How to avoid medals

     I spent the week following the Welsh Masters Indoor Field Championships on the 10th of February desperately trying to rehab the pull at the top of my left calf just below the posterior cruciate ligament. Several years ago, I suffered the classic "Sorry - didn't see you" accident on a Ducati 998 when some prat pulled out in front of me on North Road, Cardiff, sending me somersaulting over the bonnet smacking my left knee on the way. That little episode tore my posterior cruciate nearly in two, so I was quite worried what was going on here, the ligament is crucial in the sprinting action. So, by the Wednesday, it was looking decidedly iffy but at least it was starting to recover, however, the weekend was about to deliver the BMAF Indoor Pentathlon Championships, any weaknesses would be sumilary found, exposed and duly punished. So, ice was shipped in by the lorry load, anti-inflammatories were consumed like smarties and various tortuous massages were undertaken and I went, slightly nervously, to the Lee Valley track, London the week later.

     I checked in, noted which survivors had made it, and went to warm up for the first event of the indoor pentathlon, the 60m hurdles. If there was any weakness there, I was about to expose it. Sure enough, as I did my first gentle stride, I felt it, oh sh.... Well I was there now so may as well blow it in the race rather that give up that easy. Half hour later, having ingested more pain relief, I was feeling OK and had managed a couple of hurdles, but not the all important start, so here we go chaps. Reacted to the gun like a wet kipper and drifted serenely to the first hurdle which I took on the wrong leg as I was going too slow, even by my standards, and was dead last. Thankfully as I wound it up and passed Andrew Rushbrook, the afore mentioned injury faded away, more of a relief than an expectation. I clocked 11.26 off 4 strides which was half a second outside my best and placed me 4th.

     How I got away with that I don't know, but I'd have to celebrate that later, next up was the long jump and the timetable said it started 5 minutes ago as they'd only allowed 10 minutes between events. We did our best to get things started quickly despite the mutterings, the officials were very appreciative of the situation and we all made the best of it in good humour. For my part, I was struggling to avoid getting plasticine on my spikes again. Round 1 safety, 4.58m and a season's best just off last year's top performance. Round 2 and 3 were, of course no-jumps by less than 1cm, a familiar story but, unlike the hurdles it was ahead of target, but being the 3rd best jumper still left me 4th overall behind leader Ian Crawley, Derek Osbourne and Pete Stepney.

     The ridiculous timetable now had us 45 minutes behind schedule as we all went straight to the shot circle, this was a chance to move up a place. I'm not a good shot putter at the best of times, so now was not the best time to go out of my way to prove it. I opened with 7.60m, followed that with an incredulous 6.50m, and finally scraped up the 7.67m throw I had used earlier in the year. It did move me up a place though, just, in fact by 1 point ahead of Pete.

     Going into the 4th event later that afternoon, after a sensible rest, I had hopes my high jumping could widen that gap. I'd predicted 1.35m slightly pessimistically due to being slightly injured. Cautiously, I opted to start at 1.25m should be dead easy for a 1.40m jumper to clear shouldn't it. Nope had it off, had to take two jumps to clear it. So it was a surprise to clean 1.30m, but that was luck, I took a further two attempts at 1.35m and my right calf had decided to cramp so not looking good as Pete was going clear too. 1.38m was the next height in the progression and after two failures it didn't look good, especially as Pete, Derek and Ian were all clear. Somehow I produced an immaculate clearance with my 3rd attempt, not even brushing the bar. Unfortunately, I'm only allowed one of those per year, so it was no surprise when I failed out at 1.41m, thankfully so did Pete, but Derek went on to 1.47m and Ian stretched his lead still further clearing 1.56m.

     The final event is the 1000m, and is by far my worst event, so sitting in 3rd by a point meant Pete only needed to beat me by 0.2 seconds to take the bronze medal. Instead he beat me by over 41 seconds as I just managed to hang on to Andy as the bear and his flaming fridge jumped on me with 300m to go, and keep hold of 4th place. My total was 2654, 45 off target but injury free, that was a surprise in itself. I went home slightly annoyed - 4th again - but I had thoroughly enjoyed the day despite the timetable fiasco, so celebrations were allowed.

     This time I had something a bit special and out of the ordinary to drink, yes another single malt, not original I know, but this one is significantly different. Some of you may be familiar with the Bruichladdich distillery on Islay, Scotland, most, probably not (they do make the Botanist Gin).

They make heavily peated Islay single malts, similar to Bowmore, Ardbeg, Lagavulin and of course Laphroiag. Well if you think they are strong, Bruichladdich do a single malt called Octomore 09.1 and has 4 times the peat of Laphoiag and is served at 59.1%ABV, so no naked lights. I daren't add any water in case it exploded, but my word, drinking that was an experience. Apart from the mouthful of peat, you get oily lemon citrus and it is surprisingly smooth. Then after it's left your mouth, it sneaks back and delivers  a long, long peated finish. I visited Bruichladdich a few years ago, and can confirm they are slightly bonkers making things like their range (yes there is a range ) of Octomores. One they had only at the distillery was twice the peat to the 09.1. I digress again, though I will have to have a quick break and a drink......

