I thought I'd give it a day or two before I reflected what I was feeling after the race at the weekend. Before the race if you'd said to me you're going to finish 3rd in the UK Championships to Thommo and Vernon I would have snapped your hand off and settled right there and then as those boys are currently in a league above me however the way to race panned out I feel I certainly didn't get the best out of myself and I could have maybe done one better and finished 2nd.

Obviously I was delighted to make the podium for the 2nd year running and to get a reward for the hard work I have been putting in over the last few months but I couldn't help feel disappointed with myself when I was thinking about my last few laps. I made the decision to go hard in the middle when the race picked up and nobody else chose to do that. I can't seem to understand why nobody else would do that? I know Vernon did make an effort to push on but everyone else just seemed content to sit in the group and let the medals run away.

Surely they knew Thompson wasn't going to come back and also Vernon as they're both strong as anything so I guess they were hoping I'd go off, pay the price and die and come back to the main group and they'd race it out for the bronze? I'm not sure but there is no way that after 1k of running in a 12.5 lap race I am going to let a leader get away when they put a 63 in. I train to cope with bursts in the middle of races and I react to breaks. There is no way I'm beating Chris as I know he'll go out and run 13:15 or so in a fast 5k but I can jump on the back of him in the hope I get dragged round and away from the others.

I didn't realise until I watched the race back how much I pulled away from Andy, he sat back and just reeled me in as I began to slow. Now this is where I'm kicking myself. My last 2k's were so slow, I felt awful. My motivation had dropped and I was just seeing the race out. I shouldn't let my mindset get like this in a race but that feeling of being in no man's land is one of the worst in the world and can often happen to any 5k runner. I wasn't feeling great in the race, from the off I felt a bit drained and that clearly showed in the final mile or so.

Thankfully I'd done enough work in the first 3k of the race to get enough of a gap on the other lads and hold my position all the way in to the end. I had some nice messages of support after the race and some very positive comments from other athletes and coaches at the track so if you were one of them, thank you. I may have come across disappointed with my run, because I actually was. I guess that's a good thing though as I'm never happy unless I'm winning and that's after being beaten by 2 athletes who I look up to and aim to match one day.

I don't think any athlete can be disappointed with a national medal but they can be disappointed with how they won it. That's me right now, I've once again learned from my experience and I'll take that experience into my next race and use it.