various things

William Sichel in Greece is doing very well indeed in the 1000 mile race.  So far his plans for pacing, eating, sleeping, etc have held together perfectly and he's in second position ... I hope everything continues to go so well for him.  He's not even half way yet though.

My training has been going well too and this week, for the first time this year, I've been able to run without gloves.  Temperatures are above average for the first time this year too and we've had quite a lot of sunshine over the past week or so.  It is raining at the moment though.

Recently I've been drinking a nice coffee from Malawi.  I'm not a big fan of the fruity coffees from Africa but this one has been rather pleasant.  Over the past twelve months or so I've been trying lots of coffees from different parts of the world but I think that in April and May I'm going to concentrate on my favourites in the build up to the World Championships (and as a personal reward just after).  Not forgetting the decaffeinated stuff in the three weeks before the actual race.

I also feel that in the last few weeks I need to relax as much as possible between training sessions. Tim Noakes points out that "... the more time you can spend in solitude and in personal refection during the last few weeks, the better you will cope with the mental demands of the last 25 to 35 km of the ultramarathon."

Suits me fine.