3 years ago I gave a talk to the well-known investment bank, Investec. It was at the very end of one of my best athletic seasons. I had just come off the back of an amazing summer, running Personal bests (44.77), finishing 6th in the world champs in Berlin, in no other words I was flying. I had one race left, the world athletics tour final in Greece. Invitation only, the top 8 400m athletes in the world based on results throughout the whole season, and rightly so, I was one! Before I flew out from Dublin, I gave a talk to Investec, the theme "How to deal with adversity". It was 2009 so the economic crisis was tightening its grip, and people were looking at ways to hold tight and fight through!

So here I am in my last week of a training camp in Stellenbosch, South Africa. I have been here now for three and half weeks, and we are down to just one of my training partners Graham Hedman and myself. The rest of my group headed back to the UK on Tuesday. The plan was always for us two to stay out a week longer. With the weather poor back in England and Ireland, we said we’d stay a little longer here in the sun.

I haven’t written a blog in a long time, but I feel now is that time of the year when one can look back over the last 12 months. As we approach Christmas, I just cant believe how fast the last year has gone. For me personally it hasn’t been a vintage year for the Gillo, but it has been a year that I have learnt a massive amount about myself and indeed my sport. Obviously my year was filled with massive disappointment, been hit with injury and then illness just didn’t leave me with a lot to be happy about. It made me re-evaluate things and make more decisions. This time the decision was all about me; I listened to what I wanted and myself. For a change, I put myself first.

I have been working with my personal nutritionist, Martin MacDonald (www.Mac-Nutrition.com), for just over a year now and wanted to write a little bit about how he has helped me.

My last few days of my break were spent in the city of Dubai. One of best mates, who has come to nearly all my races all over the world, is living and working out in the U.A.E., so I decided its time to visit him.