I would rather scissor kick a kid in the face than take EPO

On saturday me and Nick decided to go and watch some football at the tea hotel, we thought the Newcastle vs sunderland match was on but it turned out to be on the sunday, so instead we stopped there all afternoon and sunbathed in the tea garden. Because me and Nick are proper lads we decided to have 1 kenyan beer each, by the time we had finished our beers it had got dark so we decided to head back to the athletes village. When we got back to the village Kenyan Geoff told us that we should not walk back after dark because it was dangerous and bad people walk around with machete's looking to steal off people, that didn't really bother me and Nick because the 1 beer we had made us pretty tough. On sunday we both decided to have a rest because that's what the kenyan's in our village was doing, me and Nick decided to head into town to do our weekly shopping, we both bought a mountain dew each so that we could keep hydrated and we also bought a big knife for 30p. When we got back to the village we met up with Matt pierson who had just arrived back from mumbai and Richard who had arranged to come out here with Ian Ladbrooke. On monday it was our usual 6am start with the Kenyan guys telling me and Nick that they where going to do a 60min easy run, what a lie that was after about 28mins they had dropped me and I ended up taking a wrong turn down one of the tea fields and ended up running on my own, after about 50mins a became familiar with my surroundings and headed back towards the village up this big hill, when I reached the top of the big hill I bumped into the kenyan guys and in the distance I could see Nick, instead of running back with the kenyans I waited for Nick to catch me up, when Nick caught up with me he said "easy run my arse let's catch the fuckers" it sort of felt like we where in a film catching the bad guys, Nick was Will smith and I was Martin Lawrence in Bad boys. We didn't end up catching them but maybe we will this coming sunday in the Kericho xc champs (probably not). On tuesday we got up at 6am and did a 60min easy run, the kenyans did a fartlek session in the woods and we both decided that it was to early to do a session so took it easy. After our run we headed back to the village for our usual cold shower and some kenyan tea, after we drank the tea Nick wanted me to hit him in the face 3 times with the foam roller, after I had hit him in the face we went onto the roof to sunbathe and sleep before dinner. We had dinner around 12.30pm which consisted off ugali a bowl of rice, pasta and potatoes I can't believe how much food we get each day and how much the kenyans eat! Me and Nick both had a afternoon nap. We went for a 50min easy run at 4.30pm and for once was actually easy and didn't turn into a race, Nick struggled on this run and was running on he's own, as i felt sorry for him I kept running back to him to see whats up? He told me that because he had done nothing all afternoon he felt suicidal and couldn't be bothered. When we ran through one of the local villages where all the kids chase you, Nick cheered up and decided to start running stupid and making velociraptor noises rolf, they must of liked it because they ran with us for at least a mile. Im doing my first session tomorrow with the kenyans and also doing a xc race this sunday which is like our county champs so that should be tough! I will post another blog after I race
JT

Kenya blog stuff

I arrived in Nairobi by plane on Wednesday and travelled to a hotel in n'gong by car with nick Kenyan guy Joseph and Kenyan guy Stan and Matt Pierson, me and nick struggled to sleep at night because of the heat and the midges, I also struggled to sleep because of Nick talking about how much he would like to pour some concrete. We woke up at 6.00am the next morning for a 60min run with Matt nick and Joseph, we started off easy around 10min for the 1st mile and finishing it with a 5.30mile, me and nick found the hill quite tough because of the altitude but because where both proper tough we didn't complain, after the run we travelled up to kericho with Joseph. It took 4 hours to get there and along the way we stopped off and looked along the great rift valley which was proper viewalicious, we also seen quite a few zebras. We arrived in Kericho to our luxury hotel and met all of the Kenyan people in the camp and went for a run around 4.30pm with aly dixon and Mr Kenyan guy. After the run we went to john mutai's house ( winner of the great north run 1999) and ate some pasta ugali and drank some milk. On Friday we went for a run a 6.00am which is the normal time for running out here, I ended up doing the 5mile route with aly dixon as I want to ease into my training until I get used to the altitude but nick decided to go for a so called easy run with the kenyan's (80mins) and when he arrived back at our pad he looked a broken man, but Nick likes pain so he enjoyed it. This brings me to talk about bread, when Nick got back he needed the toilet but because we had no toilet roll I told Nick to use some bread, Nick thought it was a canny idea so he decided to do it, when I walked past the toilet Nick was laughing because the bread wouldn't flush so he told me that I should poo on top of it to flush it, me being stupid I decided to do it and i also used the bread, I had to flush the toilet 5 times to flush it and I must say bread is a good substitute for toilet roll. We then headed into kericho town in a taxi which is pretty mad because they cram as many people into the taxi as they can, we bought some water and some toilet roll and Head back to our hotel for a power nap. After our nap we went for a 5mile easy run on the same route and with it being 4.30pm all the kids had finished school, so as you can imagine a white person in a small town like kericho is very rare so when they see us they start running alongside us shouting mazungo which means white person, most of the must of been 5-8 years old but they kept up with us for quite a while. Im enjoying life out here so far and will keep you all posted on the well good stuff I do.
x