Athletics + Beijing + Camping = Summer '08

Summer has finally hit the UK and everybody has begun to climb out of their various hibernation holes and gearing up to head outside for their exercise of choice.

I've been keeping myself busy as well and thought it time to do a quick write up on what I've been up to over the last few months as well as the plans ahead.

Since joining St Mary's Richmond Athletics Club my focus over the last 2 months has been on preparing for this year's Men's Southern League athletics meetings held at various clubs around London. The first event was held at Parliament Hill last Saturday (3rd May 2008) where I took part in the Javelin and Long Jump events. Although I managed to place 1st in both events (Javelin = 43.81m & Long Jump = 6.0m), being the first athletics competition I've done in 13 years, I know I have a lot more to practise and improve on. I did walk (or rather limp) away with a small ankle injury during my javelin run-up which has almost healed up now, but enough to frustrate me... Grrr

The next athletics event is tonight (7th May) in Kingsmeadow for the Rosenheim League where I'll be taking it easy while my ankle heals up and only set to take part in the pole vault event. My aim is to beat the 2.20m I cleared in training last week.

In-between the athletics training I managed to get some time to head out to Beijing, China with Mercedes for a Parkour and Free Running performance at the Auto China 2008 car show with a few old, and some new, friends.

I have been threatening to set up all the pictures on here and just haven'tmade the time for it yet. They'll find their way online at some stage with a brief write-up, hopefully sooner than later. :-)

We also decided to test out the camping gear over the weekend in preparation for the 87km Namibian Fish River Canyon Hike which is coming up later on in the year. More on that event later though.