National 6 Stage Relay

What an absolute shit day. Every runner has bad days, lots of them actually but Saturday was the worst moment in my little running career. This was the day we had to win for reasons most will know and the team line up for the National Relay was looking good. Granted we were missing out best runner and one of the best in Britain in Phil Wicks but the team still had enough in it to win, no doubt. Much like the Liverpool team at the moment the names on the team sheet doesn't mean you will win and with so many good teams we were punished for an off day.

I have been training well and although not on top form there should have been enough to run a decent time, I even took up Rocky to watch in the tent pre-race before I headed out on a warm up. In the warm up I felt ok and the strides before seemed to be fine. I saw fellow RunnersLife athlete Darren in the 'pen' and tried to tell him he looked fat but he wasn't having it! I set off and just felt bad within 100m. I tried to push up the hill but new I was using to much energy....over the top and a wind (which I hadn't noticed on the warm up) was hitting me hard, even when we turned around at the dog leg the wind seemed be still hitting me and then was joined by rain. I got a lot of shouts from different teams and all were appreciated but I had nothing, I remember Alex Haines giving me a right old shout at the lake and normally I would start to wind it up but I was going backwards, any slight dink was feeling like a mountain.

Up to the finish and I was caught by Andy Norman and I was out on my feet. I instantly knew it was rubbish but was knackered. I walked back the tent and then team all said nice words but instead of putting us in with a shout we had gone backwards and lost any chance of a medal. Seeing Alan and Hazel was awful and just said I was sorry.

Much like Torres and Gerrard these days the names just didn't live up to the billing on Saturday. Between me, Steve Sharp and Stevie D we had lost around a minute and a half...I feel more responsible though as Sharpy had a cold and Stevie D is a track star and is doing us a favour really hitting the roads for 17minutes when he normally flies around 3minutes 38seconds of running!

We were hoping to show we could win it without our inspirational Captain, Phil Wicks but maybe we needed our talisman more than we thought. We lost the gold by 48seconds which is heart braking and even a bronze by just 5 seconds.

Well done to Bedford though who have a really nice bunch of guys (a core of welsh men) and some real quality in their team now, Matt Janes is a top guy and hope he enjoyed the moment crossing that line at the finish and  hope he gets his ugly mug on the magazine.

Simx