Wednesday 14 July 2010

Gateshead Disability Challenge

My fourth athletics competition of the season took place in Gateshead a day after the Diamond League event held at the same venue. Originally, they were asking for specific standards, which would have meant I wouldn’t have been able to run, as I’m having a bad season. However, these were dropped.

This was the first time I would run with the same guide, as the previous three competitions have all been with different people. My cousin got married on Saturday, so we couldn’t travel up to Gateshead until afterwards, resulting in arriving there at 11.30pm. Things didn’t go well the next morning, as they moved my race forward without notifying anyone and when we arrived at the track at 10am, they had called my race. It was essential I had a good warm up because of my calf still not 100%, but I wasn’t able to do anything. I got a couple of runs in down on the track before the start, but then felt even more stressed when the official was harping on at me to use blocks, which I am still learning. I rounded off my bad luck with a false start and held back the second time around.

Bang, I felt like I was being dragged all the way and gripped onto the guide rope as tight as I could. Realistically I should have been able to stay up with her, but I was slow off the start. This put me off balance a little. I came last, but that was expected as I was racing five time Paralympian Tracey Hinton and silver Paralympic medallist Libby Clegg. My time came out at 15.22, my best this season, a tenth off my PB and a tenth off funding. I should have started the season with this sort of time.

My calf felt really tight after I had finished and did a good warm up before my 200m. Bang, I was in lane one so chasing all the way and wasn’t going around the bend at all. I kept barging my guide. As we came onto the home straight, I straightened up and kicked hard at 80m, on reflection I should have kicked again at 50m, but I thought I had really messed up since I had allot of energy left. So, I was really surprised to get a PB of 32.35secs, a tenth of a second off of funding. I know if I get the bend right I can smash that time.

Overall it wasn’t a bad day, but I’m so behind of schedule through injury, lack of guide runner and racing that the World Champs qualification standards look out of my reach. However, I should be able to secure my funding by the end of the season.

I trained on Monday and I was in agony with my calf. Yesterday and today I’m icing it every two hours, stretching it out as much as possible and massaging it too. I’m racing again tonight in the Charnwood Open and then again on Saturday. I probs shouldn’t be running on it at all, but I’ve missed far too many races.

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