Even in the run up to a race which you have been focused on for a long time, it's very easy to get distracted by external pressures in the days leading up to the competition, or even on the day itself. The absolute classic is getting lost, stuck in traffic or somehow having your travel plans disrupted on the way to a race. I've had this happen to me a few times and by the time I've arrived at a race venue I've been so wound up, it half crossed my mind to turn round and go straight back home.

But as we know, this can happen to anyone before any race and sometimes you just have to get your mind back on the job and make sure you give your best performance, even when everything else is seemingly conspiring against your success. I'm sure there will be plenty of athletes at this summer's Olympic Games for instance, who will have less than ideal preparation before what should be the biggest competition of their life. But what happens if Mo Farah's bus breaks down on the way from the village to the stadium or he stumbles on the start line as he did at the weekend? Or Jess Ennis reaches into her kit bag and realises she has forgotten her specialist long jump shoes just seconds before the event? What are they going to do? With the world waiting with anticipation for their gold medal winning performances, they are hardly going to get special dispensation from the judges to put their competition back - they are expected to perform and there is no other option.

At Alsager at the weekend, the conditions were absolutely dreadful. I got to the course and my mind set was pretty negative. I warmed up with Tom Lancashire and Elle Baker and must apologise to them for having a good old moan about the conditions and suggesting that I would start the race but unlikely finish it. However, fortunately, they didn't seem to give much credence to my whining and by the time I had run a lap of the course, I realised that it wasn't so bad and that it was the same for everyone. After all, not everything can always go in your favour, certainly not the weather.

On a similar note, I recall my last ever Pentathlon competition in 2002, the World Championships in San Francisco, when my competition could have been over before it even started. If there was one thing I hated, it was fencing first in a semi-final. My coach was a phenomenally inspirational Frenchman called Christian Roudaut (the Pentathlon equivalent of Jose Mourinho), although he was prone to the odd bit of eccentricity, which always kept us on our toes. One of his idiosyncracies was that he insisted that if we got drawn in a semi-final where the fencing was first, we had to be up at least 3 hours before the start and do a loosening run (which we all predictably hated). Typically, in the most important competition of the year, I found out that I was drawn with my team-mate and 2008 Olympian, Sam Weale, and was due to fence first. I felt like flying home there and then - my competition was ruined! However, we set our alarms for 4am,  knowing that Christian would probably be pacing up and down outside our rooms, checking up on us. We didn't use to run far - just 20 minutes or so, but once we came back, we were in a real dilemma. It was still not even half past four and the hotel restaurant wasn't open. Sam and I both knew that we would inevitably fall asleep again if we went back into our room (thus incurring Christian's wrath). Luckily, we had seen an American diner called Denny's (a cross between a Little Chef and McDonalds) on our way back into the hotel which was open 24 hours, so we headed over there.

As I recall, the menu wasn't exactly organic porridge made with hand rolled jumbo oats and freshly squeezed orange juice. Basically, Denny's serves pretty much exactly what an athlete shouldn't be eating on a big competition day, but for some reason, all logic went out of the window and Sam and I ordered 2 of Denny's signature meals - "the Grand Slam Super Slugger Breakfast". It tasted pretty good though and we had a good laugh whilst the waitress brought over a huge plate of meat and pancakes.

Fencing was never my strongest event and when I arrived in the fencing hall, my stomach was a little heavy and I was regretting my culinary choice. Still, the fencing phase took ages and as the rounds progressed, I seemed to keep going, whilst the other athletes were wilting. In the last round, I fought the mighty Russian Andrei Moiseev, who has since become Olympic Champion - twice, in Beijing and Athens. However, despite the odds being heavily stacked in his favour, I deftly nipped inside his defence and planted the sweetest of flick hits on his wrist, cue mask coming off and a nice big scream in his face. As it was, that hit made all the difference and after the other 3 events had been completed - swim, shoot and run, I had made the final, by a points margin that was less than one hit in the fence! Who would have thought that if you had seen me knocking back bacon and eggs at 4.30am, but who can say what might have happened if I'd not had it!

I guess the moral of the story is that whatever challenges are thrown in your path on race day, you just have to cope with it, as best you can, even if that means doing something out of your normal routine (which who knows might even turn into an advantage!) Hopefully, I managed that at Alsager on Sunday and was rewarded with a decent result.