Breathe out

Well I am finally back in Germany after a very long day yesterday! It’s cold & wet (again) so it’s a harsh reality after the long hot days in Croatia; everyone is not too happy about the proposition of moving on to Northern UK in a couple of weeks for our pre-Comm Games team camp. More on that in a bit though…

Two nights ago was the second day of competition for the Continental Cup which included for me the 4 x 400 relay (the last event of the entire meet). We came forth, or last, but I try a be a glass-half-full kinda guy ;-) Our time was pretty solid, though – 3:03.4 I think, which is as fast as I have run in a relay before. It was such an awesome race! There was some great banter in the call room beforehand and all the different teams were hanging out together, which wouldn’t be seen at any other meets of this standard so was a great atmosphere. We were also on just after the local track and field royalty of Blanca Vlasic won the high jump and was doing her victory lap. This certainly meant the crowd was excited and very very vocal. The girls 4 x 4 relay was on just before us and there was a great finish between the Americas and Europe, adding to the electricity in the stadium.

I’d love to tell you that something miraculous happened and that the crowd suddenly turned their affection to the Asian-Pacific underdogs for the last race, or that the race was a close finish for third place. Neither of these unlikely events took place, however, but the race was one of the best I’ve had the pleasure of being involved in! I shouldn’t be too harsh, we only got beaten by a second or so, and the mere capacity of the 20 000 or more spectators more than made up for the lack of cheering directed at us. Such great fun, and my teammates Joel, Ben Offerins and Kevin Moore all would say the same.

I won’t say too much about what happened after the meet at the amazing function put on at the hotel we were staying at other than the set up was world class. It was an outdoor beach party extravaganza with all the ingredients for a great night. In a modified and very brief summary, Joel was thrown in the ocean by the world champ in female shot put, I ended up with Lo Lo Jones' spikes, Matty ended up at the casino, and an English only speaking friend ended up arm in arm at the end of the night singing Croatian anthems with some new local friends. It was a great night and I’ve come away with some great friends and all-time stories. I’ll say no more.

So back in Cologne now, and we are heading into “Phase 4” (as Matty has told us) of training leading up to the Comm Games. This phase will incorporate the sessions I have not been doing so far which will hopefully spark me up and do the finishing touches on my speed and fitness in prep for 27 days time. I had the opportunity to race in about a week’s time but Matty and I decided that from my last couple of races that this phase of training is really important and that a race may impact on the consistency of that training. We have also been in discussions with the best two 400 hurdlers from Great Brit and are going to try and get some sessions done with them midway through September.

(later today)

We are having a meeting tonight discussing the new option of now possibly running in a meet in Tokyo in 2 weeks, then going on to Hong Kong to train with the NZ team in warm weather. This is very new – I probably shouldn’t even have this on my blog but I don’t think anyone who reads this would care too much. This would be an awesome idea though as it will be much closer to the same weather we’ll be running in in India!

More on that when I know.

So my aim for the next month is to really just try and relax a bit about this whole elite track and field world. I’m still very motivated and pumped, but may have been a little uptight of late which is not a good head space for me to be in. So I am going to rest less, play more, and train my arse off. Enjoy this amazing journey without the giant bear of unnecessary expectations weighing me down.

On that note, I’ve have accepted an invite to watch Germany play football tonight at the local stadium which should be fantastic!! I have a really important session tomorrow so a month ago I probably would have said no, but this is a pretty awesome op to see some world class football!!!

Way too much crap from me today, thanks for those who made it to the end…

Yay for Labour.

bj