Who am i?

This is my first ever blog so if its crap then i apologise. I've been persuaded into doing one by my house mate Carl Goose, after I found what he had currently produced via a Google search. For those of you who don't know me I’m basically a northern lad from Cumbria, living in London, trying to run quick over 800m whilst enjoying the university experience. I study at St Mary's University which has had a hard time of it amongst the athletic community. A lot of abuse about the quality of our degrees and the standard of our students has been given. To be honest they do make it very easy to get into, but a degree is a degree and requires time regardless of where you’re at.

Let’s recap...my best year was 2010 where I first represented England and GB, setting a pb of 1.48.67 and placing fourth at the Senior UK indoor champs. I was third place in a ridiculously highly contested UK u20 championship race at Bedford, which had 4 juniors under 1.50 and Niall Brooks the winner in 1.47. In September 2010 I began studying at St Mary's and found the change very hard. I went to university with a fractured scapula (due to me being a daft lad on a bike in the Lake District) and also a heart murmur caused by anaemia (too many curries not enough fruit). In October 2010 my coach Tony Ward, who had taken me from 2.05 as a 14 year old to 1.48 at 18, passed away. I obviously found this quite hard to deal with. Moving away from the comforts of home was difficult. I had been used to wonderful meals cooked by my Mum and Sister and was then thrown into the awful ref food of St Mary's. Due to inactivity with my broken shoulder I had put a bit of “timber” on and thus needed to lose it. Going about this the right way is integral. I did not, thus resulting in a lot of illness in my first semester. In my first 5 months of university I had been ill 8 times and had managed about 5 or 6 weeks of complete training.

On the training front, the difference between Tony's philosophy’s and those of Craig Winrow’s were colossal. I had always done speed work year round and had only ran around 35 miles a week before my 1.48 season. Under Craig I'm doing more volume and a lot more conditioning, which will hopefully allow me to run a lot quicker over 1500m as well as furthering my 800m. In my first year I found it hard to get my head round not running quick all the time and when my first race indoor didn’t go well (1.53.8 in Bratislava) I panicked and became overly negative. This was a recurring theme throughout 2011. Outdoors I could only run 49.6 over 400m at BUCS, compared to my opening 400m races in 2010 of 48.8 and 48.5, done in the same day. The following week I ran 8.58 at Watford over 3000m, my only Pb of 2011, but not close to what I could have produced in 2010. I ran 1.50.11 early in May and that was to be the highlight of my summer as I displaced my hip in July. Incidentally, I produced 1.51.8 with a hip that was out of place, so that was probably my best race.

At this point I knew something had to change. I decided not to continue living in university halls and to move into a house with Carl Goose, Tommy Carroll and Ollie Crux. Despite not knowing any of these lads particularly well before moving in, I can honestly say it’s been a great decision. The presence of a double bed is most appreciated. In the summer I learnt how to cook and now love cooking, mainly curry's I must add. So far this year I’ve been ill, twice. One of which is now. I've raced well, by my standards, over longer distances (16.00 for 5k and 26.14 for 5miles). I ran at the Northern Indoors and ran 4.00.3 over 1500m, which I was pleased with as I’d only been on the track 4 times since July, due to shin splints. All in all I’m in a good place and looking forward to the summer. 2012 Is a big year and I’m intrigued as to who will make a big breakthrough, it might, just maybe, be me!


Im going to finish each blog with a random fact (almost certainly not true) about my favourite DJ, Tiesto.Did you know that Tiesto's favourite UK supermarket is Sainsbury's?