     The weekend following the pentathlon saw me gain selection for Wales in the English Masters Inter Area challenge, this year I was up for the 60m and 200m, as somehow I was the only 50-59 sprinter available, must be the weather or something as I was nor going that quickly. Anyway, I rocked up minus any poles and got stuck in to the 60m warm up, still feeling the knee from last week, but the calf was fine after being treated to the single peat which I was sure I could still taste. I noticed that the other regions had managed to get their M50 stars out, so as a M55 vaulter, this would be tough. When we went to our marks I noticed Pat Logan was missing so there was hope in not being last. In fact I was 5th in 8.67 (SB) behind 4 M50s so I had to be happy with that despite the poor start I now seem to have adopted.

The 200m was a whole different ball game, I was indeed last (28.49), and by over a second, which was frustrating as I nailed the start, ran a good bend and was right in the mix until I tripped over a fridge in the back straight and a large furry creature stuck lead weights onto my legs. Many thanks to Neil Tunstall and John Statham for showing me how it should be done. The final event for me was the 4x200m Relay, always a great race and as lead off man a lot depended one me getting the team a start. Well again, I nailed the start (why?). This time the fridge was found in the home straight, but the team didn't have it's quota of sprinters and we faded to 3rd.

     I had two weeks of intensive training after that, I was injury free but lacking in vault time, but at least I was getting quicker and things were looking good in the long jump if I could hit the board and not the plasticine. I arrived early for the BMAF championships day 1 to do the 60m and the long jump, not expecting too much on the track other than maybe a season's best. I found myself lining up along side the inimitable Donald Brown, one of a few sprinters nearly a second faster than me over the short sprint - oh dear this could be embarrassing. No it wasn't, I did get a decent start and was with Donald for 20m, when I mis-stepped and Donald vanished, seemly into thin air. I caught up with him at the cushion wall as he was shaking everyone's hand, remarkably I was 3rd in 8.50. That was that I thought, won't make the final with that, so I prepared for the long jump. The pentathlon timetable debacle had lead me to change my long jump spikes to my old sprint spikes, and so it was today. I was flying in the two warm up jumps. Guess how I started the comp, yep - NJ! On the second jump I ran through so was now under pressure to make the cut. I messed up so badly on the 3rd jump that I took off from the wrong foot, at least on the board, and recorded 4.48m and made the cut. I changed the run up back to 2018's settings, but followed that with 3 no jumps all by less than 1cm and all in excess of  4.60m. To rub my nose into it, I was 4th - again! During the final rounds they announced the 60m finalists and I was in the final AND not the slowest qualifier. The final came round pretty quickly, and I have to say I was still feeling the 6 rounds of intensive long jump therapy, so there should be no surprise that I didn't hit the start well and was well down in 5th (8.57) as Pat Logan took it from Donald Brown in indecently fast times.

     Day 2 was vault day, and I was feeling rusty plus extra tired from the addition 60m event, and in warm up the run up refused to work, it took me 6 attempts to get it working well enough to take off, not good. And that's how the event went, crashed trough my opening height on my first attempt. second one was much better and we slithered over 2.50m. Went to 2.60m and struggled again, just couldn't get any penetration, but I did get over it. The three failing attempts at 2.70m were much the same, a work very much in progress, so 6th place and nothing to celebrate.

Happy new year or not?

I never know when the previous season ends and the next one starts, sure the outdoor season is over by October (well in Wales anyway), but does the indoor season start before or after the new year?

By some miracle I found myself fit enough to compete in the Cardiff Met Christmas Classic on the 16th December, so was this still the 2018 season or would it be 2019? The confusion is based on what good old Power of 10 does. Now, my interest was mostly on the Pole Vault and Long Jump as usual, I had some unfinished business with my 2018 results - could do better.  So I was hoping to improve my season's bests in both events but this would depend on what Po10 considers "This season" when listing Outdoors vs Indoors. For instance, if you list the 2019 Long Jump Rankings for the M55 Outdoors, it lists only performances from 2019 but all are currently flagged as Indoor performances, if you change to Indoors you get some extra ones from the end of 2018.

Putting this less than interesting discussion to one side before we all die of boredom, I found myself warming up well for the vault. My one training session had suggested 3.0m was a distinct possibility which would be a season's best in whatever year Po10 wanted. On my third run through I did indeed slither over a 3.30m bungee bar, so I was on song for once. Well so I thought anyway, lady luck had other plans for me as usual. The competition started at a leisurely rate and I entered at 2.60m, first vault is always my worst, so it should be no surprise that it all went terribly wrong once again, at least I didn't break anything, uprights, bar, pole and bones included. Sadly vault 2 was a disaster, half way down the runway as I hit the gas button, my right calf gave way and cramped up, resulting in another catastrophic failure. I took my third attempt, which was surprisingly the best of the trio despite the pain that had appeared in my leg. So that was that, end of season or a failure to start the season as I had to withdraw from the long jump.

