European Cross Country Trial

It wasn’t until two days before that I decided to run the trial. After the stomach bug, taking a few days off and feeling absolutely rubbish even when I ran easy I wasn’t too optimistic about this race. It didn’t help that it was ice cold in Liverpool too.

I stood on the start line (I didn’t have a chip as me and Maria had somehow managed to lose it) ready for my first senior trial feeling good however. We set off and I settled into the top 30 somewhere and tried to move through the field. Towards the end of the first lap I got close to the back end of the lead group but when the second lap started is where things fell apart. Like my runs during the rest of the week lactic built up in my legs even when I wasn’t running very hard and the same thing happened in the race. I was in trouble with two very long laps to go. I just hung on as best I could for the rest of the race.

Even though I was blowing up the whole time, I was still in contention for a place on the team and I had to make it. On the last lap Ash Harrell was hunting me down and with a 1k to go he came past me. I tried to hang onto him but at the start of that massive U-loop he put in a massive burst and opened up a gap on me. I was finished and to be honest I thought he pulled out enough on me to get the final place on the team. But coming off the bend I somehow managed to pick my legs up and get moving and slowly edged closer to him and just before the line I scraped past him.

After that last effort I had nothing left in my body and hit the deck once across the line. The not eating during the week really got to me and a hard 10k cross probably wasn’t what my body wanted. I still managed to make the team being at the bottom of the U23 age group so the main job was done.