An autumninal feeling

I was a little relieved to make it to the end of the season with just two injuries and what qualifies as a minor drink problem. The Decathlon, despite the no-heighting in the vault, was still the highlight of the year for me, exceeding expectations in eight of the other events. For once I'd defied my usual tradition of turning up injured and it paid dividends. Yes I had a couple of niggles, but that's Masters Athletics, and I was actually pretty fit - relatively speaking as endurance still seems to evade me. Turns out, I broke 3 club records (High Jump, Discus and 100mH) and set a new points mark for the M55 Decathlon. Had I cleared my season average in the vault I would have just pinched 3rd place with just short of 5100 points, much more than I had expected. All of this means I can look forward to next year using these as targets for breaking, assuming I get the chance.

So, to winter's training then. I will have to up the mileage in an attempt to side step my furry friend the fridge toting bear, I really can't afford to have the wheels come off in the way they do in the 200m and 400m, one day I'm going to pass out. I decided that sneaking round the Park Runs with my wife would help but the main focus would be speed endurance consisting of 200's and 300's executed on my infamous grass track. This would only be possible for the first couple of months as it will get too dark and even I'm not stupid enough to try running across an uneven muddy field in the dark carrying a bear and a fridge.

It was a good plan but it soon came to grief as you may have guessed, thankfully not through injury this time. As this is a public area, and only golf, horse riding and moto-cross are banned, we do get a lot of dog walkers using the grass, so I sometimes have to put up with these lovable pooches chasing me or just bounding up full of the joys of spring to say hello. Inevitably I nearly came to grief during one particularly keen session of 6x200m, 32-33 seconds 4 minutes recovery. I was hurtling down the side of the field on rep no 4 when I came across a dog walker with an especially lovable little mutt coming the other way. The owner saw me coming and stopped, the dog saw me and bounded towards me on the left, tongue flapping madly in the wind. I broke right in the effort to miss the pair, but the dog bounced right also. As a Welshman and ex-rugby player, I gracefully sidestepped left, only for the dumb dog to go left in a vain effort to tackle me. We were getting close now, so I responded with a desperate cut to the right, but the dog got there first. It was at this point I decided to invent a new sport - dog hurdling! I cleared the dog, leaving it confused only to provoke what I hoped was exclamations of gratitude from the owner, but somehow I doubt if his comments were complimentary, and cast doubt over my sanity which, all things considered, were not without credibility.

Despite  my ever increasing age, I was pushing hard, training 5-6 days a week, weights, road runs (oh yes!) and the field runs, so it was some relief to get a couple of days off and get away from it all for  my birthday. Now, what do I usually get up to when I have a birthday? Normally I go to Scotland to get drunk in as many distilleries as is physically possible in the time allocated. Well, this year would be very similar, but minus the Scotland bit (Sorry Ken!). As luck would have it, three years ago, an entrepreneur set up a distillery in the Cotswolds and his single malt became eligible to be called whisky two weeks before my birthday meaning the official launch party was to be on Saturday the 7th October.

The Cotswolds Distillery

Too good an opportunity to miss, so we booked a nearby hotel - Ettington Chase - and spent the day at the launch, spending more than intended on the limited edition bottling and various other inebriating gins. Sunday we came back in an attempt to get on a tour, but they were all fully booked so we ended up just getting drunk on samples in the visitors centre. Now as a three  year old single malt, you'd expect it to be rough stuff, but it is lovely smooth dram, full of toffee caramel and marzipan. It has a good smooth finish with vanilla and more soft toffee. It compares favourably to the other southern singles, though it has now sold out so you'll have to take my word for it, although whisky writer Jim Murray was at the launch as he lives nearby, so you'll probably be able to take his instead.

The following week, after surviving training on the back of all that  drinking, we had a little get together at home and I opened a few other singles to compare. This included "The Englishman" from the other English distillery in Suffolk, a Penderyn of course  and a 10 year old Jura. The Jura came out on top ahead of the Penderyn, possibly because I love peat and Madeira, leaving the two English malts behind, though I have to say the Cotswolds Single is the best English and future releases will be very interesting.

The Sunborn 5 star floating hotel.

