From Russia, With Love...

Mockbaaaa

Team GB official photo with our Bald Caps in honour of our bald Team Boss!

After the disappointment of making the World Championship team two years ago in Deagu but not being able to go due to my broken foot – it really did make Moscow that little bit more special. I did everything I possibly could in order to put myself on that start-line - albeit, still injured! At the holding camp in Barcelona, my coach (big Liz) and myself, decided to attempt to start back jogging again, every second day – as with all the lack of impact training – my leg had started to feel better. This however, was a silly decision. After not properly impacting for 6 weeks (apart from 2 track sessions a week) – I really, really struggled! I managed to do a 3mile jog, two days in a row – however, when I attempted to do my track sessions – the impact of jogging had the opposite effect. I was STRUGGLING. Genuinely like a whale trying to run around the track – my quads felt like they were triple their normal size! I was scheduled to do 4x 800m but couldn't break 2.30 for my first effort, yet a few weeks previous to this, I was running 10 reps in 2.28s! It hit my confidence pretty hard, so much so, that I was actually dreading going to my first ever World Championships. After sitting down with my coach, the doctor and the physio, we decided to take a small step backwards again and revert to doing all of my training in the pool in order to give myself the recovery and freshness back into my legs - in time for Moscow!

Monaco DL

London DL

Tired and sweaty heading homeeeee

This was definitely the issue I had which made me feel very 'heavy' and 'flat' at the London Anniversary Games and the Monaco Diamond League. For each of these races, I had trained right through them – but also tried to start incorporating 3mile jogs into my program – which was far too much for my legs to take at this stage in the season. In a way though, training through those races definitely helped me to preform better in Moscow after getting adamant recovery – my legs felt really fresh. It's just a difficult thing to do and stay positive through, when you know you should be running much quicker times than the ones you are posting - purely due to tired legs.

I realise this blog is really, long and probably relatively boring... but keep on trudging along.. It does get better... slightly :)

Barcelona Holding Camp

Barcelona Beach

Bald Caps... Myself, Jamie Bowie, Kat JT, Bianca, Dwain Chambers

GB ladieeeeez

UK Athletics managed to get an 'aqua-jogging belt' for me, which was actually a red life jacket – so I looked like a right pleb, bobbing around the pool for an hour every day – but I was extremely grateful to even be part of the team in the first place! My little sister joined in some days to keep me company but I was ready to kill her by the last day. She may be 8 year old, but she's far from innocent. I overheard her telling my mum she was going to get a motorbike when she was older – to which my mum replied, “No chance!” My little sister then hit back with, “ well... i'll just wait till you die, then i'll go out and buy the biggest motorbike I can find...” - she did have a fair point – who could stop her.

My sis Orla... rascal

Moscow 2013

Usain at the training track

Stadium

Mo Farah

Moscow was a different experience altogether. It's the first place I have ever been where I genuinely haven’t been able to distinguish a single word or letter! The whole alphabet is different which makes things extremely difficult trying to manoeuvre your way through undergrounds and taxi's!

One of my favourite pictures from Moscow.

Long huuuuuuur

Water Jump Crisis

My heat was on the first day of events and to be honest – I had absolutely zero expectations on myself. I thought if I could get a season's best time or near my personal best – I would be happy. I was ranked close to last in my heat with 5 automatic spots and a further 5 fastest losers making it into the final but knew I had an outside chance of scraping through. These championships were so different to London last year. The stands were pretty empty, there wasn't a huge atmosphere or the same media presence. I was so calm and relaxed compared to London 2012 – where I genuinely thought I was either going to pass out or start hysterically crying. In hindsight, Deagu in 2011 was definitely too early for me and London 2012 probably was too – it was a huge step up in competition – whereas this year, I feel more confident competing against these girls week in week out. In 2012, I ran horribly 9.57 getting kicked out in the heats. In 2013, I have run two personal best times 9.35, made the final and came 10^th with the top 6 girls being African. Fingers crossed I can build on this towards Glasgow 2014.

Another pretty sweet picture from my heat.

