English XC Relays

These relays aree 4 x 5km around a wooded park in Mansfield. I've run them a few times in the past and when the conditions are good, have managed about 15.05. As I realised after my 6 stage run, I was fitter than I expected to be and after my best ever river-run session down at Kent A.C this week I actually thought I could get under 15.00 which is one of my little benchmarks I'd like to achieve. In London we hadn't had any rain for so long that I thought I'd have a decent chance of the conditions helping me out. So I was a little surprised when Jon Quint at Saucony who was setting up the course said it was nice and wet up there. It may be known by some of you that I'm not a mudlover and have lost some faith in my cross-country skills over the past few years, so this didn't fill me with joy. Sure enough, as I stepped off the train at Mansfield, it was raining. I shared a taxi with Dan Mulhare as he stepped off the same train as me. I hadn't met Dan before and dind't really recognise him. My girlfriend has this view that everyone knwos me and I have no clue who anyone else is and me not recognising Dan dind't help my cause as he knew me....

The AFD team was solid but not full strength - I hoped we'd be near the medals all going well. I was set to be on last leg and as I warmed up I wasn't really sure how the team were doing but noticed how muddy the course was but didn't worry about it and just focussed on having a good run. My coach Nick tolsd me we wouldn't be challenging for medals as I did my last stride before the race and so I could afford to just go off hard and not worry about tactics. "take a risk, go off hard, and see what happens" was his advice. 

I took over in 13th place and immediately realised that someone was chasing me down. About 600m in he went past me and I realised it was Dan Mulhare, probably teaching me a lesson for not knowing who he was in the taxi earlier...! This put some doubt in my mind as I expected to be just tearing through the field, not lose a place early on but I just tried to stay on the back of him and keep working. I immediately wondered if I was just bad at cross-country and started playing the excuses through my mind, but as soon as I realised what I was doing I forced myself to stop and just run as hard as I can. Dan pulled away a bit and got a few yards on me, especially up the hills, but I used the downhills to stay in touch. I was finding it hard to really focus as I had to concentrate on finding good lines through the mud and also stay on my feet in the slippy bits. I always find cross-country quite 'chaotic' and that this stops me focussing on just running hard. It was difficult to tell if I was overtaking people as by the 4th leg, there's a lot of lapping going on and so all I was thinking about was chasing Dan and staying in touch. I passed halfway in 8.00 but didn't know this at the time, but then started to get onto Dan's heels. Once we were in the woods for the 2nd time I got past him and at that point Jonny Mellor flew past me at a rate of knots. I then focussed on sticking with him for as long as possible as I knew there was less than a mile to go now. I followed him past Highgate, Bedford and Salford and got a mouthful of mud from his heels as we zipped around the woods. With 1km to go I realsied he wasn't getting away and I was actually reeling him in again. As we reached the top oif thew course with about 600m to go I went past him and kicked hard down the hill, fully expecting Jonny to fly past me. To my surprise I had got away and gained about 5 seconds. I crossed the line in 6th place overall and was pretty shocked when I looked at my watch and saw 16.10! I thoguht I'd had a decent run but was still 1 minute behind my best. Looking over the results, I was about 14th fastest overall, and 10 of the 14 before me came from legs 1 and 2, seeming to suggest that the courtse cut up a bit late on. That's my excuse anyway! Jonny Mellor was only 2secs ahead of me and Dan Mulhare ended up 10 seconds behind so using them as a guide I ran pretty well I think.

My laps were 8.00 and 8.10, and looking back, I think it was a solid run, and I'm actually grateful it was muddier than usual and caused me to run proper cross-country again!