break break break break break

Dear blog readers,

I'm sorry but we are on a break. It's time for your hurdler to go on holiday and take some time out which means no blogging until I go back training. Be good and play nice while I'm gone. I shall leave you with a sneaky peek picture of the after party at continental cup. Great night to end a great season.

Bye for now!!!

Derval

GO RAIBH MAITH AGAT

Ok 5th in 12.99. I'm not going to analyze or discuss right now. I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who wished me the best for the season and who supported me really well. It is very much appreciated. 2010 Outdoor season has been wonderful. Far from perfect but it has been a pleasure. So again thank you for the support. Onwards and upwards next season.

That's a wrap....

Derval xoxo

Not Barry's but still....

Sitting here in my leaba in Split drinking a cup of tea. No matter where in the world I go I always want a cup of tea. Normally I try to pack some Barry's tea with me on my trips (Don't even think about saying Lyons is nicer!!!) but I forgot this time which means I'm here in my leaba in Split drinking some random breakfast tea. Still though life is good.

I arrived here this evening. We drove from Zagreb. The drive was really interesting because I got to see loads of Croatia which is absolutely beautiful. The hotel is gorgeous. It is right on the sea front. The best part about it is that I have my own room. Just to give you some insight having my own room at a meet is very rare. Normally meet organisers throw everybody in twin rooms because it is way cheaper so I spend loads of time rooming with girls that i have never met before(One of the tough things about being Irish on the circuit is there isn't always an Irish person at the same meet). For example the last meet I was put in a room with Ingvill despite never meeting her before but she was so lovely that it was a pleasure to room with her. Athletes tell each other horror stories about crazy roomies. To get to the point having my own room here is fantastic.

Tomorrow morning i will go to the track and check everything out. I will do some hurdles too. I'm not sure what exactly I have to do until I talk to Sean or Terrie. I can't wait to see the track. I got all my Europe kit this evening. It's really cool and nice to be able to get the opportunity to race for Europe.

It is official Monica Hargrove is my person of the week. She has kindly donated her shoes to me. She is gone to a different race but knew that I was a bit fecked shoe wise so she just gave them to me. I won't see her again this season so she just told me to keep them. What a nice person.

On a non Split note. I'm planning on staying in Ireland for my holiday in September but didn't book anything which now means it's really hard to find a house to rent. Ooops it seems being lastminute.com is not a good thing.

The cup of (unfortunately) non Barry's tea is almost gone, it's time for me to sleep.

Night night from Split,

D X

Two wrongs don't make a right!!!!

Tonight i ran (I won't say raced because I didn't race I just ran). Lets go back a few hours. I was in my room getting ready for the meet with my room mate. I'm rooming with a really lovely Norwegian girl called Ingvill Måkestad (Who btw ran a fantastic Norwegian record tonight in the 800m well done to her). It was a few minutes to the bus so I decided to put on my trainers. As soon as I took them out of the bag I realised it was not good. I had brought two shoes for the same foot. Honestly my heart just kinda dropped. What a stupid mistake!!!! I love my saucony fastwitch running shoes and have worn them training/warming for racing all season long yet here I was in a big meet with only a few minutes to go with two shoes for the same foot. The only other shoes I have are a comfy pair of flip flops and a fabulous pair of killer heels, not exactly warm up shoe material.

I rang Doyler and he put out the sos to all his athletes to try sort me out with some shoes asap. Thankfully a lovely girl by the name of Monica Hargrove let me borrow her runners for the evening. They were a size too big but I was very grateful for them and to her. I recently gave an athlete a singlet at Zurich because she forgot hers so perhaps it was good karma.

After this the race was crap!!! I don't really make excuses because lets be honest you either run good or bad and tonight was firmly in the bad category. But in way of explanation I've been working really hard on running straight at the hurdle and I was determined to concentrate on that tonight. I ran great for the first 3,i was touching down first ish but then I tipped the 4th and I just lost it. I had a brief moment where I thought of falling in a race earlier in the season and all my momentum just went. I was then just trailing home in a slow, bad way. It's weird though because I know I'm not in a much different place to where I was pre Europeans I'm just not running many of the hurdles well or consistent. I was chatting to Lolo Jones for a while after and we agreed in hurdles you can be way way way slower in a race than your shape and then you run a fast time and it all makes sense. It was kinda nice to hear one of the other girls understanding.

Doyler is driving a few of us to Split tomorrow. I'm excited. It will be such a different experience to be on a European team and I'm hoping that I can do myself some justice. It's bonus time in the season and I want to finish well.

Between now and Sunday I need to find myself a pair of runners to wear!

Bye bye...

DOR XOX

Zagreb

Hi all,

Just thought id give an update. I'm here in zagreb. it took forever to get here. I was traveling for ages yesterday. It was kinda crappy. The hotel was really noisy last night so now I'm really tired. But its the last week of the season so I need to just suck it up and run.

I'm trying to work on running straight at the hurdle and not drifting in my lane. It sounds easy but very often it isn't! It's all about getting from a to b in a straight line.

Thats all for now.

Hope everyone is good at home!

D

xox