Sometimes running involves a lot of sacrifices and almost always involves hard work and dedication.  Since September I have been training pretty consistently banging in the miles and tough track sessions and on Saturday it finally paid off winning my first senior AAAs title.  As a result of this I've also been rewarded with a place in this weekends Grand Prix in Birmingham.  To add to my win, my training partner Danny Mooney also won the Irish Indoors over 1500m so it was a great weekend all round for Daves group.  Not to mention Peersy winning the Parbold Hill race as well.  It was also great to see Lewis winning the 1500m in the UK Champs.  Lewis is a top lad and has deserved this breakthrough for years so its great to see him finally win the AAAs off the back of his 3:41 in Vienna.  I'm sure he's got a massive summer ahead of him. 

The race itself was a strange one, early on I just didn't feel great, my legs still felt tired from Armagh and I felt the early pace was really quick, although it wasn't lighting fast.  During the course of the race though I started to feel slightly better and I moved up onto Wilko's shoulder, who had done a great job of pushing the early pace.  With 4-laps to go I moved into the lead and made my break for the finish.  I knew there were some big kickers in the field such as Wilko, Hay, Davies and Mitchell, who was stepping up from the 800m so I thought a longer push from home would suit me better.  As the race developed Davies and Mitchell both got a jump on me at the bell, and cut me up a little, not intentionally its just the way it goes on an indoor track with tight bends, I still felt good and knew I had a finish left so it was just a question of kicking again at the right time and getting the win.  Luckily for me I timed my run quite well and just got to the line ahead of Steve.  I was quite surprised I managed to feel as fresh as I did in the latter parts of the race having not properly recovered from Armagh, but I think getting beat in a sprint finish there really spurred me on and gave me the extra motivation to win this one.  I've got a great opportunity to have a good go at the World Indoor qualifying time of 7:50 in Birmingham at the weekend now.  Its not going to be easy and would require a big break through run but I have nothing to lose (not 'loose' thank you Matt Barnes) so I'm looking forward to getting stuck in and having a good go.  The added incentive for me would be knocking the great Geoff Smith off his perch and taking at least one of his club records.  He has pretty much all of our records from 1-mile upwards so to get my name amongst his on the board would be a great achievement.  To take his 5,000m or 10,000m time I would have to run an Olympic A qualifying standard so I am really up against it! 

I've been blogging on RL for nearly 2-years now and the site constantly seems to develop and get better, this year is no different and I think Jonesy is doing a really good job trying to make the site more interesting with some new contributors and new athletes, of which I think Matt Barnes is a great addition and his blogs are ones that I am really going to enjoy reading in the future.  The only downside is why do we have to keep looking at a picture of Andi Jones' ugly mug at the side of the screen all the time???