Thank Jesus I Wasn't Driving...

Currently in the car heading on our 10 hour journey home from Suffolk, so thought it would be a great idea to pass the time and write another blog. I was down in this neck of the woods visiting some of my boyfriends family and unfortunately to attend a funeral. It's been a great past two days and have enjoyed my time here, although the car journey has been a bit of a nightmare - snow... now, in February? I would of accepted it on Christmas day, but now I want to get back on track and full training again without any snow or ice on the roads! This morning we went out for 6 x 1k reps around the frosty roads of Woodbridge knowing that the rest of the day is going to be spent in the car!

I had absolutely no idea where we were staying although due to trusty google maps - we stayed one night in Doncaster and the next in Woodbridge. Currently we are 5 hours from home - 3 magazines down, a KFC, 2 hours straight of Temple Run on my iPhone and a horrible amount of Facebook creeping.. I think I may be going insane. Thankfully I have the lovely Craske Family keeping me entertained. Temple run however is unbelievable addictive. I am extremely shit at it, but so competitive that I can't put it down and just give up. My high score is just over half a million which is absolutely...pants ( for use of a nicer word). Have been looking up cheats online to impress everyone here in the car but none of them work! So yes, if your bored... Download Temple run on your iPhone. If you have a blackberry.. Throw it out the car in hope a lorry will run over it, and buy yourself an iPhone.

The past few weeks have been quite busy. I have started doing some school talks as part of the Champions in School Initiative. Firstly I visited Blairgowrie high 1st years, all of whom were extremely welcoming and interested in my little presentation. I showed some horrible pictures of my broken foot followed by passing around my huge moon boot. The kids couldn't believe the size of my GB kit - they said it looked more like underwear! Thanks kids... My next visit was at Brechin High, again the kids were lovely. Mainly 1st years with a few sporty kids from 4th year. I was bombarded by some really good questions, along with some rather strange ones but all in all it was really enjoyable. One kid did faint though, so maybe i was THAT bloody boring but I really hope not! Hopefully at least one or two of the kids will pro-actively go out and try to find a sports club they can join. For more info on champions in schools....

http://www.championsinschools.com/

Last Friday I went along to the Aviva offices through in Bishopbriggs on behalf of UK Athletics. I wasn't quite sure what to expect - speaking to adults is a lot harder than children - however I was wrong. It was extremely casual and easy to chat away to everyone. I gave a quick chat about my athletics, my training schedule, my new health(ier) lifestyle and my relationship with my coach. I thought nobody would really care much about my athletics or have a clue who I was, and they probably didn't! But they were all extremely nice to me nonetheless and asked loads and loads of questions with regards to my training. The main guy had an idea that I would play a game on the wii and some of the employees could compete against me and beat my highscore - this was a failed plan from the beginning. My highscore was zero, fantastic. But in my defence it was some weird frisbee game with a dog, put me on Mario and it would of been a different story.

That night I stayed through in Glasgow in order to attend the Aviva International at Kelvin Hall on the Saturday. I was asked to take part in the 'Aviva Lap Of Honour' which honours an Aviva employee who has stood out from the crowd or done something exceptional. I was very lucky to have met such a really nice, down to earth guy, who was selected for his huge amount of charity work over the years. I would of loved to have been racing at the event but due to my previous injury - it wouldn't of been my brightest idea!

Lap of honour with the Aviva Winner

Anyways, it was a great day out. Few highlights were seeing Mo Farah in the lift, the morning before his race. Myself and Howell (my boyfriend) had been out on a training session along the riverbank nearer the SECC, we went into the lift only to stand silently staring at Mo Farah. He then went on to ask if we had been for a run ( standard question to folk, head to toe in running kit), my boyfriend stuttered to announce we had done a session, Mo's reply : seriously? Dunno how you guys can do that!....

Mo Farah, World champion! Doesn't like the cold - fact.. One up to us.. However we then went on to hear later in the day that he had done a treadmil run in the morning, ran an absolutely epic race then went on to do a further 5x 1k session after everyone went home! Wild!

I was also extremely lucky to be sitting about a metre away from Darya Klishina at one point, the russian long jumper who is the most perfect looking woman on the planet... not that I am jealous at all.

I'm heading back to Bisham Abbey to the Olympic Rehab Clinic again - purely just for a check up. As I am back almost to full mileage again! Woo! Extremely happy with my progress. I expected to be breathing out my bum on my first session but I was surprisingly ok! My fitness is a lot better than I had expected and things are coming along quickly. I have been given a Garmin in order to note all of my times and heart rates on every run that I do - this had been extremely helpful and something I had never bothered to look at before now. I am currently running about 50miles a week - although my max is only about 65-70miles a week, so I'm not too far away. The only mileage I am currently missing is a few steady runs as I have been able to do 2 main sessions a week, one road, one track along with a 4mile sustained on the treadmill - so the fact I am missing a few easy runs doesn't concern me too much. Bisham is purely to get some intense physiotherapy again and to monitor the next step back to full mileage.

On another not I have just booked my annual warm weather training trip with my training group to Villamoura, Portugal. I decided to head out a week earlier than everyone else in order to try and catch up on all the time missed with injury! I am then hoping to go straight from my two weeks there to a further 3 weeks in Font Romeu with the UKA endurance camp. This would be my first ever time to altitude which is why I am only going for the shorter time of 3 weeks in order to be back in time for a full month of racing over the summer before the Olympic Trials, 22nd June. A full 20 weeks away! Not that i'm counting..