I guess you all know how I drowned my sorrows once again, but it involved a bottle of Macallan 10 year old Fine Oak, and very fine it is too. Being a typical Macallan Speyside malt that I'm sure a lot of you have seen in Tescos, the taste has that familiar sherry oaky-ness to it with the remnants of the Bourbon cask it was aged in. Its quite oily and smooth to drink with a lovely finish as it slides down leaving a little nutty flavour.

Christmas was approaching fast so, I basically took an early break from training to rehab the calf which was thankfully successful. Whiskymas, as I have now christened it, was fun from a single malt perspective.

The above Mcallan took a bit of a beating as you would expect and I sneaked what was the last but one shot from my 1960 Strathisla, I may have to invest in another one of them despite the huge cost as it's so darn good. Like the Mcallan, its very oaky with rich chewy fruitiness, with butterscotch and sherry flavours and full of smokeyness which is slightly unusual for a Highland malt, more typical of the neighbouring Speyside offerings. It's unusual, but that is because it pre-dates the era of consistency, by which I mean the casks bottled varied but the distilleries didn't worry as they do now. So no effort was made to make every bottle taste the same by vatting loads of casks before bottling. Anyway, I wouldn't rush out to buy one though, if you can find one it'll cost over £500 - I bought mine years ago for about £50, and a second for £120 which I can no longer afford to replace.

The new year was ushered in with the resumption of some serious training with the Welsh Masters indoor track championships less than three weeks away, this was focused on sorting out my diabolical block start. I actually managed to do this without injuring myself for once, so I was feeling pretty good when I sauntered into the Non Thomas Cardiff Met Open meeting at NIAC on the 20th of January. I'd entered the 60m and the 200m, and ducked the 400m as it was immediately after the 200m and I wasn't that fit. Sadly the 60m didn't go that well, I thought I started well but there were too many ahead of me for that to be so. When I saw the Welsh Masters Athletics Association photos, I could see I was  4th out of the blocks, so a crap start by anyone's standard. On the upside, I did win the race, all thanks to a blistering second 30m. The time was nothing special: 8.74, my second worst time, narrowly beating one I clocked several years ago when I tripped out the blocks attempting to do a Jamaican start. I felt it was a promising start as I'd only really done half a dozen sessions, the 200m should be better.

After enjoying the couple of hours recovery, a luxury I'm not usually afforded, I lined up for M55 200m as the only one entered from WMAA. My opposition were a trio of English guests from the younger age groups, so I was unlikely to keep pace despite their banter to the contrary. Sure enough, I started well, (well better than the 60m anyway), and hit the first bend as hard as I could. Nevertheless, I drifted back from the others. I dug deep on the final bend but only succeeded in digging myself a hole full of treacle through which it felt like I was dragging a fridge. Through the bleary head spinning haze I managed to clock 28.85. Time for a lie down and - yes - when I got home the rest of the Macallan was consumed by way of celebration of the two medals but also to forget the times.

My next competition was the second part of the Welsh Masters championships, the field events at the Swansea indoor "Track" on the 10th February. I concentrated once more on the vault and hurdles as the latter is the first event in the indoor pentathlon that I intended to enter later that month, and the vault is of course one of my preferred disciplines. I was unable to maintain the wave of common sense that had preceeded the previous meeting, and I entered all five events - Long Jump, Shot Putt, High Jump, Pole Vault and Triple Jump. This would be demanding and good preparation for the multi-event championship later in the month. I opened my account with the shot, not a sparkling throw but acceptable at 7.67m, then it was across to the adjacent long jump and my first attempt to claim the no. 1 spot in Wales. I made it three quarters of the way down the runway before my left calf decided enough was enough and painfully turned to reinforced concrete. I did jump as I was travelling too quick to stop, and rather embarrassingly took 2nd place with 4.14m to go with 3rd in the shot.

I left early feeling rather deflated after allowing the leg some time to recover with a bag of ice from St. Johns. As I strapped the unused poles to the roof of the car, I wondered if I would recover in time for next week's BMAF Pentathlon, it was going to be touch and go, so I went.  When I had driven the 55 miles home in a real sulk, I realised I had left my kit bag in the car park, yet another senior moment that couldn't be blamed on the whisky. My brother in law drove me back down but the bag had gone, along with my wallet. Then something strange happened, my bank texted me to thank me for letting them know I'd lost my payment card, which I had yet to do. Either they were psycic or my wife had rung them. Turned out to be neither, one of the meeting officials had rescued my bag and contacted the bank to try to locate me, so after a couple of phone calls I was reunited with my kit and cards in time for dinner.