AAA National Indoors

The selection criteria for the European indoor champs were to finish in the first two at the trial with the qualifying time of 7.55. Simple.

There were three things that we decided that might happen during the race and they all did. You have to be flexible when talking about race plans, as they don't always go how you expect but this time it pretty much did.

Firstly we decided the best plan was to run 64's to 2000m and then work hard and pick up in the last 1000m. I didn't care what anyone else was planning on doing tactics wise, that was my task and if it planned out and I ran a sub 8 min from the front I knew I'd be in for a shout of a medal.

Secondly I thought Nick would crack on from the gun and he did just that. I was happy to let him go. 

And finally I thought there would be a few other lads with a similar plan of getting to 2000m on pace. However it's not until then that a 3000m race starts in my opinion. Getting to 2000m at your target pace is ok, it's the final 1000m were the hard training comes into play. I have been in this situation before. I was on for 8mins at 2000m before at the AAA's indoors but ended up with 8.07!! I just wasn't strong enough to maintain the pace!

So the race went off and to plan. Nick cracked on and I settled into my pace as early as possible. Fortunately a couple of other lads, Ryan being one, were running just what I wanted so just settled in. I got to 1500m I think and I could feel them starting to slow. As I was still feeling pretty good I thought it was a good time to push from here. Slightly earlier than planned but that's racing. Our 1500m split was 4.01. Pretty much bang on! Not that I realized this, I was told my splits after the race was finished.

It was from 1500m to 2500m where I broke away. I think that split was clocked at 2.34, (61 points!!). This 1000m was interesting. I felt really strong and had lost all clues what pace I was on. I was just running hard but controlled. As I was concentrating on this I didn't realize Nick was coming back to me. I'm not sure how much trouble he was in but I was closing him down. However after running a 2.34 km in the middle of a 3000m you're going to slow at some point. 400m out and my paced dropped back to a 64 and Nick held his lead pretty comfortably in the end.

2nd in 7.56.4 is what I ended up with. I'm happy just to be back racing well now after a long period of finding it hard. But as everyone who runs and races knows that no matter the performance you always think you could have done that little better!! Don't get me wrong I was really happy, an 11 second PB and my first senior AAA's medal, but I just wish I'd of realized what time I was on for and I knew I could have dug a little more found something and got the qualifying time.