TIME at home in Ballarat added extra spark to Olympic runner Collis Birmingham's preparation for this week's world cross country championships.The Eureka athlete caught up with friends and family before embarking for Amman, Jordan, to pit himself against the world's toughest running competitors on Saturday.Birmingham relished a "big family" road trip to send him off at the airport on Sunday evening."It is good to spend some time back home and get the juices flowing again," Birmingham said."Jordan should be really interesting."World cross country is great, because you tend to go to places you might not have gone to otherwise, and check new places out."It's always good to test yourself against the best at these places too."Amman will mark Birmingham's third appearance in the championships.The 24-year-old topped the Australian trials last year before placing 74th at Edinburgh.He made his senior debut at Mombasa, Kenya, in 2006 and first appeared at the championships in the juniors at Lausanne, Switzerland, in 2003.Birmingham will arrive at Amman from a stellar track season.Earlier this week, he was named in his first world track and field championship team, bound for Beijing in July.Birmingham secured the spot with a 5000m personal best and A-qualifying time of 13 minutes, 16.26 seconds in a Melbourne grand prix meet almost three weeks ago.The time was one of three personal bests that Birmingham had collected within a fortnight, including a 1500m time at Sydney and the mile in Christchurch, New Zealand."Getting the grades and pb's is definitely exciting. I feel I'm getting to a whole new level of running," Birmingham said.Birmingham finished third in the Athletics Australia cross country trials at Stromlo Forest Park, Canberra in February after a late fade-out across the 12km course.Trial winner Martin Dent was unavailable for the world championships, leaving Birmingham and experienced Queenslander Michael Shelley to lead the Australian charge.Liam Adams, a 2008 World University Cross Country Championship silver medallist, will make his debut at the championship.