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.