After playing football on Wednesday evening I had done nothing at all on Thursday and Friday but felt like I was coming down with something and even had some kind of groin strain on Friday evening. I had entered both the 1500m and 800m and didn't feel up to either. However I felt slightly better on Saturday morning and headed down to the Kelvin Hall where I ambitiously declared for both events, which were nearly two hours apart on the timetable. I noticed in the list of 1500m participants that there only appeared to be two M35s (including me) but didn't manage to see who was in for the 800m.
The 1500m consisted of the two M35s and three M40s. I tried to run each lap in 35 seconds which was fine for the first two and put me in fourth place, but I started to lose about a second per lap and fell into fifth - in any case I wasn't likely to catch the other M35. I was still looking for an SB and with 200m left I kicked strongly, moved back into fourth and opened up a gap - possibly made up a little ground on the runners in front but I finished fourth in the race and second in the M35 category. Time was an SB of 4:30.86.
By the time of the 800m I seemed to have recovered fine from the earlier race. Again it was a combined M35/M40 but this time I was the only M35 of the four participants. The pace was quite slow and we went through 400m in about 65 seconds. I thought several times about taking it on, but I knew at least one of the three M40s was much faster than I was, and in any case the championship was assured by default so I was probably a bit complacent. Nonetheless, when the fastest M40 started to pull away, I went with him and held on to finish just behind him in second place. My time was 2:12.36 which is a bit slower than I had hoped for but I would have preferred to run the first 400m in 62 or so and try to hang on.
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