Over the last few years I have moved on a significant amount, ticking off the Championships as I go, starting with Commonwealth Games, then European Championships and now World Championships, there is just one more to go, but that can wait till next summer.
The final few weeks training in Leeds went well, with a great final week full of quality walks and tempo sessions before I jumped on to plane to travel to the altitude camp in Japan.
Im coming to the end of the first week of training up the mountain and to say its been up and down is an understatement.
My self and Laura Weightman were the first competing athletes to head out along with the wonderful support staff and training partner for most of the runners, Adam Clarke. Nice little group of us who were quickly joined by others, with more coming in over the next week.
Finding flat places for me to train up the mountain was slightly trickier than first planned with one of my first sessions being one of the hilliest I've ever done! Up and down it most certainly was. We tried another loop the following evening, there seemed to be quite a bit of up and some very steep downs to that as well.
No need to panic though, as we soon started to find a few flat loops and I have been able to race walk some quality, yet cautious sessions. - as you can't go all out in training for the first few days at altitude, otherwise you'll end up a slightly exhausted athlete.
The views up here are stunning, the sky at night is full of stars, plus there is a huge telescope on top of the hotel which we all went up to have a little look at. Turned out we could see Saturn, it was stunning as we were able to see through the telescope Saturn's rings and a few of its moons, incredible!
The hotel staff and local sporting governing bodies, plus a few handy translators, have been fantastic. They have been happy to help with everything and have made sure we are well looked after and are so friendly. They did seem to get very excited when myself and Laura had a post session ice bath (paddling pool);
The last couple of days the clouds have lifted and there have been some totally stunning views from up here. We are able to see the slightly unnerving volcano behind us, as well as the beautiful mountains and views. It is times like these which you realise how lucky we are to get to travel the world and see these stunning places.
The top athletics track is hidden away on the
mountain side and is a stunning place to train. Plenty of Japanese kids doing athletics in their summer holidays is a great sight to see.
I'm not a fan of a lot of training on the track, but with this back drop it certainly makes it slightly more enjoyable.
The travel and time difference made it a tough first few days, but no ones training suffered, it just meant the body didn't always want to sleep at night as it was still tuned into the time at home. That took a few days to pass and now everyone has settled in to Japanese time, which will be a big advantage when it comes to traveling into Beijing.
Big thanks to SOSRehydrate for supporting me with important tools in staying hydrated, which is key at altitude and has been crucial in helping to acclimatise.
Perks of the Job -
Thats where we are at as of the moment, time to put in some strong training over these final weeks before heading down and taking on the world on August 23rd.
Will update again once I've smashed out some quality sessions.
Sending my thanks to everyone for the kind words on my selection from somewhere up a mountain in the clouds.
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