Blog: Martyn Irvine in Kazakhstan; “I like”

Ahead of his first World Cup meeting of the track season in Astana this weekend where he'll be chasing Olympic qualification points, Ireland's Martyn Irvine sends us two blog entries.

In the first, most recent one, he outlines his first thoughts on arriving in Kazakhstan.

In the second entry, he talks about his week in Mallorca last week, where he recovered from his fifth place - and bad crash - in the omnium at the European Track Championships. He even did a bit of training with the Turkish squad.

Tuesday, November 1^st

“I like”

Well, I'm in Kazakhstan and in Astana. First impression was 'what the!!' Snow and sub zero temperatures greeted us at the airport. I felt like I had landed on some other planet. From the sunshine of training in Mallorca to the overcast and freezing Kazakhstan. I suppose the good thing is that it will get me used to it for when I head home.

After hopping a few time zones it was 12am here and all things considered I felt okay. First thing on the cards was getting into the country. With my globe trotting lately I never had a chance to get a visa and the plan was to get one when we arrived. Thankfully that worked out well and was painless to do; paperwork, money, done.

First problem! The plane I was one had the whole Australian team and from what I could see the whole French team; that's a lot of luggage. As it turned out we lost two boxes and the French lost six; one of our two being my bikes. There was nothing really we could do so we followed the crowd and headed for the bus, which took us to the track and then on towards the hotel.

At this point I want to go to bed so I sat down, let the drama of checking in unfold then when I got my key, headed straight to my room with only one question asked, when's breakfast?

“A whole seven days”

I'm typing this from my cramped seat on yet another plane. It's been a whole seven days since I last folded myself into one but honestly I'm not complaining.

The last week has been pretty cool. Although I have been hobbling around and doing more than my fair share of moaning, I have had Grace for company. It was sooo good to have her around.

I only did about 10hrs training this week so I had loads of time to hang around with her, show her around what parts I know of Majorca and just be together. I mean no offence to the Turkish guys-they're pretty cool but general conversation is hard. My Turkish isn't a patch on their English though; I think I know six words!

The side affects of my little crash weren’t too bad considering the thump I hit the track. One thing that really annoyed me, and got worse as the week went on, was my ribs; anything other than shallow breathing hurts like hell! I did get on track once this week for a sprint session and I'm pretty sure that it didn't help my ribs. But it felt good to do it and my legs felt great afterwards.

Saturday was my last full day on the island and Andy organised a dinner for us all in the house I was staying in. Andy and Sarah brought food as well as Sophia (a Mexican girl he coaches). She had her father over and including Grace, myself, Mutlu and Recep there was eight of us. Dinner was really nice and it was good to chat to everyone in a low stress environment.

Next stop for me is Manchester where I'll stay the night. From there I head to Frankfurt and finishing up in Astana. Kazakhstan is a first for me and I'm guessing it's a first for a lot of people heading there for the World Cup. I hear the weather is on the wrong side of freezing which will be interesting considering I've been spending my time in and around 20degrees lately.

My eyeballs are closing on me here so I'm gonna shut up talking, say goodbye and I'll keep ya's posted at some point.