The following month, it was off to Gibraltar for a short break with my long suffering wife in celebration of her birthday, so an opportunity for duty frees. We stayed in the Sunborn luxury 5 star yacht moored in the marina near the airport and their 6 lane tartan track. Its as good as it looks, we were welcomed at check in with champagne so it certainly started well. As it was my wife's birthday the concierge arranged for more champagne for the room/cabin, I could get used to this. Breakfast was as good, yep it included more champagne alongside the cereal, which set us up nicely for the day. We spent our time productively shopping, the wife for jewelry and myself for single malts, everything was VAT free, but I  ended up buying three bottles in the airport where it was even cheaper. On return to the ship we met up with a couple we had flown out from Bristol with, who had an even better day, they had got engaged on the top of the rock, so my wife - ordered another bottle of champagne to celebrate. I can recommend Gibraltar for a short break, we managed to visit most places  of interest, the weather was kind too, but remember the hangover cures.

Back in Wales, I resumed my tussle with the bear, which was starting to worry me somewhat as collapsing at the side of the track and falling asleep in the stand could not be considered a normal part of  training. To that end I dug out my old Polar FT7 heart monitor to let me know if I was dead or not. Sadly training ground to a halt almost immediately, partly due to the weather but mostly due to the onset of yet another injury. This may also be down to the amount off whisky being consumed, but whilst my calf may have given out, at least I had proof I wasn't deceased. The indoor season hangs in the balance.

The dog, the bear and the fridge

After the debacle in the rain at Sutton Coldfield, I was glad to be getting away on a 2 week holiday in Portugal. But first I needed to step up the training once more in preparation for the Decathlon in September. Going on holiday was not really part of a decent training plan, more of an opportunity to over eat and drink myself silly with some of Scotland’s finest. I couldn’t see that ending well, so it was back to the field for some serious speed endurance work before we went. Unfortunately, being the school holidays, I was not alone in my desire to use the green track, every man and his dog seemed to descend on it, especially the dogs. As you can imagine, an old twit in Lycra is often just too much of a temptation for some mutts, and, lo and behold, I soon found myself sidestepping sheep dogs, over excited terriers and the like, one or two of the owners also seemed to be taking too much interest in me for my comfort. Inevitably one over excited pooch chased me half way round the field, cornering me at the 150m mark and jumped on me joyously at his winning the ‘race’, leaving me scratched and bleeding. I was too knackered to argue, as the embarrassed owner, regained his dog and legged it. At least it was a fast 200m rep.

Sustinance worth celebrating.

The hotel we were staying at in Albufeira on the Algarve did have a gym, but I also noticed there was a track 2Km away, so my daughter and I packed our spikes along with a bottle of Talisker Storm, a peppery giant with windswept salt, which would clearly assist the recoveries from whatever we did. After a week of pool and Talisker testing, we struck out for the track, planning a 6x200m session in the scalding hot sun, I am somewhat unfamiliar with 37^OC, but we soon worked out that sun cream isn’t enough. On arrival at said track, we were informed that it was closed for August for maintenance. Closed in the middle of the season, to avoid upsetting the football team – sound familiar? A wasted journey, so we did some runs on the cycle track around the bus station much to the local’s amusement and then headed back for the pool somewhat disheartened. Training as part of the holiday moved on to the gym, the Talisker ran out and was replaced by a bottle of 12 year old Tomatin, which I found to be full of orangey apple citrus. It's softer than the legend that I had drunk when we visited the Distillery just off the A9 South of Inverness last October. It's a very easy drink to enjoy, the finish is not too long but tasty, and contributes to the bottle getting emptied too fast for my own good. This was not the plan, but it made the holiday memorable, those bits that I can still recall anyway.

After returning from a glorious vacation in the Algarve, minus the now empty bottle of Tomatin, I decided on a trip to the indoor track to re-discover such exotic arts as Pole Vaulting and Hurdling. Rumours of the existence of these ancient rites abounded and I needed to know more, such as how the f**k to do them. Well vaulting soon came back to me, but inevitably the hurdling resulted in me aggravating the previously injured muscle in my abdomen. Should have taken the whisky with me see! I now had two days before the Welsh Inter Regional championships in Brecon in which to recover. So with a duff stomach I reproduced my memorable day in Royal Sutton Coldfield only just managing to scrape over my 2.50m starting height. Once again I managed to traverse Brecon's pole vault run up more times than I actually took off. I enjoyed the experience so much I volunteered to cover the Triple Jump, learning from such experiences is not in my repertoire. It was lucky the competition has 4 rounds as my first three attempts simply resulted in my spikes removing the plasticine from the board and distributing it around the sand pit. My 4th attempt counted but I took off nearer Pen Y Fan than the board.

