this is my first post

hello everybody tis is my first post on what will be my running blog. i'm just about to get back in to training post illness, which i picked up off my brother, who brought it home from his job in a hospital (the bastard) and probabaly infected me with it after the utter tripe i ran down at clevedon 23:22 for 4 miles. any way i agreed with my coach that there would be no point in working hard at this point in the year as there is very little to train for at his point in the year, so it would probably of been just as well to take a week off training.

i have managed to squeeze in about 45 miles or so this week but it has all just been 6 or 7 mile steady runs with the exception of a long 12 miler i did on sunday morning and a gym session yesterday. i have been testing out my new gps system that was brought for me as a christmas present, i got one ofthose navman x300's very bottom of the range but it does the job adequately for what i wqant it to do.

i'll be starting back doing the interval efforts on clifton prom with mike downs group tonight. not sure what he will have in store for us but i'm sure he will work me very hard as he always does and its probably not the best place for me to start back as i have tended in the past to find the hills very tough but you have to start some where.

so what are my pricipal targets for the second half of the season? well i have 3 in mind. the first and most important of these is a sub 17:30 time at the bridge inn 5k's. i've got my time down to 17:39 in october last year so i should achieve this quite comfortably and maybe even get close to the 17 minute mark. target number 2 is a place in the relay squad for the mmidland and national 12 stage relays in march and early april. this is achieveable, but by no means a gimme as we do have some real quality athletes at bristol and if everyone was available in all honesty i think i would get frozen out. my third and final target is to keep up my unbeaten record against dave austin in the bridge inn races i have beaten him quite soundly in all of these so far this winter but he seems to have the measure of me in just about every other road course and he is impproving fast! order must be kept! i have jerry hogan in mind at the mo but i fear that he may have to wait until next year until i catch him. we shall see...