Olympic build-up begins in earnest

At last I can smell the Olympic Games in my nostrils. These past couple of weeks have brought everything a little closer. On Thursday evening, in the Olympic Stadium itself, I ran a 10,000 metres which qualified me for the Games in September. Having achieved the 5,000-metres mark 10 days earlier, the Games are suddenly a reality.

It's a wonderful, exciting feeling to be back on the track, to have some good racing done and to have a couple of key preliminary targets out of the way. When I came back from altitude training in Falls Creek last month I felt good about the way I had been going, but having been away from the track for a few weeks I had no firm idea of what sort of speeds I was capable of. A few weeks later everything is different. I was undecided about the 5,000 metres last week, but decided to go for it anyway. I'm glad I did. The feeling of confidence which a good run gave me was something that I'd almost forgotten about.

I went from a position where getting the 10,000 metres qualifying mark seemed like a chore which had to be done to a place where I was really looking forward to this week's race.

After all the niggling setbacks of the past few months these races were what I needed. Thursday night in the Olympic Stadium here in Sydney was a little bit eerie - you could almost hear your footsteps it was so quiet - but I took the lead very early in the race and after that it was a case of figuring out what I was going to do with it. One runner, Clair Fearnley, came with me and I let her take the lead for a bit of the race, then pushed away again with about 3,000 metres left. By then I was just into the rhythm of the track. I knew from looking at the early split times that I was comfortably within the qualifying times, so I just stopped looking at the clock and the number of laps remaining.

A 10,000 metres is so long that sometimes you have to play games in your head to get through it. I divided it down into four-lap segments and pushed myself through it that way.

The time of 31:43.07 was about 14 seconds off my best from Budapest in 1998, but I'm happy with it. A more competitive race, a bit more nervous energy, some adrenalin from the crowd, all those things will help on another day.

I have more training to do also. I don't think I need to step up training, just to get through some more of what I have been doing, to do more of the same sessions and do them better. Recently I've had Una English out here, which has been great. Having somebody to go to the track with is half the battle. We've been working well together. I do a little of Una's session and she does a little of mine, and Ciara usually sleeps on the sidelines and it gets us through just fine. Coming off a couple of good races has put me in form for more hard work in the weeks ahead.

We're staying in Sydney until this weekend, and then heading back to Melbourne for a short while. I hope to return to London on March 10th and get back into the pattern of runs along the Thames and Tuesday nights at the track.

It will be good to be back in that groove. Working with people I know and in close proximity with Alan Storey is a great advantage. I think the winter in Australia has served me well, I've achieved my key targets and now it's time to move on.

It has been a useful experience to have raced in the Olympic Stadium. It's a little strange running there when it's empty and there are just rows and rows of empty seats reaching to the sky all around you, but it's great to get the feel of the facility.

The stadium is one of the most beautiful I have seen and the facilities are perfect. You just duck through a little tunnel from the warm-up track and into the arena itself. I've had a few runs and become familiar with the whole set-up, and I feel in that way that maybe I'm a bit further ahead of the game than I was going into Atlanta. Sydney is transforming itself. Parks are springing up everywhere. You go out for a training run and there are plants lying by the side of the path, and when you come back they are in the ground looking as if they have been always there.

I'm looking forward now to being back in Europe. The excitement in Australia concerning the Olympics is overwhelming. The buzz is everywhere and sometimes it feels as if the Games are starting on Monday. You wonder just how excited they are going to be by September. It will be good to get back to Kingston.

At the moment I call Alan a couple of times a week and we email each other a lot, but it isn't the same. For a start, when I go to the track - by myself or with Una - and I'm due to do a session which really challenges me, I don't feel as though I run beyond myself. With Alan watching and with club runners I know about the place, it's easy for me to tag onto to somebody who is running faster than me and to catch some of their pace. Here I do the times and sort of tick the elements of the session off one by one.

It's nice to think of the Olympics as a journey at the end of the summer. It helps with the anticipation to be in Europe thinking about going to the Olympics, instead of being in Australia waiting for the Olympics to come to me.

The next step is another think-session with Alan this weekend. I expect to be going to the World Cross Country championships in Vilamoura, Portugal, next month and we have to decide which race I'll run. There has been some talk about the possibility of myself and others going in both of the races, but I don't think that's realistic for me this year. I think it's more to my benefit to do well in one of the races. Further along the line we have to look at the European Grand Prix season. Already I know that my schedule won't be as hectic as a few years ago. We'll be looking at the grand prix season as a means to an end, sitting down with the planner and working backwards from September to devise the schedule that gets me to Sydney in the best shape. I'll be picking the races that give me the most benefit and the most confidence.

One thing's for sure, the next few months will pass quickly. Sydney is just seven months away now. And counting. Back in 1996 when we were in Atlanta it seemed a lifetime away. Even looking back to this time last year I was just telling people about the pending arrival of Ciara and now she's with me in Sydney as a little personality in her own right. I can't believe how much has changed since Atlanta, how much has changed in the last year. It's been quite a journey to this point - planning the race schedule to the Games, feeling the buzz, having the qualifying times under by belt and feeling so good and confident again.

In conversation with Tim Humphries