Fresh from that marvellous day out in Brecon, my next challenge was the Master's League on the Tuesday in Cardiff which included another opportunity in the vault and a 100m to see how slow I'd become since attacking yet more whisky bottles. As is the way with such completions, it usually falls to the athletes (Well me and Derek Osbourne) to set up and run the event. As usual it clashed exactly with the 100m which I wound up running first. I had a good race against my nemesis Glyn Sutton, left him at the start and got away from the field only for the Arhus Champion to come cruising past in the last 30m. This left me too tired to vault well and once again I struggled over my opening height of 2.50m and no more. At least my daughter ran a  PB in the 800m, threatening to go faster than me over the shorter distances.

The weekend of the 2nd and 3rd of September was the BMAF Decathlon championships, I'd planned for this all year, but the mice and their men hadn't really executed properly all season. Things were made worse by the journey up on the Friday as the motorway network ground to a halt due to some bad accidents and horrendous road works. I dived off and headed for the A46 much to the consternation of the Sat Nav lady who seemed to range from annoyance at my failure to perform a legal U-turn and pleading with me to at least turn somewhere, suggesting lanes I woulldn't walk down in wellies, let alone drive. It took me 5 hours to reach the stadium, too late to lock up my pole but just in time to leave it in the bar - that should be well received in the morning. In addition to my travel issues, I had made the start line without running anything further that 1Km, no recent sprint work, pulled abdomen muscles, a calf issue from Tuesday, a dodgy pole vault technique and a fully justified fear of 3 foot hurdles. I couldn't see me finishing this, but I kept stoom and took my place in the line up alongside my friends and rivals of old.

The Decathlon started.
100m - Got a  good start, though not a sharp reaction due to dreaming, only Allan Leiper went with me and although he was just up on me he pulled up with a calf strain at 80m leaving me the win in 13.55 (691pts) with no obvious injury. That was the easy bit.

Brilliant photo of the 100m taken by the inimitable Tom Phillips

Long Jump - Been a bit of a bogey event in the past, and sure enough I started with a foul, so back 20cm and pray, sacrifice another chicken, swig some rocket fuel and thankfully my 2nd attempt was just shy of my SB at 4.56m (582pts). 3rd round I took off only vaguely in the vicinity board so I had to settle for that. Still two down and both ahead of schedule -just, and only a dull pain in my gut to deal with.
Shot putt - Almost a disaster. Got pulled up for letting the shot come away from my neck too soon, so No Throw round 1. This threw me a bit so I did a safe 2nd putt that was absolutely diabolical, but legal. This put a lot of pressure on the 3rd with the eagle eyed official staring at my neck like a vampire only feet away, but at least it was legal again, if not far (7.14m 430pts).
High Jump - I was looking forward to this as I had a new run up that actually worked, even so I cautiously started at 1.28m for safety. I went successfully up in 3cm intervals to my first failure at 1.37m (528pts) which I got it on my 3rd attempt but couldn't go higher. Sadly, this event managed to replace the now absent injury list with a pain in the left knee. Frantic massage with Voltarol ensued.
400m - This was going to be fun. The first 400m in 3 years and that was crap back then. I decided on the proven scientific strategy of sh** or bust. So based on what I knew of my rivals I blasted out of the blocks and carefully closed down Geoff Powley outside me, moving to his shoulder at 200m and actually feeling OK. Round the bend as the stagger unwound I held position then tried to ease past as Geoff kicked. A strange gurgling noise entered my head, oh yes, that's the sound of the fuel tank emptying. Seconds later my dear old friend the Bear landed squarely on my shoulders carrying his fridge. The wheels fell off, almost everyone went past, but the time was 64.11 (631pts), 5 seconds inside my expectations despite finishing in need of a defibrillator. At least the bear's ice was useful as I ended day 1 in 4th on 2862 points, 136 points ahead of schedule.

Is that a cliff I see before me?

