This blog is overdue, but I wanted to hold off writing it until I had some idea of “the way ahead” for me over the next few weeks and months. Tough. I’m still working that out, but the dust will have grown thick on the latest news, and memory will have failed me even more, if I don’t post it now.
As I write, I’m a week back from the European Masters Indoor Championships in Ancona, on Italy’s Adriatic coast. I raced there back in March 2009, when they hosted an earlier European Championships, and I had good memories of the place and the stadium. I made it to my first ever European final back then (at 200m), and we won a silver medal in the 4x200m relay, losing out to the German squad.
My build-up for Ancona this time had been about as good as I could have asked for. Four championship races at 60 metres in the UK, resulting in four wins, including my first British title. I’d run five 200m races, with just one win, but I thought things were coming together nicely.
Championships like the European Masters are tough events. A few years back, to reduce costs, they lopped a day off the overall programme of events, and crammed everything into six days. This year, I raced on four of those six days, racing six times in all. On top of that, I was part of the media crew, working on the track with my camera for Athletics Weekly and others. That was an option, of course. I could have said no, and on the day that the 800m finals were timetables (and lasted) until 11pm, I began to wish I had, especially as it was a day on which I’d raced twice at 200 m earlier on.
I’d been pleased with my 60 metres race times leading up to Ancona. In the British Masters, I’d raced what I’d already mentally set as my benchmark time for the Ancona heats – that’s to say, the time I thought I could run, and that I thought would get me a semifinal place. So, colour me rather pleased when I ran more than a tenth of a second faster, winning my heat, and recording the fastest 60 metres I’ve run since March 2010. Back then, the time won me the Belgian Masters championship. I wasn’t a well person then, either. I was diagnosed with clinical depression a few days afterwards. It was bittersweet in Ancona, realising where I have been in the intervening years, and wondering at matching the Belgian time all of six years later.
I had better draw a veil over the Ancona 60 metres semifinal. I clearly fell asleep on the blocks. I have only hazy recollection of my preparation, and didn’t run my own race. I scraped in to the final as the second of two fastest losers. I’d expected to run faster than in my heat, but I was nearly two tenths of a second slower. Happy to say, however, the final was altogether different. We knew the race would be close for 2nd to 8th place. And it was. The photo below, by the official stadium photographers, shows most of us looking at each other, not really knowing who had finished where. A single one hundredth of a second covered 4th, 5th and 6th places. I got 6th, but I’m happy with it, knowing how close it all was. My time was identical to what had got me 5th place in the 60 metres final in Torun a year previously. This time, I’ll take 6th in Europe. As I write, my heat time also gives me tenth ranking in the world for my age category. Yeah.
At this time of year, I usually find I’m juggling satisfaction at being fast but perhaps not all that fit, which suits 60 metres, with a need to be fit at the expense of perhaps a little speed, needed in order to survive the rounds of 200m races at a championships. I was surprised to run a slow 200m heat in Ancona, and had a battle royal to grab second place in order to qualify safely for the semifinal. The semi, later that same day, was my fifth race in three days, and it showed. I stumbled coming off the final bend, for reasons still unclear, and failed to trouble the final.
I like relay racing. Our squad was depleted a little this year while our German opponents were at very full strength. A silver medal was always the height of our ambitions really, barring accidents, and silver it indeed was.
Upon arriving home, I was, frankly, completely knackered. I’ve come home from some championships in the past carrying a bad cold or flu. I didn’t catch anything this time – my wife did, however, and I felt my turn would be next (happily not, as I write!) It was good to hear Jesper, my chiropractor, declare me in “pretty good shape” when I saw him three days after getting home, though I can’t say it felt like it!
The sketch plan for the weeks after Ancona had included a return to some fairly intensive basic strength training. My one training session to date found me listless and rather negative. Work commitments have conspired to mean that, apart from that session, I have my first week home free of activity. I think that may be a blessing in disguise.
My title, as ever, comes from my huge music collection. It’s the title of an obscure track from and obscure album by Dave Lambert, of the Strawbs, working solo. It fits the subject-matter, though!
Blog from a Faster Master 