South of England 12 Stage Relay Champs

So as I mentioned in my blog, I have been struggling with a slight calf problem, but decided that it would still be ok to race.  I would never put the team in jeopardy, and so thought long and hard about running or not.  The morning of the race I thought that it felt sore but ok, and so I had a good warm up and was ready to run.  We had a strong team out this year and I have lost my place on last leg, rightly so at this point and Dan ended up running the fastest time of the day, so fair play to him.  For me this was a stepping stone, and supposed to be a hard training run,, I feel that my endurance has slowly been seeping away through the indoor season and it is time to get back to the hard miles, something that I have found difficult. The idea was to go off slow and come home strong, but as always I went too quickly over the first few minutes and then it was a case of holding on and trying to run as relaxed as possible.  This was easier said than done as after about 4 mins of running my leg stared to really hurt.  Everytime I put the leg down it was sending pain shooting up through my calf.  Obviously now it was a case of just getting round and not letting the team down, especially as I had made the decision to run.  I ended up feeling disappointed with my run despite finishing 10th fastest overall for the day on the short leg, not just because I left in a lot of pain with what I think is now a torn calf, but also a time I wasn´t happy with.  Thinking back a day later, I don´t think it was a bad effort considering the pain, and I believe it was worth much more, as you can´t relax and float along when your in pain, and consequently you end up tightening up and running slower.  So encouragingly, even though the time was slow, I think I am probably in better shape than I think, all that needs to be done now is to micro manage my leg and hopefully be in good enough shape and injury free to play a part in the Belgrave team efforts in challenging for the title at the National Road Relays.

Well done to all the lads at Belgrave, great team effort today and good to see some of our young lads running so quick.