Day 2
100m Hurdles - Miraculously, 1 ice bath, a hot shower, a hot bath,  various massages and several pain killers got me to the start line in decent shape. I'd only done two hurdle sessions in the last few years and one of those had ended in injury, so I started with some trepidation. I finished last in 19.43 (530pts), thankful to be mostly in one piece, but this was still up on my schedule, self belief was at an all time high along with the pain in my abs and knee. The long time leader, Ron Todd, also picked up an injury and was doubtful of finishing.
Discus - My favourite throw. This can go wrong easily if control is lost. I need not have worried, I opened up with 24m so target achieved already. Round 2  and I hit 26.02m (443pts) much to my amazement, but round 3 was only in the 25m range. I was just able to contain my jubilation, as I had a sniff of 3rd as long as the pain killers lasted.
Pole Vault - Warm up went really well, popped over 2.80 practise bar with height to spare. Unfortunately, when I came to vault an hour or so later, it all went horribly and disastrously wrong. I was unable to get the plant right, taking off too close with my right arm woefully too slow, and the pain in my abdomen signaling that all was not well. No-height and nil points! Totally gutted and barely able to walk without discomfort, so much for banker events.
Javelin - Not being one to give up, I've had too much practise of cocking things up over the  years, I took on my worst event with gritty determination and Solpadiene. I threw a safe starter around 19m, then hit a decent 2nd out to 24m+ well beyond my 23m target. I finished with a slight improvement at 24.62m (341pts) making the vault hurt even more.
1500m - Into the unknown as I hadn't run beyond 1000m without the aid of breathing apparatus this year. So I had worked out a schedule that should get me round in 6:45, but I wasn't expecting to be able to run with anyone as I was too slow. Remarkably, I executed the race  to plan with a little help from Lawrie Dunn on the first 2 laps, staying within a couple of seconds of the split times all the way round, allowing me to perform a minor 'kick' at the end to get me home in 6:42.47 (372pts).
I finished last, 5th with 4548 points, ruing the vault as a 2.80m clearance would have given me 3rd place. Geoff was a worthy winner on 5828 from Alan Smith 5680 and my old friend Pete Stepney in 3rd 5066 ahead of long time leader Ron 4933. The journey home the next day was painful enough to keep me awake for a week, thank heavens for cruise control. At least I was able to convince my legs that rumours of them walking again were true in time for work the next day. The thoughts of a Bowmore kept me going, but when I got home, sleep claimed me before I had a chance of popping the cork. 

Wednesday saw me back in action in the Welsh Masters League at Newport, not really by choice but as this was my home club match I pretty much had to go, despite not having recovered from the weekend. Add to that the lack of time keepers and it being so late in the season, the turnout was small. I decided on the 100m and 200m for an easy night. Unfortunately in the 200m the M50+ runners were joined by the junior guests and like a twit I tried racing them only to meet up with a certain  fridge toting bear in the home straight after running a terrific bend. Well, it was probably the only time I could chase a 17 year old girl and not get arrested, not that I got close anyway. Thankfully there was no such problem in the 100m as I took the win, though I was still feeling tired from the 200m only 30 minutes earlier. The times were embarrassing, proving it takes me more than 2 days to recover from a decathlon.

So the season ended, as did the bottle of Bowmore Small Batch. That little gem, tasting of citrus and vanilla, with  a slightly oily body of peat, was a very appropriate way to round off 2017. Winter's training beckons after a well earned rest, and probably more single malt indulgences.

Feeling a bit run down.

After the relative success in the midlands, I hoped to extend this run of good fortune in the Midlands League at Abingdon for the club. I'd never been to Abingdon, drove past it a few times on trips to Oxford, so it would be nice to see more than just the view from the A34. My season was focusing on the Decathlon in September as I was not going to the European Champs in OurHouse Arhus, Denmark. That meant upping the speed endurance work as the Midlands League was only likely to provide the opportunity to vault, seeing as its a senior competition not really for old gits like me. Anyway, I was coping well with sessions like 7x200m in 31 seconds and looking forwards to competing when it all went quite horribly wrong. Training was leaving me feeling a bit 'run down', despite eating vitamin pills like smarties and work was really boring the Lycra pants off me, I can only get so much enjoyment out of installing the various Oracle software packages before passing out, it's enough to turn me to drink. So Thursday 13th July, there I am riding to work on my relatively new Suzuki GSX650, minding my own business waiting for the traffic to stop hacking its way around the roundabout at junction 27 on that marvellously mind numbing stretch of tarmac known as the M4 when - Bang! Thud! and probably Crash too. A Seat Ibiza decided to 'coress' the rear of my bike sending rider and vehicle in separate directions, other than down that is. Once again, I hear someone saying 'Are you alright?', but I've not been vaulting and thankfully there's no blood this time.

