What the Kenyans taught me

When I was in the midst of my training, I was very fortunate that my coach also looked after many top Kenyan athletes - John Ngugi and Richard Chelimo, to name but a few! This gave me the unique opportunity to train with these legends on occasions when they were in London.

I recall that prior to the sessions when we were warming up, there was this knot in my stomach as I knew what lay ahead. But, I also recall the elation and relief once the session way complete, safe in the knowledge that the session was in the bank and somewhere down the line it would pay dividends. Yes these guys trained hard but also there was a lot of easy running which allowed them to recover before once more putting themselves through another tough session. These guys were (and still are) very good at listening to their bodies.

Those training sessions taught me the mantra that I still live by - train hard, but more importantly, train Smart!