Josh Tighe

Josh Tighe

Wednesday 7 March 2012

High altitude eating

Big session day!
I started Saturday off with a morning session at  10am, my alarm goes off at 7.30 so I can eat some breakfast which is just 3 slices of bread. I lie in bed for another hour psyching myself up by listening to some Will Smith.
So I'm out the door at 9.45am and do a 20 min warm up with Karl and Nick who are both going to the track. My session was a 9k tempo starting across the road from my house, when I set off I felt like I was the bus in Speed starring Keanu Reeves. If I dropped below 6 minute miling I would blow up or just have a rubbish session which is the most realistic of the two.
I managed to do the loop in 31 minutes which meant I didn't drop below 6 minute miling, I really feel that Keanu Reeve's would be proud of me!
In the afternoon we watched Zane's brother Jake on the Internet compete in the Olympic trials in Melbourne in the 5000m, he ran 13.28 just missing out on the Olympic standard. Whilst we watched this one of the Kenyan's Alex told us how his hoping to qualify for the world juniors this year, he was laughing as he told us this as his real age is 26!
The second session of the day happened in the evening. The chapatis challenge. The competition was between me Zane, Karl and big Nick Swinburn, we got Victor who helps out around the village to go into town on a bike and pick up 80 chapatis and 3 ndengu which is a sort of lentil based soup. He arrived back about 40 minutes later with the food and the competition was underway. Karl went for the single eating with ketchup on technique, Zane cut his up and put it into the ndengu, I tried folding mine up and eating 10 at once
                                                 The 10 technique

 but after 2 bites I realised this was a bad technique, as usual Nick was stuffing his face as fast as he could, which he does on a regular basis.
                                        It's rare you see Nick without food

 3 Hours later and the competition was over, Zane was the quickest and managed 18, Karl ate 11.5 and I managed 11.85. It took me about 1 hour to eat half a chapatis, it wasn't so much the amount it was more the taste of the oil and watching Nick eat them barely even chewing the chapatis.
                                         after the competition in a bad way

 He managed 20 so was joint winner with Zane, I'm a little disappointed with my performance but I put it down to the altitude and not being as fat as Nick who is kind of like the Neville Southall of running.
                                                       Nick in action

Sunday morning me and Karl went for a 90 minute run starting from our house to the rainforest and back, it's kind of weird when your in the rainforest as it doesn't feel like Kenya it sort of feels like being in Borneo Malaysia or the forest from the film Predator starring Ron Schzanheider. Once we had finished the run me Karl and Nick went to Kerio view  to watch the Newcastle vs Sunderland game, which is about the Geordies vs the strange breed of people the Mackems. Near the end of the game we where joined by Myles Edwards who arrived out here for a second stint on Monday, during the Man United vs Tottenham game we sat down and stuffed our faces at the buffet, me Karl and Myles went up twice and Nick went up 3 times due to his eating problem.

Monday was another session day for me, I did a 15x30 seconds off 30 seconds hill session. It was pretty good doing the session as there were a few Kenyan's doing longer hill reps so I had people to pass, when I was passing the Kenyan's i felt really strong like Don Cheadle or Anthea Turner. On my last effort to spur me on I pretended that I was at the bottom of the travelator  on the 90's hit TV programme Gladiators, when I  finished the rep I got hold of the rope and jumped through the barrier, after I jumped through the barrier I did a interview with John Fashunu who told me well done and see you in the next round. Overall I was pleased with this session.
Later in the evening me Nick, Karl and Victor played headers and volleys, after a few games we decided to play keepy up's and if you dropped the ball 3 times you had to line up against the wall and the other players got a free shot at you. Nick seen this as a perfect opportunity to get revenge on Victor ( 13 years old ) who had accidentally broke our flask on Saturday.
                                            Nick getting his revenge

Nick kept trying to set Victor up so he dropped the ball so that he could kick the ball at him, when Victor lined up against the wall with his back turned, Nick rather than kick the ball he picked it up and threw it narrowly  missing his head. Me being the nice guy I am purposely missed so that I had to join him against the wall.
                                           Karl chose to shoot at Victor

 The good news is out of all this I purchased a new flask and named it Denzil after Hollywood super mega movie star Denzil Washington.
                                                        Big Denzil

Nothing much happened on Tuesday apart from going for a run early morning for 60 minutes, a trip into town for some beans and rice and some sunbathing training, after the sunbathing training we found a dog wandering outside the house, it has red eyes and runs at you with it's mouth open with it's mangled teeth, it sort of looks like it's going to attack you but it's probably the most friendly dog you will ever come across. I sort of see it like a Ian Dowie of the dog world, it's pretty ugly but means no harm and if it bites you more than likely you will get a disease.
                                                     Tuskin snr
 Later in the evening me and Nick teamed up on the cooking kind of like Will Smith and Martin Lawrence did in Bad boys and Bad boys 2 apart from they where fighting crime and we where chopping onions and tomatoes. Overall the meal was pretty good and no doubt there will be a sequel to our cooking.

JT