Suzi missing her bits after being kissed in the rear

Good, no damage to me but the bike is likely to be missing paint, plastic and moldings. The rather upset girl who had planted her car on my rear mudguard was not fit enough to help pick my bike up so Tarzan here tried to do it by himself. Don't you ever F*******G learn! My back went. I was due to compete on Sunday in the Pole Vault, I could barely walk let alone vault. So I spent the rest of the day icing my butt, not something I can recommend.

The weekend passed slow enough to reduce the pain levels to something more bearable, so I went to the Midlands League in Abingdon to vault, accompanied by assorted pain killers, most of them legal. The competition nearly didn't run, as the warm up progressed it became obvious the right hand upright was fu-bar'ed, a problem I could relate to somewhat. It took more than Solpadiene to fix them, but fix them they did, so we started. I did my usual trick of knocking off my opening height of 2.50m twice just to add drama, this time it was entirely down to crap vaulting, my third attempt was well clear fortunately and I was able to progress. I went on to clear 2.90m for a welcome season's best, but just as I was starting to think 'celebration time', my back reminded me of the debt it was owed.
 
We, that is my daughter and I, left for a barbecue with me dreaming of bottles of Cardhu and Bowmore, it was going to be a difficult decision. When I finally got home, having abandoned said daughter somewhere in England, I plumped for the golden Speyside classic. The Gold Reserve is sweet and toffee-ish, not so smokey but smooth and a bit oily. It's not a cheep buy at £45+ but the 12 year old is a tenner cheaper and almost as good (bit more caramel in that one as I remember). If you have more money than sense, then the 18 year old is one of the best I've ever tasted, more richness and chocolaty - I went to the distillery to do a tasting some time ago, so I don't have a bottle of that one. 

It was a couple of weeks to my next comp, so I settled down to check my newly improved UK rankings, only to find out the cloak of invisibility that I wear on the motorbike had struck again, and I wasn't in the results. Time passed and training got a bit intense in a vain attempt to prepare for the forthcoming Decathlon, but all I seemed to achieve was asthma as my times for 200m reps stayed stubbornly fixed. I changed things around, added some shorter stuff, in the hope things might improve - they didn't - they got worse. So I wound it back down again in time for the next for the Welsh Senior League match in Swansea on the 29th where I planned another vault. I thought I couldn't go wrong, I had to be fitter, I'd vaulted well in Abingdon so surely 3.00m was on.

Athletics has a way of punishing those of us who get too cocky, and so it was. The journey down was fair enough, leaving the showers at home to meet up with the wind of Sketty Lane. The club was conspicuous by it absence, just the usual nutters so I guessed the team was not likely to win this one, meaning I could concentrate on the vault. I'll need to look up what concentration means, because I'm not convinced I made proper use of the word. As usual I knocked off my opening height taking two attempts to get over 2.60m, but what followed was somewhat worse. I took three attempts to get 2.70m but I managed to run in five times and at 2.80m I traversed the runway seven times without a clearance. All I can say is I got my money's worth out of the entrance fee by turning the vault into an endurance event. My daughter took inspiration from all my tribulations to run a PB in the 800m, which kind of made the trip worth while because the vault didn't! I resolved to do something about this as I drove home exhausted.

I squeezed a vaulting session into the crowded week's schedule, which had to be indoors due to the torrential rain that started Sunday and persisted throughout the week. It went well, up to a point. Vaulting was good, got over 3.10m - sort of, but, with the Decathlon looming, I decided to add some hurdle work. I was nearly finished when I pulled something known as the Transverse Abdominus, which is a new one on me. Its a painful member of the abdomen six pack, apparently I now only had five left to take with me to the final Midland league in Royal Sutton Coldfield on Saturday. No amount of ice and embarrassing massages could fix it but I went anyway.

Saturday was wet, really wet, even but Welsh Standards and we know rain! The ducks were struggling to stay afloat as I parked up,  it was difficult to see which was lake and which was track. Surely the vault would be cancelled in this? Nope!

And the tide starts to go out in Royal Sutton Coldfield.

So with the tide going out and a severe pain in the gut I was bound to be on a certain looser, yep - no-heighted again despite starting 20cm lower than the previous week. I skulked off to the long jump in total disbelief, where, surprisingly I jumped well just missing my season's best by a centimetre. Where on earth did that come from? So the event I trained for was a disaster and the one I didn't even bother to warm up for went well. I need a holiday!

