“Indoors Approach”

I am back in Scotland for a 2 week training stint before I tackle some indoor races. The rest of the trip to South Africa went well (except for the very last day when I couldn’t get on the track because of a school’s meet) and I came back to Ireland with the feeling of a job well done. We had upped the pace and intensity and I had responded pretty well to it, especially considering the over-distance work I have been doing this winter. I spent about 10 days at home in Ireland after arriving back. I split my time between Galway and Dublin.

My girlfriend lives in Dublin so I spend a lot of time there and, also, I went along to the OCI announcement of the qualifiers for the Olympics at Chinese New Year. I made up for the session that I missed in Stellenbosch and I got into the blocks for the first time since my last race of the season in September. It is always great to get back into the blocks and work on starts. It gives you a nice feeling of speed and power again after such a long break. I then came over here on Monday of last week.

It has been a very good indoor season so far for our group. Since my last entry Allan has continued to go well in the hurdles, winning the AAAs and the Grand Prix in Athens, before coming second last Saturday in the Birmingham Grand Prix to American David Oliver. His times have been very consistent (7.61, 7.61 and 7.59) and he has one or two more races in France before the World Indoors in Valencia. The other member of the group who has done some indoor races is Nick. He just missed the final of the AAAs 60m by one-hundredth of a second and then last weekend ran 6.69 in the Birmingham Grand Prix. That is a good time but, unfortunately, he missed that final by only one-hundredth of a second as well!!

I did some starts with Nick last Tuesday after coming over and I knew it would be tough to stay with him as he is a really good, consistent starter. I really enjoyed the session and was sufficiently close to Nick to get some encouragement! Nick was also a good help last week when we did a speed endurance session together. We are quite evenly matched in some sessions at the moment and, as a result, we really both have to work hard. It was a very intense but solid session. I have another session of starts tomorrow that should help blow out more of the cobwebs.

I have decided to do a few indoor races this year in a short one week block. I start in Ghent on Sunday, followed by Tampere on Wednesday 27th and the Scottish Championships on March 1st. It will be a little different to last year when I did a much longer indoor season and went to the European Indoors Championships in Birmingham. This time I will not be as fully prepared to run the times that I ran last year but I hope to get a feel for competing again and it will help me get more in touch with my speed before I go into the next phase of my training. It normally takes me a few races to really get into the swing of things (last year I opened with 6.78 and finished with 6.61!) so it will be interesting to see how I run over such a short race period.

I am looking forward to getting out on there competing again. There will be a little less pressure as well as it is the indoor season. The first couple of meets will give me a good preparation before I take on my training partner, Nick, at the Scottish Indoors for some friendly competition. I’m sure there will be a few bragging rights for the winner so I am looking forward to giving it a go!