International Masters Cross Country.

The weather turned out to be wet and windy for the International Masters Cross Country. The journey to Coventry should of taken two and half hours according to the sat nav but in the end it took four and half hours on Friday night through all the rain and road works. Which meant there wasn't much time left to do much on the Friday night but eat at the Hotel and relax. Saturday morning we were up early and travelled to the other side of Birmingham to collect my England kit plus race number, then it was a case of waiting around for another hour for the England Team photo shoot. Luckily the photo shoot was outside in the wind rain which gave the athletes a taste of the weather they were going to be running in. Another couple of hours of waiting around and it was finally time for my race. After a quick warm up and a check of the course I was ready to race.

The race was 8km long consisting of 4 laps and just about all flat so the pace was bound to be high. I can't say I recognised many of the other runners only a couple of the England team in my category. The race started and I slotted into a good position near the front, by three quarters of the first lap there was a large bunch of us at the front but by the start of the second lap runners started to string out into single file and battle for every position. Myself I was struggling with the breathing which was probably due to the effort I was putting in to trying to hold my position. Somehow I had drifted back into about 15th place, I would of expected myself to be up near the front so my morale was taking a severe knock as well, I persevered with the hard effort but only managed to yo-yo a few metres back and forth to the runners in front of me. I finished in 18th position / 10th in my V40 category. The England runners taking 1st,2nd,3rd,4th,6th and myself 10th. I was disappointed with my performance but with such good competition you really do need to be in top form to do well, and to be honest I now know I'm about one and half minutes away from that. Overall it was a great experience and has left me with an excellent challenge next time around. The England V40 team won Gold, along with England being the number one country in the overall championship.

I have a few weeks left before the Thirsk 10 miler so hopefully I can get a bit closer to my best form but obviously now I know I won't be beating my P.B. over 10 miles this year.

If there is one thing that drives me on more than anything else then it is being beaten. I WILL BE BACK.

After chatting to a few of the top runners I must consider doing less mileage and more quality sessions. So tomorrow instead of running to and from work I will be knocking out a speed session, fully refreshed and with plenty of anger to burn off.