National 12 Stage

I elected to run a short leg here as a sharpener for London Marathon next week. I was pretty confident of running a good leg, even over the short 3 mile distance. I should be fresh by now and had plenty of really solid training behind me. I just wanted to get out there and run! I had been put on 12th leg and this was fine by me. We had been chasing the medal positions for the few legs before mine and at one point had got within 20 seconds or so and I was relishing having a chance to chase down a medal. Alas, I took over in 5th and had about 80 seconds to make up on 3rd, which was always going to be a tough ask!

I went off pretty hard to at least give myself a chance and quickly went past Leeds in 4th after 800m or so. All I could see after that wwas runners ready to be lapped with Shettleston a long way ahead. Still, I kept hammering it and telling myself that this could happen and the odds were I wouldn't see him until very late on anyway, if I was to catch him at all. I went through mile 1 in 4.52, and pushed on and down the hill. covering the 2nd mile in 4.35. I actually started to pay a little by now for going off hard and felt like I was hanging on a touch. It was tough to keep the pace going with no-one around me but I wanted to give a good account of myself and so tried to keep focussed on running a hard race. The last mile was 4.47, and I covered the leg in 14.18. This happened to be the 3rd quickest of the day and I'm pleased  with the time. I made 40 seconds up on the Shettleston guy but was still well short. To be honest, confidence is high and I was expecting something pretty good, and even wondered if I may get under 14.10. However, 14.18 is a solid run for someone in marathon preparation who had to run it solo and gives me enough confidence that I'm still in good shape, which is all that I wanted from today really. It's a shame that the team finished 4th, but these things happen and on another day it may have been different. I'm pleased we got Fraser Thompson out again. I bullied him into this and to run 26.48 on a long leg for a guy who basically only runs at weekends is phenomenal. I hate talented people...

Now it's onto next week, I think there's a marathon happening somewhere....