Fortunately, we had one booked in the Algarve, so time for some warm weather training, as long as the injury recovers with the application of litres of Sangria and the odd bottle of Talisker that appears to have magically made its way to our apartment. I'll let you know how it went. . . . . . .

The Championship edition

The lead up to the BMAF Championships had not been without its issues, my hamstrings had taken on the texture of ready mixed concrete and my right Achilles was making its presence felt in completely the wrong way. I did finally manage to fit in some Pole Vault training in order to improve my vaulting technique from that of my blind luck method, that was clearly failing badly, to something resembling real vaulting. Sprint training had also been going well and it was all I could do to stop raising my expectations of how I was going to run a ridiculously fast time. This had also meant trying out the disastrous Long Jump run up so I didn't embarrass myself no-jumping again. However, I did take the precaution of booking a hotel with a health spa in case recovery was sluggish after day 1.

So I drove up on the Friday with the pole strapped to the roof where the Welsh and English rain was able to wash it clean for me as I traversed the countries motorway system, that should wash away the grip nicely thanks. I dropped it off at Alexander Stadium's high performance centre much to the amusement of the juniors training there at the time. Then it was off to the hotel to check in and sort myself out.

I got a pleasant surprise at the check in desk, when I realised the chap next to me booking in with those dulcet West Country tones was my friend Paul Guest. After the usual pleasentaries and exchanges of insults, we arranged to meet up later with another West Country star, Ian Allen. This all sounded very dangerous, three master athletes meeting up in a bar, and yes they had a single malt. It turned out to be a 12 year old Glenfiddich, their signature malt, and one I had not tried recently. Before I got carried away knocking back the remains of the bottle minding its own business behind the bar, I was thankfuly reminded of where I was. The double cost me £9.00, so I managed to eek it out throughout the evening. The smokeyness of the classic Speyside wafted around the conversation as we put the world to rights and discussed the problems in world athletics, thankfully the other two decided on an early night before thoughts of another double got too far.

I slept badly, waking up a 4:00am convinced I'd broken my neck by falling off the pillow, at least the pain of sleeping with my head at 90 degrees to my shoulders was real enough. When I got up for breakfast I decided to take the pain killers, vitamins and supplements in my room as the Creatine looked more like Heroine so I wasn't sure if I should snort it or stick it in my fruit juice. I settled for the juice option and headed for Perry Bar and Alexander Stadium for Day 1 of the BMAF Championships almost feeling like an athlete.

The back straight stand at Alexander Stadium with the mobile pole vault bed

Event one for me was the dear old long jump, an event I had recorded more no-jumps than jumps over the last year or so, can't think what I've done to upset it really. Warm up went well, but then it always did, so round one would mean being safe. I quickly googled 'safe' on my smart phone, and with a vague idea of what I was doing, shut my eyes and went for it, backing off just in time to record a season's best of 4.58m. Full of confidence after finally getting something right I set about improvement, however, this event really knows how to take the mick, and I got stuck in the 4:30's - apart from one suspiciously long no jump a the end. So 4th it was then, better than expected and I had the pleasure of piping my friend Alan Leiper by a centimetre, though the winner, Paul Guest, was over a meter clear of me.

I suppose that counted as success, and I'll take any small win into the sprint as the majority of the field were over a second faster. In order to maximise the embarrassment I decided to setup my blocks at the 110m start for some strange reason, I was probably lucky I was facing the right way. The race was not going to go well with that degree of focus, and so it was. I was too low out of the blocks and was lucky not to face plant it on stride 3, against the UK's best this was not what I needed, I lit the after burners and set off in pursuit and finished 4th in the B race in another season's best of 13.46. If only! It came at a cost too, my left hamstring all but gave out, 6 rounds of long jump and a diabolical start had left a visiting card.

Back to the hotel then, I showered and went for food, which was noticeably cheaper than a double Glenfiddich, though not as tasty. I met up with another Newport Harrier Juliet Sidney, the 'Pocket Rocket', who I have to say was doing better then me and looked fresh whereas I was hurting. Then I remembered the Spa, so off  I went for an hour's recuperation in the pool, sauna, steam room and jacuzzi. I was exhausted by ten o'clock and glad to get kicked out of the pool, at least I should sleep well.

