California dreaming (TT column 25/02/13)

Oh California! What can I say that won't make you envious of me right now, not much other than I will also be back in the Baltic temperatures of the UK very shortly. I am writing this from Los Angeles having just been to a friend's "Oscars" house party, yes the biggest academy film awards in the world were held literally down the road from where I am staying.

Directly after finishing the Palm Springs World Cup on Saturday evening it was straight to the airport, this time not for a tightly timed flight home but to pick up a car. Having never hired a car, driven on the right side of the road or driven a left hand drive I was a little apprehensive. It did take a while to familiarise with the huge family estate Mazda we had been given, so mich so that after about ten minutes of attempting to start the engine my co driver and I had to ask a passer by, it turned out we had been sat in the wrong car - a little embarrassing. Once over this first hurdle we were off, cruising on an American freeway doesn't require much skill, we headed west leaving the impressive landscape of desert surrounded by mountains towards the bright lights of LA. It is times like this that all the hard training in recent blizzard conditions back home seem more than worth it, the coaches have very kindly given my teammate and I a few days of "leave". I do not think we are going to struggle to fit in some training sessions if running along Venice beach with the sun on our backs or swimming laps in an open air pool count.

It will back to earth or should I say the UK with a bump though as I have a rather significant birthday coming up which I have chosen to celebrate with running Bath half marathon. Maybe not such a wise decision in hind sight.