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Well, what can I say? I haven’t had a great month to be honest but I’m looking forward to the next four weeks!

Spending time with family and friends in Middlesbrough is now over; it was really good to see them all as I hadn’t done so for a year and a half. I’m glad that I managed to get up there and hopefully I’ll see them again in a couple of weeks; I have a wedding in Italy to go to so we’re all looking forward to that.

The British Grand Prix at Gateshead was disappointing. It was wet, my body wasn’t feeling the way I wanted it to and to be honest, my heart wasn’t really there either.

It was all about the Olympics this season but they didn’t come off for me so I said that I would go to Gateshead to see what happened: I said that if I was to jump over 8m then I would carry on my season and try get to a few meets around Europe. On the other hand, I said that if I didn’t jump 8m, I would call it a day.

I only managed 7.54m.

After long chats with family and friends I’ve decided that I am going to take a long break to reflect on my career, recuperate and motivate myself for what is a very big approaching four years.

I think it will be better than chasing around Europe trying to pick up a few pennies when I know that I’m not even in good enough shape to jump a PB and my heart’s not in it.

10 days or two weeks is the usual amount of time I have off because I absolutely love the sport and love training (which punishes me as it means I’m always working), but this time around, what with it being the Olympics, and the emotion that I went through leading into the Games, I’ve decided to take about four weeks off until the beginning of October.

The sooner I get into recuperation the sooner I can get back into training and no doubt compete in the indoor season.

I’m looking forward to being a normal person for a month! On a typical day off I will wake up a bit later and probably play a round of golf before going out for lunch somewhere. I’ll probably watch a few box set DVDs in the afternoon and maybe even go back out in the evening. My wife Lucia and I have been living in London for a year and a half now but haven’t even been south of the river so there is still a million-and-one things to do around London.

I know that if I don’t do a bit of exercise over the next month then I will be hell to be around so I may go out for a small jog or swim. Fundamentally though, I won’t be visiting any running tracks or be tying up my spikes. There will certainly be no sandpits involved!

I’m a fighting person, I never give up so there will be no way that I will be quitting the sport.  I have at least 6 more years inside me so this period of recharging is so important for my career.

The next fours years are a big four years and I need to go into them feeling fresh and motivated for the challenges that will brought about by the London Olympics in 2012.