Day 2 dawned with rain, oh joy, the vault was going to be fun in this. I went to breakfast, did my Heroine and checked out. Arrived at the stadium in good time and retrieved my pole from its resting place and transported it to the bed on the back straight of the stadium. I couldn't help but notice that the rain had been replaced by a strong head wind. Fortune favours the brave, but obviously not the stupid, so the general consensus was to turn the bed around, the only catch was we had to do it ourselves, which made for an interesting warm up. So with a following wind, and little rain, things started badly at my opening height of 2.50m. First vault actually felt good, planted, swung up, rocked back a bit as the pole bent and crashed through the bar. Second vault was much the same, slightly better really, so I guessed something was wrong. It turned out the uprights were set 20cm too far back from where I'd asked. Mercifully my 3rd vault was as good as the previous two and I flew over. 2.60m went well first time, which surprised me. Then the rain started up again which didn't surprise me, but I still got 2.70m thanks to gluing my hands to the pole with carpet adhesive, I kid you not. However, 2.80m was a height too far, and I lost my grip completely as the rain washed away the carpet and it's stickiness, resulting in me crash landing in a heap in the box and the bar clouting me on the head. The officials kept asking 'Are you alright?' for some reason. It was then that I realised it wasn't rain trickling down my face, it was blood. I stuck around for the afternoon vaulting pool, partly to make sure I didn't have concussion, but mostly to find out where I would finish after winning the morning's pool. I also ended up giving them a hand to turn the bed back around as the weather went from wet and windy to warm sunshine. Needless to say, no disasters befell the vaulters so I was 3rd. I decided  to take advantage of the Physiotherapy available at the venue and had one of them attempt to loosen off the bricks now inhabiting my hamstring in order to allow me to drive. So when the pole vault result was published I gladly accepted my bronze medal and made my way home reasonably pleased with my weekends work, and thankful for the ability to walk.

Lift off!

The following weekend was the Masters Inter Area match at Solihull, for which I managed to pinch the long jump slot and a leg of the relay. The day was one of the hottest of the year thus  far so I of course forgot my cap, sun glasses and sun cream - not a good start and likely to end sorely, especially as my hamstring was still taped up. The long jump was first event at 11:00am so the sun was still working out who to fry, giving me the opportunity to escape too much heat damage. It turned out pretty much the same as the week before, my opening jump proved to be the best, followed by a string of plasticine incursion long no jumps. I'm not sure which round Tom Phillips took me, but I've got some height which rules out round one. I settled for the mediocre performance and pretended to walk without a limp back to the stand hoping I wasn't sun burnt.

Throughout the afternoon, Welsh Masters gradually made their presence felt, not just by making more noise than the rest of England put together, but also as the results started going our way. By the time the relays came around we were threatening 3rd place. I led off the M50 4x100, and actually ran a reasonable bend to deliver the baton to the second leg runner. As an added bonus my hamstring arrived in one piece as well, the tape had held. The guys held on to 2nd behind a strong Midlands relay team full of athletes. The day ended with team lobster in 3rd place well and truly burnt such is the way of dragons.

Team Wales - courtesy Juliet Sidney AKA the Pocket Rocket

 This called for a celebration, and you know me, any excuse for supping the single malts. For those still following, the choice malt was the recently acquired Bowmore Small Batch. I really enjoyed a couple of measures of the warm gold malt, the peaty vanilla flavours enticed me to go back for thirds. However, I had work, so I just savoured the slightly salty peat in the long slow finish and comforted myself with the fact that I was mostly in one piece after a busy couple of weeks.

Localized flooding

After the semi-success of the East Wales championships, I  had a few weeks on my hands to try to get 'proper fit like', so it was back across the road to the trusty training ground (er, Field) for some more speed endurance. At first these sessions ended prematurely with me tripping over the undergrowth or being jumped on by a bear toting a fridge resulting in hyperventilation and near fatal coronaries. Dog walkers were now avoiding the area due to that mad bloke in tights who frightened the animals making loud rasping noises. Recoveries took the form of several pain killers and medicinal dosages of Scotland's finest and the Dalwhinnie started to run low, the Penderyn ran out completely (Technically not one of Scotland's as its Welsh!) But some progress was at least made without the intervention of the NHS.

I'd already squandered several chances for a decent vault at a number of venues around the rain soaked slopes of South Wales this year, but now it was June, and flaming or not I was running my little legs off trying to get fit for the approaching championships, but the vaulting stubbornly remained neglected.

