As I am now entering my final week here in Kenya I thought it was about time I actually got my butt into gear and write a blog about it. I had intended to write a weekly blog but my busy schedule up here has meant that I simply haven’t been able to find the time to sit down and do it!

A typical day here in Kenya comprises of the following:
7.15am Alarm
7.45am Daily stats – we keep a track of various things such as O2 sats, weight, muscle soreness, irritability etc to check for any signs of over doing it or illness.

8am Morning run. Anything from 5 miles through to 12 miles

9am Breakfast (or slightly later is ran longer)
10am Gym for weights/core/stretching/drills or sometimes pool for walking drills.
12.30pm Lunch – usually soup, rice lentils
Afternoon spent resting or chilling out in the club or getting physio/massage
3.30pm Tea and snacks
5pm evening run usually 5 miles plus maybe some strides
6pm Pilates or gym for stretches
7pm Dinner – usually beef or chicken stew with ugali and rice or pasta, salad and cabbage or kale. Occasionally we get pizza, which gets us all very excited and cake days are like christmas.
Evening is spent chilling out in the club with a hot chocolate or if feeling particularly tired an early night watching something on the iPad.

Relaxing at Kerio View post Sunday long run – I’m too interested in my cake to look at the camera!!

Life does get very repetitive, especially the food. But we are in the ideal environment for training and recovering hard so we just accept it and get on with it. I know I am very privileged to be given the opportunity to come here every year and I truly am thankful as I know how much it helps with my training and performances but that doesn’t change the fact that you still miss your family and friends whilst here.

It is by no means a holiday up here, theres no safari etc just lots of hard training, recovering, eating and sleeping. The near 100 miles per week of running aside you can actually become very lazy here as you don’t have to do things like go shopping, cook, clean. The club is only 100m from the camp gate but it can seem a struggle to drag yourself up some days. Whilst I love it here, I don’t think I could do it for more than 4-5 weeks at any one time!

Pre Kenya lab testing thanks to Sunderland University Sport and Exercise Sciences department

We are lucky this year that the internet has been pretty good so I have been able to facetime home quite a bit but nothing can replace a big fat hug from your little nephew and cousin.

Luckily I’ve never had any major issues whilst being up here as I can only imagine how hard that must be for people. Even though Paula did a great job of looking after me through a very minor issue, there is nothing like a loved ones hug or voice when you aren’t feeling too well.
So far (touchwood) training has gone really well. Just before I came out here I did some testing in the labs at Sunderland University and the results suggested that I was in better shape than what I thought. My biggest problem was that my head wasn’t as fit as my body.

Putting the work in onthe track with Paula keeping a watchful eye on us

After a disastrous December and beginning of January I was very low on confidence. I had started to train quite well again but wasn’t convinced that I was in any decent shape, even after seeing my results  from the testing, which were my best ever. I knew that I would get very fit whilst out here in Kenya but the first week here was a bit troublesome as I struggled with the demons in my head.

Thankfully we have a fantastic support crew out here. We had Paula Radcliffe here as camp lead and Steve Vernon was here as camp coach and after sitting chatting through my training with them and getting a good first workout in my confidence began to grow.

Long run with Paula

Once I found my happy place, my training picked up and I have produced some great workouts. I’ve been doing most of my running with Emma Clayton and Elle Vernon and we were working really well together. We were happy to all run at a sensible easy pace and not end up pushing on or racing each. On my long runs I run with Paula and again we work well together, setting a good steady pace but not thrashing each other. Though she did comment on one of the runs that I was killing her with the pace – I took that as a compliment as I was finding it very comfortable at that point!

The whole gang at the end of our first track workout

It’s been amazing having Paula around, training with her, hanging out with her and most importantly learning from her. Any questions I’ve had on more-or-less any subject she has been happy to sit and chat and answer them. Despite her fierce approach to training and racing she is lovely and very friendly and we’ve had a great laugh together. It does get pretty bizarre when she is asking ME advice on what to do in training or I’m telling her off for trying to push too far when she needs to be sensible and stick to plans!! Encouraging her on runs and asking her if she is ok when she was going through a bad patch on a long run and struggling to keep up, felt like I was patronising her at first and there was a lot of apologising on my behalf but she soon just felt like one of the group, the apologising stopped and I spoke to her the same I would with any other athlete without any worries.

My track workouts and tempos have been a massive step up from what I did here this time last year so that is a great positive. Again it has helped that I have had a great group of girls to run them with. The group isn’t massive with a maximum of 5 of us but with quality athletes like the above mentioned to train with you don’t need a large group, you just need to get on the train, put your head down and do the work.

Soaking my legs in the pool post long run.

So with just under a week to go before I get home, its all about finishing off on a high. Im not planning on doing anything silly this week, just keep it the same as the previous 3 weeks – lots of easy/steady running and a couple of good hard workouts. I plan on racing a local 5k on the Tuesday night when I get back to a) see exactly what shape i am in and b) experiment to see how I perform after only 36-48 hours down from altitude as this is meant to be one of the best windows for performance. I may then race the last Harrier League XC on 14th March but that will be dependant on how I readapt to sea level. After that my next race is Reading Half Marathon on 22nd March where hopefully, I will run much better than last year and maybe even sneak a PB!