Kip Keino to open new track in Bristol

After many many years of languishing in the athletics hinterland, Bristol is finally getting some decent athletics facilities with the upgrade of the track and facilities at Filton WISE (and also upgrading at the City Academy).

The name of the new facility at WISE? Kip Keino Athletics Stadium - to be opened by none other than the man himself on Tuesday 2nd Novemeber - next week!. Kip is a record-breaking middle distance Olympic and Commonwealth gold medallist from the 60s and 70s, and is now Chairman of the Kenyan Olympic Committee.

The most exciting thing about all of this is that the Kenyan athletic team will be using the facilities when they come over for the Olympics in 2012.

Read more about the stadium opening on the Bristol & West AC site here.

First Training this week

Well this week has been a nightmare, work has overruled everything including running, it meant that I couldn’t race at Westonbirt 10k on Monday (which was a shame as I could have got a top 5 place). It also meant all my free time was taken up on Tuesday and Wednesday.

So today, I decided to ensure I went to the track at Filton WISE to join up with the Bristol and West AC training, so as planned I got in my car got to Filton early (which is a first for me). I walked round to the track and no-one was there, I presumed that I got the time wrong so waited for 19:30 but still no one, I must of got confused on where the training was being held, oh well these things happen.

So I decided to use the time wisely and do a quickly thought out training session, which comprised of  5 x 800m efforts with a 400m recovery (slow jog), just a quick session and luckily I had my Garmin with me so timing wasn’t a problem, anyway I averaged between 2 min 35 sec and 2 min 40 sec per 800m. I was quite pleased with my effort especially as I was using my new track spikes, which I bought a few weeks ago, I have never run on the track with spikes before and it will take some getting used to.

My next race was planned for this weekend at the Bradley Stoke 10k but unfortunately for me it has been fully subscribed, so my next race will be the 2nd 5k of the Bitton RR summer series. Then it will be the Oldbury 4 mile fun run, I came third last year so I am hoping for the same or better this year (but that all depends on who enters though).