Update/Race report

Hi all hope all is going well in you're running.

It was a good and bad week for a numerous reasons but managed to get through the week of problems and come out feeling better for achieving it a suppose life sometimes is like racing that you go through good and bad patches in races and it depends on if you want to let it beat you or not.

Training was pretty good not really doing any tough sessions yet as it is too early in the season for that so a lot of tempo runs /fartleks to be getting on with and then one session a week where it is more harder and more of what we will be doing mid December time ,had a really heavy cold and sore throat all of last week which made training feel a little bit tougher my heart rate was up 10 beats so I always know I am not right as normally my pulse is 38/40 beats, but some runs felt great and other runs felt crap but just got it done(still going to blame my Son for these stuff I keep picking up as he has not been well either who says being a parent is easy.

Then on Friday to cap it all I was up all night with little man who has got his first tooth come through which means he is teething as well as having a cold so not sleeping very well I got maybe 2 hrs sleep that night not the best prep for a race but hay these things happen and wont be the last I have a feeling so didn't feel great on Sat not in the right frame of mind just too tied didn't tell Team Manager (Tony didn't wont to worry him) didn't realise not having a lot of sleep would affect me but it did even though I ran fairly well still feel I let the team down yes I know we won but I didn't run to my ability which I hate not doing and too me that's just as important because I set myself high standards, Mansfield is not really X/C it suits more track runners than real cross country runners as it is only 5 k, when I ran there in March for England is was 10 k and them 2 more laps make a big difference too me so I shouldn't be to pissed of just wait to we get to the real X/C.

Race Report

Well what can I say I knew we had a chance of winning this race but I knew it was going to be hard because a lot of teams have four good runners even if they don't like X/c because it isn't really 5 k on a non muddy course will suit track runners so that's why this is so hard to win, as most people knew we were going for a hat trick which has never been done before even when the big teams who dominated in the late eighties and nineties could never achieve so we knew we could make history .

Leg 1 Matt Janes: as I always Matt had a good solid run and brought us home in 6th place I think first leg suited Matt being in a race situation and proved right he kept us in the hunt between us and the leaders was 15 sec gap.

Second leg: was me or should I say insomniac went off in 6th place chasing down the leaders took over two clubs pretty much straight away and had my eyes set on ex Runnerslife nice guy Sharpy went past him in the woods at the top before heading towards the start and went into the lead for what must have been 5 secs as I had j nedusinga or something like that and held onto him for little while then I had Skinner for company so dropped back to 3 rd spot it wasn't a disaster was 4th quickest on my leg but still wasn't happy the way I ran but it is early days and don't really want to be running in top gear yet anyway.

3rd leg :Step forward Mark Draper (said last time I male model but now he is a TV star Mark got back from New York on Thursday from filming a advert for New Balance which I believe will shown I here in Feb.

Handed over to Mark in 3rd place about 8 sec down on the leaders so knew we were in for a good chance by the end of the first lap Mark had opened up a lead of over 20 sec and was still pulling away by the time he handed over to Neilson we had a lead of over 25 sec also Mark ran the fastest leg of the day which was fantastic so great performance from drappppers

4th leg: Neilson had to just make sure he ran his normal way to bring home the gold because he had Scott Overall chasing even though we had 50sec Neislon still had to be on his game which as usual he was and ran a very controlled race.

Still can't believe we won because as I said before they are so many good teams with four athletes that is even more enjoyable that we won for the 3rd time and made history in the making.

Would just like to say big thanks to Tony for being a great Team Manager and friend and it is a pleasure to have you as are boss p.s I wont retire just you know me when I don't perform to my best I get pissed off which isn't often thank god and a big thank to my Team mates for doing it again in style and lets now win the Nationals X/C team medal and make a clean sweep.

Well done to everyone who raced at Mansfield and thanks for the support of other teams very kind of you people have a good week