who are focusing on cross country are given a session of 4x1600metres then 6x600m. Myself and the more middle distance oriantated athletes do 2x1600metres then 4x600m. I am very encouraged with how the session went, having kept with my partner for the first effort and then stayed within five seconds for the remaining efforts (except the last effort where he gets 10 seconds ahead but is going faster). I am even more pleased when I find out that my partner has a 800m PB of 1.46 (which would put him 2nd in GB at the moment). He has ran this time four times, and actually got his PB when running in a race on a soil track at altitude in Kenya! He also came 3rd in the Kenyan Commonwealth 800m trials and only didn't get selected because they decided to take an athlete currently studying in USA (Kenya got 1,2,3 at the Commonwealths in the 800m). Not a bad training partner! And very encouraging that I was as close to him as I was for my first interval session at altitude.

Tomorrow I may get the opportunity to watch a cross country race at Iten, a village about 40minutes drive from the centre on the edge of the African Rift Valley. This would be an incredible experience, it all depends on whether my sports massage appointment is in the morning or afternoon. If I dont get to watch this race then there is another one on 23rd January which I will get to see, very exciting.

Hope everyone well back in the UK. I hear you have snow again, unlucky. I hope it gone when I get back to England, I not sure I'll be able to survive the cold after Kenya.