Made my first foray into the world of international Masters Athletics competitions. Tampere in Finland were selected as hosts and I must say it’s an amazing city and great facilities for athletics. The main track was excellent and there seemed to be a couple of other good tracks very near by – one was a 300m track which was novel.
Luckily the timing meant we could make it a family holiday at the same time, renting a house in Tampere for the event days and then moving on to another place for the rest of the stay.
The organisation was excellent and it was so inspiring to see so many people competing at every age. The performances put in are incredible, a wake-up call for me now and something to aspire to in the years to come.
There is a great spirit of camaraderie amongst the athletes and so much work put in by officials and organisers.
By lucky chance I was drawn into the TaFMAC (Track and Field Master Athletic Category) study carried out by the DLR Institute of Space Medicine. A wonderful team and the closest I got to flying in the whole tournament. They carried out a wide range of tests and gave me some real insights into my physical condition.
You might have noticed that I’ve been avoiding the topic of running. Yes, procrastination. I crashed out in the first round of the 400m. This mirrored my worst fears as I’d contracted Covid some months before. My symptoms were quite mild but I found in training that when I “hit the wall” it was nothing like I’d ever experienced previously. In some early 400 races I would get to 200m in a good time and feel really strong. Then my performance would fall off a cliff. I know a 400 often feels a bit like that, you can be deceived at 200, but this was different.
On the day I drew an outside lane, not a big deal I’ve mentally put myself into the “all lanes have a positive” mode. As a taller runner I know I have gentler bends in the outside and hit the straight early. I was somewhat shocked by how quickly a couple of inside runners overtook me but I felt I could respond and was feeling good at 250, then it just fell apart. This had happened in previous races and whilst I don’t have the splits I reckon I was about 29 seconds for the first 200, and it went so badly in the home straight that my second 200 would have been about 38 seconds. That wasn’t me giving up, I fought my body to the line, but finished a convincing last.
