Scottish Inter-Regional 1500m

First Track Race of the Year!!! and I was dreading it the week before and all the memories of my past 2 summers came back and I was expecting something to go wrong. Until I woke up yesterday and thought "im going to stand on the line regardless" so I thought about it and decided what race plan I was going to try and execute and this made me feel better going into the race today (Sunday).

As the race was in Wishall (about 2 hours away) we decided as a group that we would leave at 8am to be there for 10.... an hour before Jennys 400m. My race was at 11.30 so I had a bit of time to chill out and do some stretching before going for a jog and the rest of the warm up routine an hour before the start of the race. As I had my race plan in my head I felt quite good about what I was going to do. The plan was to sit in for the first 300m and assess what the pace was going to be and then if its slow I wanted to go to the front and try and wind it up and run strong, but if it was fast then just sit in and hang on and hope I had something towards the end. The gun went and it became very apparent noone really wanted to take it on at a decent pace so I just went to the front to try and get a decent pace straight away and was pleasantly suprised that Sarah Inglis joined me at the front so I just relaxed and we went through the first lap in what was a pretty steady first lap of 71. Im not sure what we went through 800m in but after about the first 600/800 I pushed on a little and saw that Nicola Gauld came with me which isnt really what I wanted at this point but hey! I thought I was safe in second as I knew Nicola wasnt coming back to me and had a little glance behind (which I got told off for more than once :D) but much to my suprise a girl came out of nowhere with 200m to go and was closing me pretty quickly... she came up next to me 30m from the line and just got in front but I managed to hold her close right to the line and we both clocked 4.29. This equalled my PB from 2 years ago so im happy as its my first race of season and a positive step forward from my previous seasons and I believe with some more racing, track work and confidence there is quite a bit more there.

When I spoke to Les (Sarahs Dad) and Liz after the race we agreed that my lack of confidence and belief in my track ability cost me a PB because I didnt believe I could go with Nicola when she came past me, which is a little disappointing as we believe I am in shape to run faster but I didnt so we dont know and can only try and correct this and hopefully i'll be in a better place mentally next time out.

I would just like to say Well Done to Sarah and Morag who both ran a really exciting 800m. Both came out with 2.06 with Sarah very close to a 2.05. Morag proved that she had guts and went out on a windy day and ran a 60second first lap with Sarah a close 3rd in about 61... However because of the wind and the opening lap I think Morag paid for it slightly and Sarah came past on the line. It was very exciting race and both should be happy :)... Well Done to everyone else who ran today too!!! Especially Tayside and Fife (our team) as we won overall against the other teams!!! Woop!