I’ve taken a great deal from being given the opportunity to go to my first major senior championships. My heat essentially was my final. Qualification was first 4 and 4 fastest losers and I was ranked 9^th.It was going to be tough! I knew I was in the best shape of my life so just got involved early, didn’t give them an inch and raced as hard as possible. After the first km in around 2.38 McCormick hit the front. I was feeling great and knew I was able to run at this pace comfortably so just tucked in behind and waited. The pace slowed slightly and we went through 2k in 5.20. After seeing this spilt and looking up at the big screen to see what was going on behind I saw everyone was still there as expected. With around 700m to go I was feeling good and was just waiting for the burn up. I had a look up at the screen and was expecting everyone to still be there, queuing up, which to my surprise they weren’t. Literally 100m later the four guys that were left passed me and I was now outside of qualification. I kept my head and went with it. At this point the lap times go out of the window and you’ve got to compete! So that’s what I did. I kept in, and as it wound up I found myself keeping up easier that I thought. Until around 150m to go. This is where they had that little bit more, their turn of pace; I was left a little bit wanting. I finished hard and I was very close to the guys with only just over a second covering the first 5! Our last k was run in around 2.32. No wonder I was hurting at the finish!

Now I was playing the waiting game!!

I thought for sure that the second heat would have seen this and realised what they had to run to be safe and take all 8 spots from their heat to the final. Well that’s what I would have done. Run around 7.53 and finish in the first 8 and you’re in the final. However this didn’t happen. The second heat had Mo in and it seemed like they were all watching him. So they ran the fist 2km too slow and couldn’t get the time back. The heat was won in outside 8 mins and I was through! All three Brits in the final, when did that last happen?!

Time to get ready for the Final..

There are a lot of haters out there who were saying things like I didn’t deserve to go and I’ll get smashed when I’m there etc but as I saw it I wasn’t keeping anyone else out of the team and I was still improving with each race. Also what these people don’t realise is that no-one actually cares what they think, the opinions of the people who matter (selectors) thought I was good enough and I proved them right by qualifying for the final and running a pb which was also inside the guideline! Shows how much these haters actually know about the sport...Not a great deal!!

Drapes