I approached the first match in this year's Mens League with a bit of trepidation due to it coming only 4 days after a hard shift at the Troon 10k. I felt frustrated at the blustery Ayrshire weather costing me a faster time but a session with some clubmates of 4 x 1 mile on the following Saturday morning with times of 5:03, 5:02, 5:01 and 5:01 showed there was nothing wrong with me physically.
I'll never ever play football at Hampden but I can now say I've graced a hallowed surface of some description since the Hampden track has been relaid at Grangemouth, venue for the first match. I guess we can call it the hallowed Mondo surface. Not quite the same ring as the hallowed turf though as close as I'll get.
Incredibly this is now my 13th consecutive year competing in the Mens League for Whitemoss. It's actually served as a great grounding for me over the years as I've seen my times improve significantly. It also keeps me involved with the club which started me off in athletics in 1996 at the age of 12 so it's an arrangement I'm happy with. I've also organised the team since 2010 albeit with minimal success in terms of earning promotion. We were relegated to Division 2 in 2009 where we have been since with finishes of 4th, 3rd, 4th, 4th and 5th- 2 teams are promoted each year. The latter result last year however was achieved in a much more competitive division since we actually scored much heavier than we'd done in the previous 2 years.
Each match offers a full range of track events from 100m to 5000m (replaced by 10,000m at the final match) and a selection of field events. I've been known to do daft things like 5 events in an afternoon in the past. Today I restricted it to 3.
First up, the 800m where my aim was to at least reverse my trend of slowing times year on year (2:08 last year). I shocked myself by going through 400m in 60 seconds then even more by maintaining things over the next 400m to clock a time of 2:02.96, my fastest time since 2011.
Next up came the 3000m steeplechase where, after a jittery start with the hurdling, got into a smooth(ish) rhythm and gave myself another shock by breaking 10 minutes for only the 3rd time with 9:57.37. My tail was up now.
Starships were meant to flyyyy, hands up and touch the skyyy...!!!!
The 3000m steeplechase. Photo courtesy of Athletics Scotland. There are loads more of this race but I look dreadful in all the others.
I then had a bit of a breather before the 5000m (an hour and a half compared to 35 minutes between the first 2 races). I nearly didn't start the race after feeling pain in my ankle which still didn't feel right as I lined up. I seemed however to "run it off" in the early stages. With heavier legs, this race was quite a struggle and I focussed on being first out of the Division 2 athletes, an aim I achieved. Incredibly my time of 15:21.99 was only 2-3 seconds slower than my road time in Edinburgh, even with a lot of running in my legs. It shows how badly wrong I got it that night.
For the record, I scored maximum points in 2 races and had a respectable showing over 800m so felt delighted with the day's work. For the record, the team was 3rd on the day. Next stop for match 2, Inverness on 14th June.
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