European Indoor Champs

Hello again

It means an awful lot to me to have been selected for these championships, and to everyone who took time to send me a good luck message thank you. I think it helped on that last lap, ha.

Arriving in Paris Wednesday night, I  was still on a high after being selected. I was tired by the time I got to the hotel, and just wanted to get some dinner and then get off to bed. I haven't been sleeping great over the last few months, and was worried I wasn't going to get enough sleep before the race on Friday. Thursday morning after breakfast we headed to the track at Bercy, to have a look around and just familiarize myself with it before the race Friday. I never seen such an amazing indoor stadium, with a capacity to hold 8000 people it was an awful lot grander than anything I had ever experienced.

Friday morning I headed to the stadium with lots of time to spare, it took 40 minutes to get there Thursday, but only 12 minutes to get back to the hotel, so I didn't want to leave anything to chance. I had lots of time for warming up, stretching and drills. I was very fortunate to be drawn in Semi 3. Everyone in the race had a faster PB than me, but I wasn't worried about that. Being in semi 3 meant I would have some bit of an idea what times the fastest looser ran in the first two semis.

The first two semis were not as fast as I thought they would be. So with the first three in each race and three fastest loosers to make it to the final, I really though I had a great chance of making one of those fastest loosers places. I spoke with La Rosa (Italy) and Garcia(Spain) before the race, and we all agreed if the pace was fast enough from the start six guys could go through from our race.

Finally it was all about to happen. As I toed the line for my first major track champs, I wasn't nervous, I was anxious, but felt comfortable. The gun went and I tried to get a decent position on the inside of lane 1 in third or forth position, as I didn't want to miss any moves being made.

The first KM was covered in 2.42, I though it was a little too slow, although it was much faster than the previous two semis. I took up the pace for the next 800m, and wanted to push it along, I though I had picked it up but I only went through the next KM in 2.42 again, too slow. The last 400 was soar, I didn't think a 61second 400 would ever hurt as much.

I did manage to get 6th in the race, but I was about 1.2seconds too slow, and missed out on the final. I didn't leave anything on the track. I gave it everything I had with a 2.39 final KM. It was my 5th 3km in 20 days, and after I was completely wrecked. Initially I was very very disappointed, and was for a number of days, but looking back at it now, I still preformed close to my best, I came into the race as a complete underdog and gave a decent account of myself, albeit not what I wanted, it wasn't a disaster.

Again thanks to all the well wishers, until next time, thanks for reading.