This was our home BAL fixture and, given our opening 5th place, we needed a good result. Fortunately we had some of our big guns turning out as well as ancient detritus such as yours truly.
The 800m went very well. My first lap split was 58.7 and I felt extremely comfortable tucked in out of the wind in 4th place. The headwind was stiff in the back straight so I kept close in touch in 3rd place. With 200m to go I was still feeling comfortable and kicked hard at 100m for a close win in a PB of 1:55.53. This photo was taken 200m out (I'm in 3rd) where I'd started a premature 'finish gurn' so I was actually more comfortable and am slightly better looking than the photo suggests.
Bedford AC generously provided a massage girl who helped me with my hamstrings after every race. Her generous nature was more than matched by her generous endowment; to the extent where I was dreading her asking me to turn on to my back for fear of poking her eye out. Needless to say I went back twice more (but that's my just reward for doing 3 races!).
If the 800m race is the one that caused the most nerves it was the 400m which I really wanted to sort out. The season to date had been a catalogue of fast starts, slow starts and various blunders. I'd also devoted some training time to 400m pace work and block starts in an effort to improve my miserable efforts. I was rewarded with a good second place in 50.93, whereby the home straight saw the leader die, me close up and then proceed to die just before I got to him.
Pleased with both those efforts and we topped it off with a solid relay performance (I split 50.3) and a 3rd place overall as a team. That helps but we are going to be heavily reliant on availability for our next 2 matches both which involve plane journies.
Suberb gurning there!
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