My heat went off pretty fast and I managed to keep myself on the back of the front pack. For once in my life, my barriers and especially the water jump were going really well. I wasn't concentrating or focusing on them at all – I was purely focused on making it into that Top 5 position. Hurdling the water jump is definitely the right thing for me – I feel much more confident doing it – knowing that my risk of over-stepping it or slipping is a lot less! I couldn't see my time at the end but I was told by Phil Jones from the BBC, seconds before my interview that I had made the final. I still wasn't 100% sure and wanted to be fully certain before I was excited about it. Running a Pb of 9.35 should have been enough to make me smile – but I just felt I could of pushed on a lot more in the middle K - had I realised I was on for a personal best!

Ice bin!

New pink Nike spikes!

Thankfully, I had 2 days to try and recover for the final. I wasn’t too sure how my leg would react to two steeplechases in such a short amount of time – because I have never raced in close succession before! In the final, I was a bit leg tired and lost concentration on the middle laps again – before picking it up over the last 300m. It was (technically – had I not ran the heats), a personal best time of 9.37 and 10^th place – but I was genuinely disappointed. Eilish (circa 8 weeks ag) would of punched Eilish (now), quite forcefully in the face had she heard those comments. After the difficulties of this season, I really shouldn’t be complaining about coming 10^th in the entire world – but athletes always want more – that is what makes us so competitive! I honestly feel I have a sub 9.30 in me at the moment which would move me closer to the top of the European Rankings. I managed to loose concentration on the second lap after being spiked (which has ripped my beautiful, brand new, pink Nike spikes – almost cried), very sharply on the outside of my right ankle. My ankle then started to feel slightly out of place every time I landed on that foot which meant I began to change the placement of my foot whilst I was running. I couldn’t stop focussing on my ankle rather than the fact I was in the World Championship Final! It's just one of those strange freak things that happen but maybe the thoughts in my head were intensified due to the fact I was already carrying an injury. I didn't mention this in my interview as I didn't want it to come over as an excuse – as I can assure you won't ever hear an excuse come out of my mouth!! Excuses definitely don't exist in my coaches book's! I just wasn't sure how my ankle would be the next day – but the bruised bone died down within a few days – phew! I do now have another little scar to add to my growing collection.

Mascot... I think it's an owl?

In the call up, approximately 8 minutes before we were to go out to the track, they had the Men's 800m final on the TV. Aman from Ethiopia, came through strong over the last 10m to take the win – ethiopia's first ever gold medal over an event shorter than 5000m. You would not believe the hysteria that caused in my call room – 3 ethiopian woman screaming and shouting like little girls who had just seen 1Direction – i've never seen anything like it. These girls were about to run in the World Champs Final in a few minutes, yet they were all crying, hugging each other, screaming, hi5-ing – it really was amazing to see how much it means to them. As a team, one gold medal means so much to everyone. Contrasting to this, one of the other girls from a European Country sitting on the call-room floor did one of the loudest farts I have ever heard in my life and stunk out the entire room within seconds. This World Champs was one to remember.

Red Square with Jess Judd

Red Square

After my final, I did get a few days to become a tourist and sight-see around Moscow's Red Square – which is genuinely unbelievable! It looks like something out of Alice and Wonderland... bright, colourful, swirly buildings that looked like they were edible sweeties. Everything is very expensive though – especially taxi's. In other countries I have travelled too, even without english you can work your way through things with some poorly attempted sign-language and smiling – not in russia! Smiling definitely doesn't get you very far! One of the guys on the team, put some clothes down to laundry in our hotel, they came back costing him £62!! £62 for some pants! Unreal... I quickly decided laundry wasn't for me and washed my entire wardrobe in the sink and bath with some shampoo I had. Big time.

Russian Dolls

Nike strips

Me and Jamie on our way to Nike

The Crown Plaza hotel we stayed in was, as you can imagine, pretty nice! At our Team GB holding camp in Barcelona – the food was very basic and plain.... plain pasta, plain chicken, plain rice with some melon and plain yoghurt for desert. My training camp in Kenya offered a better selection! So the food in Moscow (although it was just normal food) tasted like a 5 Michelin Star Restaurant to us! To be fair, breakfast in the morning was genuinely amazing - everything you could possibly think of was there. I decided to be sensible and wait till my race was over before devouring every single pastry you could imagine. Every morning I would continually see the American athletes with huge waffles – but couldn’t work out where they were getting these delicacies from. Typical me, on our last day in Moscow, to eventually find where the waffles were being made! Probably a good thing though, otherwise I would've had maple syrup sweating out of my pores by the end of the week and turned into a huge pancake and waffle mess.

