He was definitely more nervous for this race than for the 100m. There was less fooling around and a more determined look on his face prior to the start. He was obviously tired from the week's exertions as could be read easily on his face down the back straight. But what style, and what phenomenal speed: 19.19 for 200m. The boys kept telling me to shut up as I went on about his performance: I don't think they realise that this sort of speed only turns up in a human once every decade.
My own training was rather more mundane last night. There was only a small crowd out for training and Michel was leading the group again. We jogged for 25 minutes before doing some general exercises for loosening up: foot to bum running; knee high running; skipping and clapping (we all looked like a bunch of pansies - any onlookers would have thought that it was a rehearsal for gay pride!); and then running backwards.
After giving Michel some serious gip about his nambie-pambie exercises, we ran 3x3 minutes off 1:30 rest. Apparently, it was supposed to be run at marathon speed, but since I wasn't listening I did my intervals at 10k pace, and was clocking around 3:50 per km. I pulled Ephram round the intervals as he hung on determinedly, whereas the others (Nick B, Patrick, et al) just let us go. It was cooler last night, but it was still very hard, having been an intense week on both the running and work front.
We passed 4 Kenyans training in the forest, luckily we weren't skipping and clapping at this point. They were all about the same height (1.60m) and looked as though they weighed just over 50kg. I'd passed one of them training in the forest before and he just flew past in the opposite direction. My only chance of ever getting to their level and achieving their running times is by losing 20kg: fat chance.
10km all up in one hour. Now it's time to get back to the television and Berlin and watch the real athletes at work.
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