Having not entered any races for a few years with serious top national level athletes, I thought I would dip my toe in the water again and see how I got on.  I have managed to get myself in the sort of shape that meant I felt I could justify a run out, even though at 36 I knew I would not progress very far.

So - I entered the Southern Counties Championships, traditionally the strongest of the area Champs in the UK and went along last weekend.

Most of the runners in the races had run a lot faster than me this year (or any recent year) and this was borne out by my lane draw right on the inside in lane one. 

It was great to be warming up with athletes who were focussed, determined and with considerable hurdling talent (none of these are the norm in my normal Southern League Div 3 races - many of which don't see any of the other athletes clear a hurdle until the race begins!).  The atmosphere was good and the conditions not at all bad either (although racing at 10.30am has never been my favourite).

As the oldest person there, I was fully expecting the entire field to run away from me and leave me toiling in lane 1, so I was very pleasantly surprised as I was ahead of a couple of people through 200 and even picked another one off in the final straight to finish 5th from 8 in the race.  It wasn't enough to progress to the semi-finals (the top 16 of 30 went through and I was 22nd), but it did drag me to my best time in 5 years of 58.67.

Now I'm excited to try to get into more races like this.....