I have just arrived back from a great experience at the world cross country champs in Brussels, Belgium. I always have a sweet time when I travel away with a New Zealand team and this was one of my best trips for sure. For the first three days, we stayed in a small town 90 miles from Brussels. There were plenty of trails behind our hotel to jog in and a really nice track to get one last workout in before the big race. jet lag was a little rough to get over, but on the 4th day I started to feel really good again and ready to travel into
Brussels.
The course was fairly muddy and hilly, so all the runners got to experience a REAL cross country course for the change. The conditionis may not have suited my style of running, but I was really pleased with finishing 42nd (after 90th place in 2003) and felt controled throughout the race. Kenenissa Bekele destroyed the fields in both the 4km andn 12km and was one of the most amazing running performances I have ever witnessed. The guy was hardly even breathing for both races, and the rest of the field of the 12km race was struggling before the halfway mark.
In all the trip was well worth missing a week of school (though I had to study every night I was away). Its always a very humbling experience running in such a challenging race, and definately an important motivator for my training over the next few months.
After taking 5 days off, I will get back into some milage for the next 2 months, slowly incorporating hills and tempo runs. Now that Nate and I are redshirting the collegiate outdoor season, we have a lot more time to concentrate on the little things and prepare for what we hop to be a huge summer campaign. With a new weight training routine in place and with the weather becoming really nice, hopefully we can develope a new gear into our repertoire.