Part 1 of the Welsh Masters Championships was held at Brecon with the Welsh Senior league, so I hashed a plot to do the vault in the league during the morning and the Masters 200m and Long Jump in the afternoon. Seemed like a good plan as my vaulting needed the practice (needed a miracle really). As usual things did not go anywhere near close to plan. I arrived early to get one of the 4 parking spaces available in Powys, only to find the rain had got there well before me.

The pole gradually dissolving in the Brecon car park

As the sea receded to Ref made the only sensible call and  abandoned ship the vault. Perhaps I'd have better luck with the long jump, it was a following gale and by the afternoon things were looking up weather wise. I know, I should really have worked it out by now, the wind totaled my run up, hitting the plastercine was easier than hitting the board. Despite attempts to move it back into the next county I still ended up with 3 no jumps - nil points. Should have done better than that! So feeling extremely p*ss*d off with the day so far, I turned my attention to the 200m, what was going to go wrong here then? False start? Pulled hamstring? Out of lane? Such was the paranoia that my concentration somewhat wandered and when the gun actually went I had to quickly Google what came next - ahh yes RUN, darn it where'd they go? I shouldn't complain really, it was a season's best although the drastically slow start took the edge off the Silver Medal. Celebration when I got back home was predictably Dalwhinnie orientated, so much so that this silky smooth smokey citrus malt almost completely emptied itself into my glass. Many thanks to my wife for reminding me I was supposed to be in work the next day and that this wasn't helping.

There was supposed to be a mid-week masters league match again at Brecon with a vault, but the forecast was not looking good. Come Wednesday it was hoofing it down in Cardiff so I expected the vault to go the way of so many others this year, consequently, I didn't make a lot of effort to go and eventually got tied up with work so didn't even get home until after the meeting had started. As it's over an hour away, I opened my bottle of Cardu Gold Reserve and decided to enjoy the oily smokeyness of this classic Speyside instead of driving through the partially flooded roads of South Wales and the Brecon Beacons. It's a bit more toffeeish than the standard 12 year old but still possesses that smooth oily texture that is Cardu, if you like smokey ones rather than a peated malt, then this one is well worth the trip to the supermarket. Thankfully its best savoured slowly so I didn't have too many before retiring. I woke the next day, feeling slightly muzzy, and discovered the vault had taken place in my absence - typical, you just can't rely on the rain in Wales to be consistent.

Anyway, I was due to compete in the Welsh Masters Championships Part 2 on the following weekend which was shared with the 100th Welsh Senior Champs. The vault was actually Friday evening, with the 100m on Saturday, and this was all punctuated by a celebration of the past champions like Lyn Davies, Steve Jones and Jamie Baulch etc. To add interest, I was to be presented with a Meritorious Award for services to Welsh Athletics, personally it felt more like a congratulations on lasting this long you old git.

So Friday, yes, arrived early to discover the indoor raised runway was in place and the bed was in front of the main stand, a gap of about 3m, very intimate. The organisers went the whole hog, seemingly thinking this was the Diamond League and one of us might be French. So we were lined up and introduced to the crowd individually after the warmup. I should point out that there were 3 of us and the 'crowd' was about 20 strong in a 2000 seat stadium. After that I could only vault well, which I thankfully did, 2.80m will do nicely on this springy runway. The commentary throughout was interesting, thank you James Thie, and it was nice to receive the medal on a proper rostrum in front of the 'cheering crowd' instead of just picking it up at the desk.

The Meritorious award with the two medals from the Vault and 100m.

Saturday saw me arrive early for this presentation thingy, which was as well due to the lack of parking. I prepared meticulously for the 100m by eating myself silly at the reception buffet, wandering round making myself a nuisance to any poor soul I recognised (Sorry Jason Gardener, but you were talking to my mate Jamie Baulch who is from my club). After this I had to make my way to presentation in order to receive my award with a couple of others, Jenny Cook - a life long official and Bernie Plain - a class distance runner, both of whom I knew well. It was a nice moment being presented to the now much bigger crowd and having my athletic CV read out in front of some of GB's legendary competitors. I could feel a single malt coming on already.

By the afternoon the weather had turned cold and breezy so they turned the races round and made us run the 100m as far from the stadium as we could without actually being in the retail park opposite. Not sure if this affected me, but it was a half decent start for once and a reasonable pick up, shame about the lack of speed as the rest disappeared down the track. I did take 1st place in the M55's in a season's best though, so the Cardu Gold Reserve had better look out, Sunday is going to be hangover day.