Dai Greene's map to Nike... Beautifully drawn.

Red Square

Laura and myself at Nike

Moscow by night

With my season still in full swing, I returned aqua-jogging straight away. Motivation was definitely the lowest it's been – I did find it difficult getting back into it again after watching all the other athletes chilling out and taking it easy for a few days. Ashton Eaton (Olympic and World Champ, Decathlete, USA) and a few of the other American Athletes were all playing on the slide in the pool whilst I aqua-jogged for an hour, round and round, in the smallest part of the pool which happened to be the deep end. It was approximately 3metres by 3metres! So depressing – I was tempted to race them to the slide and sack off my training for the day but... I am a geek and so continued wasting my life away in the swimming pool. It also didn’t help matters, swimming through warm patches of water, surrounded by children in the pool – so suspect – I knew what they were up to! Rascals!

Laura, Hannah, Me

Meghan, Sophie, Me

After-party

Hannah, Ashley and myself

First 'Apple' branding shoes i've ever seen... too funny.

I would also like to take the time to thank the hundreds of people who sent me messages on Twitter and Facebook – I really do appreciate them! They were all so lovely – not one horrible message! (SUCCESS! Definitely an improvement to the grilling I had after London...). I tried to take the time to reply to every single one – so I apologise if some slipped through the net! I would not like to thank o2 for my HUGE phone bill... Absolute disaster. I definitely need to find a company with lower charges for being abroad considering i'm away for almost half the year! Nightmare.

Grand Central in Antwerp

Antwerp

For me, things are still all go! I raced last night in Antwerp, Belgium over 1500m. It was a last minute decision – and I mean last minute, as in, midnight the previous day!! I have trained really hard all this week so didn't have huge expectations – I just wanted to get a few shorter races in before my last big race of the season – 3000m Steeplechase at the Brussels Diamond League. I took the win but in a very slow time after some bad pace-making. However, I did beat a Kenyan girl who has beaten me over the steeplechase ALL year – 9.25 runner – so to me, that shows I should be dipping under that 9.30 barrier in the right race! Antwerp was definitely.... an experience. We were sharing a prison-like dorm with 6 other girls. With 2 showers and no towels between us – it definitely was different from other meets I have been to this year! I am very grateful to be given the opportunity to race in a smaller meet though as there are not many races left for this summer season! A few girls from a small Japanese Team that were over competing, ran up to me after my race to give me a 'present'. They handed me a small 'Japan Athletics' badge! So, so cute. I felt bad after realising I didn't have anything to give them in return! But after their coach saw 'MCCOLGAN' on my bag – he then clocked that perhaps Liz McColgan, winner at the World Champs in Tokyo 1991, was perhaps a relative of mine! He literally could not believe it was my mum! After 12 years – it is amazing that my mum still has that sort of impact on people. To this day, she still receives letters and autograph cards from people all over the world – but Japan is definitely the most prominent. I gave one of the little girls my race number and asked for a picture with the two of them!

Japanese girls 

I will make sure I take a very easy week leading into Brussels Diamond League, in order to give myself the chance to recover and (hopefully) run fast! I am also pretty excited to read that Sean Paul is DJ-ing with Usain Bolt at the after party. Eilish (circa 2005, aged 15) is disgustingly excited about this – the first ever night club I went too (sneaky little under-ager) played Sean Paul the entire night – so i'm sure it will bring back some funny memories. I also wish I was Jamaican, so hopefully i'll fit right in. I maybe need to sort out my dancing though – as what I imagine it looks like in my head – is definitely nowhere near as awful as it looks in real life. Maybe someone can teach me how to Dutty Wine. I pray i'm not as bad as this....

My season will end after the New York 5^th Avenue Mile on the 23^rd Sept! I will then go back to Scotland for a good 3 weeks to catch up with all my family and friends as I haven’t been home since the end of March!! It will be nice to chill out for once and not think about cross training or racing! I had tickets for Kendrick Lamar in Glasgow – who I am genuinely OBSESSED with – but had to give them up in order to continue training in Loughborough! That evening in the pool was a difficult one – but there were 9 Chinese student who joined me aqua-jogging – so if i've started a craze as big as Tamagotchi's - i'll be happy. Silver-lining an all.

Long hair... Don't care..

DEAD

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