English Cross Country Relays

The relay season concluded at Mansfield on Saturday, and this event has arguably been our strongest with two bronze medals in recent years.  We knew throughout the week that repeating that result was an impossibility as we had three strong runners and quite a drop off to our fourth man.  But we wanted to try to be competitive for 3 legs.  Andy is in great form and we decided he would run first, then Matt Barnes would run leg 2.  I would then take over on leg 3 which was a daunting prospect as Andy is in great form and Matt seems to always run one of the top 10 fastest legs here so I could potentially be going out in front.

Matt withdrew from the team on Friday due to a calf problem, which meant I would now run leg 2.  I'd eased down and had made arrangements with people to come back to Manchester for my birthday so decided to still run despite not being in great shape.  It was hard to motivate myself for the race, I guess I've run in a lot of relays where we have something to run for as a team whereas here I knew the team wouldn't really be involved in the race and I was unlikely to run a good time at the moment.

Andy didn't have a good run on first leg and came in 15th, I set off and was a little isolated but with plenty to go at in front.  I was eyeing up Jean Ndayisenga who had started 10 metres in front of me and saw he was moving well, and going away, I wasn't making any inroads into the guys ahead and was overtaken through the woods by Rory Chesser who steamed away from me.  Martin Mashford also came past, I was unable to respond to either.  My first lap was 7:44 and if I could run another 7:44 I would be happy.  My position didnt really change until the last climb when people really started to fade and I started passing a few and closing back on Rory.  Phil Hinch had come up alongside me and I ran much of the last km with him which was helping me pull through, poor Sharpy didn't look himself at all as I flew past him and then on the downhill I swept past Matt Nicholson and Matt Pierson and into 10th.  Despite my strong last km, I had run my second lap 20secs slower and my time was a solid but unspectacular 15:48.  It was a workmanlike effort from a man who isn't in great shape and has some work to do in the next few weeks!