A great day at the nationals today in London, always a great spectacle, and standing at the top of the hill watching the other races come steaming up the first hill, with the Skyline of London in the background, in the sun, was fantastic (although bitterly cold).

As for the race, well it didn't go well for me. Was running well for the first 15 minutes, feeling fresh and holding my position well. But around that point my calf unsurprisingly started to play up and I was pretty much reduced to a jog for the remainder of the race. Quite literally hundreds passed me and I trundled in to finish about 1500th in 59mins.

I dread to think how many places I actually lost. One of my teammates who I usually beat by minutes, came past me within about 800 metres of the finish, and beat me by a minute, so I reckon I lost a minimum of 4 or 5 minutes and I suspect probably a bit more than that.

Was a great course, very muddy and slippy in places, with quite a few hilly sections. Bit of a shame for me that I got held up at the top of the first hill in the congestion, and then a second time going down the hill on the other side, but in the end it was irrelevant due to my calf issues.

But still, I finished (which after 15 mins was looking an impossible task), and didn't do any major damage, and can rest it properly now.

As for the team, we finished about 49th team which is down on last year, but I thought the standard was a lot higher this year. A bit gutted as I was in line to be a scorer today if I'd been fit and raring, in fact my issues look to have cost us 4 or 5 team places. Not to mention another team mate had to pull out with a calf problem. But on the other hand we beat pretty much all the other teams from around the 'mid midlands' with the exception of Tipton Harriers.

Tempted to go back in May and watch the elite runners there, in whatever the competition (European Champs or something similar I think).