SportsShoes Blog

I have just finished competing in the Zain Kenya Open. limited internet access so I was unable to give a match to match account of the event.

In the first round I played Austrian National Champion Aqueel Rehman. I played pretty solid not giving much away and won 11-1 11-9 11-4. I was happy with this as I still wasn’t sure if my body had recovered from food poisoning from the previous week. 

In the quarters I played spains David Vidal. I won the 1st 11-4 but lost the second 12-10 with a slip of concentration. However, I was playing at a high tempo and dominated most of the set and it took its toll on him as I won the next two sets 11-2 11-2.

Now onto the semis and I played Clinton Lleuw of South Africa. I had a freak accident before the match in hich and I tore a quad muscle. I tried playing on it for a bit as I felt I was playing well enough to win the event. I took the first set but once i sat down in betwen my leg siezed up completly. I played the next game but had to stop. I was gutted but that’s the way it goes i suppose!

I am hoping the damage isn’t too bad and that I can train hard for the next 2 weeks leading up to the Nationals in December.

Just got back from Italy where I’ve been training in the warm weather It was fairly near Florence but thankfully I didn’t have to make use of too many of the surrounding hills as my preparation for the Track Nationals and hopefully the Track Europeans has begun! I found a nice falt stretch of about 7km where I did some standing starts, zone 3 efforts and high cadence efforts. I go to Belgium tomorrow with the Olympic Development programme where I’ll be doing some racing and some more training as there is an outdoor track near to where we’re staying.  My legs are starting to feel good now and I’m looking forward to the next few weeks!