The only reason I run is to write this blog

Well I'm over halfway through my trip now and I arrive back In England 4 weeks today, so far I've learnt that Kenyans are pretty good at running, Mike the headless chicken survived for 2 years, dolphins don't drink water, Mozart's middle name is Wolfgang and bread is not a good substitute for toilet roll. My training seems to be going better now and I'm getting closer to the Kenyans in sessions. I did two runs on Thursday and one on Friday, me and Nick went down for tea at John's house on Friday. Whilst we where there me and Chibet played Nick and Virginia at football ( John's kids) I beat Nick about 15-3, I think it was all the Madonna turns I was doing. Saturdays session was one of my best since I've been out here, I did 50min Kenyan hills with a random group of Kenyans for 15mins then the rest on my own. They happened to be doing the same session I was doing on one of the hills (out of two) I was training on, I'm pretty glad they where only doing 15mins because I kept up with them for all of the reps and luckily when they finished they went off for a cool down so they couldn't see me slowly dying!. After the session Me and Nick walked from camp to the tea hotel to watch the Manchester derby, on the way we bumped into the racist cop who told us as a Kenyan ran past that " us black people are better than you white people at running" I then said to him that I could do more press ups and sit ups to him. I think he felt pretty intimidated because he could probably tell that I do like 40 press ups and sit ups a day so he walked off and carried on with he's duties. Finally on Sunday biscuit eating Swinburn decided to put down he's custard creams and join me for a 2hour run which turned out to be fun. Me and Nick decided on Monday that I will get my hair braided this Sunday when Stan gets back from rak where he is pacing some Kenyan women who is attempting to break the world record for the half marathon, we decided this because Stan would make sure that we don't get ripped off, not that I'm bothered because part of the deal was that Nick would pay for it. I would sort of like to thank the people who voted for it to be braided on facebook, I think. Tuesday was another session day for me, I got up at 6am and did 30mins easy got back ate some bread drank some tea did a poo then headed down to the track at 10am. The session was 3x800m 3x600m and 3x400m all off 1min, Nick was doing a hill session or stuffing he was stuffing he's face with biscuits. The session went a a lot better than the previous track sessions and I pulled through strong at the end, after we had completed the session Ben pointed me out some Kenyan guy who is a world bronze medalist at 5000m, I felt pretty pleased because I beat him on the cool down. The most painful part of Tuesday was the taxi ride back from the track, I was about to sit in the back with three other people but the the fat guy who I was meant to sit next to got out and let me sit next to two fat women and got in after me. Because there isn't much room in the back I was pretty crushed so as my legs closed due to the three other peoples fatness both of my testicles collided with each other almost crushing them and leaving me in agony, rather than moan about it I had several minutes to think of the positives of this. I decided that if I could handle the pain of my testicles being crushed that when I'm racing or training and I'm in pain that the pain I am getting from running will be nowhere near as painful as having crushed balls therefore my pain threshold whilst running will increase and might make me run better. After thinking all of this the taxi pulled up at the camp and Mr fat Kenyan man let me out relieving me of my test pain, when I got back I headed into the shower to check if everything is ok and I'm pleased to say that all 3 testicles are OK.
JT

