Lee Valley hosted the BMAF British Indoor Championships for 2022 – great to have this competition back again.
I decided to enter the 60m hurdles primarily just to get some practice in clearing barriers and confidence in leading with my left leg rather than depending pretty much on my right. I planned my journey to arrive about 1.5 hours before race time but my usual exit was closed for roadworks and the diversion was logjammed. When I arrived I’d breached the 1 hour check-in and the initial response was basically “tough” you’ve lost your spot. After some discussion with the call room and then registration again my place was reinstated. This toing and froing meant I just had 15 minutes for my whole wark up. Didin’t go too badly, but my start was slow meaning I didn’t really attack the first hurdle and this thew me off. However I was happy to hit 4 strides for every hurdle. Coming away with the Bronze medal wasn’t what I expected.
The 400m came next (next day in fact). I left a much larger buffer this time, but no sooner had I joined the M25 than it was closed in both directions for an accident. When I saw the air ambulance come in I knew it could be cut fine. That was the case and once again I had a 15 minute warmup.
However, I felt well prepared. I was drawn in lane 6 and felt I got off to a good start. With hindsight, I didn’t attack the second bend properly so lost pace on the upward slope. I couldn’t hear anyone inside (it’s usually easy to hear people close to you. So I last the lead as we broke and ended up in a close fifth, but 29 seconds so fairly happy. I felt good and tried to reposition on bend three but here the legs started to rebel. With 100m to go, it felt like I was wading through treacle. So a dismal 6th in 64 seconds – so much work to do!
