Just a quick update our
kids (r-kids). The weekend was fairly eventful for pretty much all St
Mary's athletes, with athletes competing at the BUCS XC and also the
Indoor City Challenge. Firstly a note on the cross country. Our guys
dominated as expected. We have a huge intake of athletes so the
numbers combined with the level of coaching here was always going to
provide results. Despite not being in Cardiff I was fairly nervous. A
silly bet had been made between myself, Carl Goose and Ollie Crux.
Basically, if Carl won the B race I had to wear GB kit to all
championships this year, if he was top 5 but not first then Ollie had
to pace make a Watford Grand Prix in GB kit and if he was outside the
top 15, Carl had to wear GB kit in a Watford race. Luckily, duck duck
Goose came 13th, after a Borzakovskiy like final straight
moving himself up from 16th to 13th. All
participants were safe!
Meanwhile, in my
favourite northern city, Sheffield, several athletes took to the EIS
indoor arena representing a range of cities in the McCain Indoor City
Challenge. On a personal note I had a very good run. Improved upon my
indoor pb and ran my second fastest time ever, clocking 3.54.99. The
race was mental. Twice Olympian Anthony Whiteman, put his balls on
the line and went out at a very quick pace, going through 800 in
approximately 1.58. This guy is a legend. Now 40 years old he is
trying to become the first ever British sub 4 minute miler at 40. The sub 4 mile at 40 was first achieved by irishman Eamonn Coghlan, the titled "chairman of the boards". Hopefully
he will do it. As for Saturday he had to settle for second in a very
good time of 3.47. Myself and fellow Winrow coached athlete, Oli
Heeks, went through 800 in about 2.02. Which at the time I thought
was too quick. Running low on confidence effects this part of the
race a lot. I was almost sure I was going to blow up, but after
running a pedestrian 66 for the third 400 I managed to quicken again
to produce a 45/46 last 300m, suggesting I had too much left. With
about 3 laps to go I moved out to pass Oli and give him a hand with
the work, but I just didn't think I could hold it so decided to stay
in behind. I must thank Oli for helping me to a decent time for me,
as he did take me for approximately 1300m before I could kick on.
Felt like bit of a dick for this but sometimes you don't believe you
have much more to give and then you find yourself with another gear.
Hopefully, with the confidence gained from this run, I can apply
myself a bit more between 800 and 1200, and get close to running sub
3.50.
For those of you who
have not ran in the indoor city challenge I would highly recommend
it. First of all, you get travel expenses, free hotel room and meals.
Secondly, if you break an indoor personal best, which I did, then you
get paid £50. If you win the race you get £100. All excellent
incentives. With regard to last weekend's trip I had a great time. I
shared a room with a nice scouse lad called Mike Sweeney who is a
talented multi event athlete. One of the benefits of athletics is
that you get to meet new people, which I never used to enjoy but now
I love it. On Friday evening some of the guys down here couldn't get
a meal in time so I took them to an Italian in Leopold Square. There
was myself, Oli Heeks, Ben Wallis, and Norwich lad, Rick Ward.
Initially, Rick did not take a shine to this so called “bistro”.
However he did enjoy the spaghetti ragu, which was basically “spag
bol”. Some hilarious 70's hair doo's provided much comedy at the
table and it was genuinely a funny night. I'm looking forward to a
similar event this coming weekend when I will be competing at the UK
Senior Indoors, which doubles as the World Indoor Trials. With the
final being shown live on channel 4, I purely just want to make the
final. If I could do it two years ago then I'd hope to be able to do
it again now. I certainly couldn't have ran 3.54 two years ago.
But... I’ve had plenty of problems. Hopefully should be a good week
regardless, as im just enjoying being fit and healthy at the minute.
No need to get overly serious. Above is a picture from my heat two years ago, which i had to front run in order to get a fastest losers time.
As always to end,
here's a stupid Tiesto related fact/myth....
Did you know that
Tiesto's favourite film is Black Beauty, because he likes horses
innit.
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