An Honest Man Amongst Thieves

The recently instated Chancellor of the Exchequer settled on a new measurement basis for inflation electing to use the consumer price index as opposed to the retail price index. Leaving the accuracy debate aside one surmises the primary reason for doing so was because the CPI inflation figure was lower thus increasing his fiscal options.

I suspect if the Chancellor had been aware of a 3rd index he wouldn't have touched it with a barge pole - given its rampant hyper-inflation. I refer to the WPI or Watford Performance Index, which has echoes of the floundering deutschmark of the mid 1940's.

The principle of an open graded meeting is that runners submit a seed time from which they are organised into races within ability bands. Not having run a 1500m this season in anger I submitted what I felt was a reasonable seed time of 4:05. Quite conservative considering my 800m time projection, but then I've never been a stamina laden runner. There were a number of runners in my race who had put down 4:04 as their seed time.

My race tactics were to stay within kicking distance of the leader whilst trying to hug the inside - a sensible tactic anyway and also to give me experience in a large group of elbows, knees and spikes. I went through the first lap in about 69 /70 which was much too slow, at which point a desperate runner shot to the front to increase the tempo. I must admit I felt pretty comfortable all the way round and at the bell was creeping up behind the leaders on the inside with frequent looks over my shoulder to prevent being boxed in before kicking clear 200m out.

Considering the low-key nature of the meet the back straight was actually fairly noisy. When I kicked clear of the other runners and hit the final straight I was met with an eerie silence, to which my initial reaction was - shit, I've gone a lap too early! I hadn't of course, but I still harbour some paranoia born from losing a lot of money on a steeplechaser at Fontwell Park when his jockey rode a finish a circuit too early (the fuckin' plum).

I came home clear in 4:07.24 which, although not a sensational time, was a PB and achieved with a first lap of 70 and a final lap of 62. I was very pleased with my race execution and there's a lot more to come I'm sure.

You will note I was still 2 seconds outside my seed time but the rest of the field were still miles behind making a bit of a mockery of the seeding process. The Chancellor wouldn't be pleased and I'm left looking like one of those dickheads who seeds a soft time so he can win the race easily.