On track

I did my first run with a running club and my first track session in over a year tonight. I took a drive out to the Exeter Arena on the other side of town for the South West Road Runners club night. I had planned to go out on their steady nine-mile run - out across hills and fields - but at the last minute decided to stay and join the track session.

It was a lovely, still evening, and it felt good to jog around on the red tartan surface. The track always feels like the domain of the most serious runners. The same gladiatorial circuit the world over. From Kenya, to Jamaica, to Exeter, runners following the same curves, striding up and down the same straights, preparing themselves for battle.

Our session was 6 times 800m, with a short walk recovery between each one. I was the youngest runner in the group (four men roughly aged between 40 and 55, and one woman in her late 30s). The guy taking the session told me to take it easy and to sit at the back for the first one, as it was my first night. I wanted to tell him it wasn't my first night running, but I did as he said. By the third 800m, though, I was itching to go faster and I started passing people like I was Seb Coe making a move down the back straight - well, it felt like that, in reality it probably looked like one tired, middle-aged man edging his way past an even more exhausted, red-faced man whose legs were struggling to move beyond a laboured shuffle.

Still, by the end I was pushing the pace up at the front, to the obvious surprise of the rest of the group. "Very impressive," the man taking the session said afterwards.

I doubt the Kenyans will be so easily impressed.

Pitsford plod

I went for a nostaglic run around Pitsford reservoir near Northampton this evening - I used to run there quite a lot as a teenager. The rain had stopped and big, billowing clouds were scudding across the blueing sky. The low sun reflected blindingly off the water. It was one of those evenings when running feels wild and free.

Flocks of Canada geese were resting across the path at one point and I had to run through them clapping to get them to move. Otherwise, the place was deserted, save for a couple of fishermen in a small boat out on the water. And an Indian family walking back to the car park, saris blowing in the wind.

Feeling fleety

It was pouring with rain as I headed home from work tonight, so I ran from the bus stop to the house. It may sound silly, but I felt really good; light and fleet of foot. Usually it feels awkward running suddenly like that, without my trainers on, holding my bag.

I remember feeling the same way this time last year just before my famous win in the Powderham Castle 10K. Like I could just run, properly run, whenever I wanted to. It's quite exciting. It feels like I may be on the brink of breaking through into a new level of fitness.

Rainy riviera

Just ran the Torbay 10K in the pouring rain. Past the forlorn sound of the bingo caller on the pier. The grey sea.

I finished in a time of 39 mins 7 secs.

Rudisha's record run

My god, just watched David Rudisha's 800m world record run. He totally destroyed the rest of the field.

Rudisha is unusual among Kenyan runners in that he's a Masai - most of the runners are Kalenjin. He may also be one of the first second-generation runners, as his father ran at the 1968 Olympics. And while I'm reeling off the facts, he also went to the famous St Patrick's school in Iten. They plant a tree in the grounds for every world champion that has been to the school. It's now a small forest.

Ray tells it like it is

We had a visit from Ray Meynink and his wife, Doreen, today. Ray has been running the drug testing programme in Kenya for years and just happened to be in Devon on holiday. We had an interesting chat over a cup of tea and some of Marietta's homemade almond flapjacks.

Doreen said Ray always claims he doesn't talk much, but once the subject is athletics, there's no stopping him. He certainly had a lot to say - not least about unscrupulous agents and the too short careers of too many of the Kenyan runners.

Diamond league geezers and gals

I managed to get a free press pass in to the London Diamond League in Crystal Palace last night. It was the first time I've been accredited at a sports event and I didn't really know where to sit or where I was allowed to go. None of the stewards seemed to know either, so I sat myself down on an empty seat on the press benches next to an old lady eating homemade sandwiches.

She was the wife of an ex-editor of Athletics Weekly, who was sitting in front of her at one of the long desks taking notes. He was with a colleague who complained throughout about the pop music being incessantly blasted out between the continuous stream of announcements and interviews. I had to admit, it was quite annoying. By the end I felt as though I'd been watching everything from inside a washing machine. The lady's husband, she told me, said it was because the people who put on the event didn't think the athletics was exciting enough on its own.

Earlier, on the way to Crystal Palace, my train stopped at Clapham Junction. The platform was heaving with athletics fans. As they squeezed on to the already packed train, I realised one of them was Vivian Cheruiyot, the world 5,000m champion I'd spent the day with in Teddington a few weeks ago. She was going there to race.

"Hey," I said. She looked confused. "Remember me?" She smiled and said she did, but then looked the other way.

"Did you see the article?" I asked her a few stops further on. She said she hadn't. I wished her good luck in the race, and left her in peace.

It seemed funny that such a great athlete had to make her own way to the race on the train. Wouldn't a taxi have been more comfortable? All that standing up and being squashed couldn't be ideal preparation for a race.

And why hadn't she seen the article? I had imagined them all crowding around the kitchen table in Teddington that Sunday looking at it, laughing at bits, looking puzzled at others. But I guess that hadn't happened.