I've come to kenya to run not walk

Since my morning run yesterday was quite fast and longer than I expected I decided that I would take Thursday easier and resist any temptation of going off hard with the Kenyans. Luckily both Geoffrey and Ben felt as tired as I did so we did 55min in the morning at a easy pace. The afternoon was normal, we all drank tea and headed into town for some water, as usual we travelled by taxi. I ended up having some fat women sat on my lap with her elbow in my face. In the evening me and Nick did 30mins easy followed by another cold shower. Friday was quite entertaining for me, In the morning I did 60mins on my own as my legs started to feel sore from Wednesday. About 10mins after I arrived back, Ben Geoffrey and Stan had got back from their run without Richard. About 40mins later Richard turned up at the camp and told us that he decided to walk the last 2 miles because he only planned to do 60 that day, me Matt and Nick looked at him in disgust! I think yet again Richards Gaymin had told him to stop, the amount of times he mentioned Matt's diet saying it will effect his running. I think Richard needs to get a grip eat some kfc drink some super skol and finish his runs. At around 11am Nick did a 45min Kenyan hill session on his own, so me and Matt decided to go and watch him because watching Nick in pain is very entertaining and he certainly didn't let us down. After dinner Matt had to head back to Nairobi so that he could catch his flight back to the UK, as he said goodbye to me and Nick you could see the emotion in his eyes, both me and Nick had to tell him that everything will be ok and that we will see each other again, bless him.On Saturday I did a 60min run with a 15min tempo included. I thought it went pretty well, the tempo finished off on a big hill sort of like the travelator on gladiators, the only downside to the session was John Fashanu wasn't there to congratulate me. In the afternoon me and Nick went to the tea hotel and watched Tigerland starring Colin Farrell, after watching it we both decided that next week we will both buy a machete each and go hunting in the woods for snakes and stuff. I did a 90 min run on Sunday morning on my own because the Kenyans where doing a 3 hour marathon type run and Nick was in bed stuffing his face with biscuits. On Monday me and Nick went down to John Mutai's house to watch some TV and drink some tea, It was pretty inspirational for me because John started telling me and Nick about when he won the great north run in 1999 and how he came 3rd in 97 and 2nd in 98, he said that when he decided to do it again in 99 he vowed to win it and said he took out the first mile in 4.20 and the second in 4.21. This is almost as inspirational as the story Pete Matthews told me about the time he won a medal at the AAA u17 1500m. Me Nick Ben and Simon did a track session Tuesday morning, 3x400m 3x300m 3x400m 3x300m, me and Nick both took out 6 reps each for the Kenyans and as usual we both felt like death at the end of the session. Over the past few weeks I have been having some weird dreams such as, David Bentley winning a midland xc league with Amir Khan coming 4th and Pete Matthews coming 7th, Geoffrey getting his arms chopped off with a machete by a rival running gang and having a argument with Dan Aykroyd because he wouldn't tell me if he was going to make a Ghostbusters 3. Another thing I will be finding out tonight is if I will be getting my hair shaved or braided, I had an agreement with Nick that if more people on facebook voted for me to get it braided then I will get it done next week. Whatever the outcome is I will post a Photo on here. Today's run was tough for me as my legs where dead from yesterday, after about 30mins I stopped to tie my lace and after that I couldn't get going for another 10mins. By then Nick Geoffrey and Ben had dropped me, I was disappointed because I wanted to run in a group so that we could battle with the other Kenyans.

JT

I think that wearing tights for the morning run makes you soft

Its been 3 weeks today since i arrived in Kenya. so that's 1 warm shower about 32 cold showers 2 painful sessions and 18 days of listening to stupid Stan crying all day, since last Wednesday i have run everyday and managed to get over my illness, i think that throwing up after my run on Tuesday was the best thing that has ever happened to me. Wednesday was a turning point for me because i managed 2 runs and i got to watch stop or my mum will shoot starring sly Stallone at the tea hotel. Thursday and Friday where just normal days, i ran twice both days and sunbathed on the roof for 2hours listening to George Washington Jr and also will smith Miami (at least 5 times). Whilst I'm sunbathing it gives me a lot of time to think about good stuff like going on holiday in Miami whilst listening to Miami by will smith. Both of Saturdays runs where quite fast in the morning me and Matt ran a record time on our normal 5mile loop and the run in the evening with Ben and Matt was also fast, kind of like a contestant on supermarket sweep. Sunday was quite a good day, I did a 90min run in the morning nice and easy. After the run me Nick Matt Richard Aly and Ian headed to the tea hotel for dinner. We all watched the tennis final which was pretty poo and after that me Matt and Nick watched the Arsenal vs Huddersfield game along with about 15 Kenyan Arsenal fans, I'm not a big fan of Arsenal so I spent most of the game shouting blue army and commenting loudly how rubbish Arsenal where, I wasn't bothered if it kicked off because by then me and Nick had ate at least two plates of chips so we would be dead strong like a donkey carrying tea leaves. Monday was another average day I did 2 easy runs and 10 minutes of core work, I was thinking about foam rolling my face for about an hour but Geoffrey  brought the afternoon tea, so I ended up having 2 cups. Tuesday was my 2nd session out here it was 12x400m off 1min, It went ok for 6 reps then after that it became session of death, I think getting hit in the face with a foam roller would of hurt less. Today's run was pretty good I ended up running for 110mins. After about 20mins Nick had to stop for the toilet so we decided to leave him and carry on with our run, the pace started to pick up after 4miles so Richard decided to take it easy because he's gaymin watched told him it was too fast, I was happy with the pace and decided that today was the day to play with the Kenyans So I started pushing it and was averaging under 6minutes per mile, about 45mins in to the run Ben decided to wait for Richard and jog back to camp. Me and Geoffrey pushed on in pursuit of the criminals ( other runners) as we ran along it felt like we where Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in lethal weapon. After 60minutes we had found some bad guys so we sped up and overtook them up a big hill, this ended up breaking me and Geoffrey went off in the distance and I managed to go the wrong way, I slowly ran up another hill and in the distance I could see Nick. I decided to wait for him and jog back with him, Nick was running really slow like a fat old women so i decided to run back on my own because I was embarrassed to be seen with him. I'm pretty pleased that I have managed to get some good running in this last week and my stomach is no longer giving me problems, hopefully by next week me and Nick will drop the Kenyans on our runs and we will be really fast like supermarket sweep contestant.
JT

Sessions races and throwing up

On the Thursday morning me Nick and Kenyan Ben walked from our village to the athletics stadium in Kericho, It was about 10am and 28degrees me and Nick both described the feeling as walking to our own funeral, It made it even more feel like that because some random guy started walking with us preaching about god and he kept mentioning the blood of Jesus, I personally was hoping for him to get run over (not killed though). The session was as tough as I expected it to be 4x800m off 2min 4x600m off 90sec 4x400m off 1 min, the session turned out as I expected me and Nick being in loads of pain and Ben looking like it was nothing, Ben wanted 1 of us to pace a lap for each rep and Nick loving pain was more than happy to do it, by the time we came to the 400's Nick was struggling so i decided to pace the 1st 400 for Ben, I ended up sprinting off like a dick and going through 100 at about 14 seconds and blew up at 150 and ended up running a 65, this pretty much ruined all of my other 300's and made them very slow. After the session we headed back to the village both me and Nick wasn't feeling to good and later on that evening Nick started to get a cold or possibly malaria.
Friday for me was a easy day because I was racing on the Saturday so I just did 40mins easy in the morning and headed to the tea hotel to watch a documentary on Michael caine, this was the only thing they was showing. The race started at around 11.30am at kericho college I think we arrived at about 9.30 so we could watch all of the other races, the course was 6x2km laps around some playing fields. Before the race had started my stomach was in pain and I was struggling to run properly but i was hoping that I would just run it off, me Matt Pierson Nick and Richard all towed the line waiting for the gun to go off, as soon as it went the Kenyans started sprinting and we all found ourselves in last place, unfortunately I pulled out of the race after 6minutes because my stomach was in agony and It felt like I was ready to poo myself, Matt had a good run coming 18th place Richard was 26th about 4mins behind Matt and Nick came last, watching Nick was quite painful it sort of looked like he was walking but at least he managed to finish the race even when Matt lapped him, the good thing with Nick is that the next race he will probably win! the race was won by a Kenyan steeplechase Olympic champion (not sure who). After the race my stomach was still giving me problems and even found walking very painful, Me and Nick both decided we needed a night out to take our minds of today bad performances so decided to take Kenneth and Simon  (both Kenyans) down to the pub for a wild night out, we only ended up having 4 pints but we all felt on top of the world like nothing could stop us, I felt like I could run a sub 4mile like Ronald baniston. When we got back to our village Nick and I lied on top of the roof to watch the stars just like Will Smith and Tommy lee Jones in Men in black. Sunday was rest day for both of us and still my stomach was pretty bad, me Nick and Matt headed to the tea hotel and ended up watching some wrestling, this pretty much sums the day up. I ended up having Monday off too because my stomach was still bad and I felt sick, Tuesday was not much better but I decided to go for a easy 30min run with Nick in the evening, as we ran past the 1st village all of the kids started running alongside us and kept up with us for pretty much all of the run. Lucky for them they stopped at 27minutes because as soon as I finished I started throwing up for about 5minutes, I felt pretty good after I had threw up it sort of felt like I had made it in the world and that I could become a runner again.
JT

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.
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