The week after Leeds was te European Cross Country Trials on my door step in Liverpool's iddylic Sefton Park. I've only ever took part in this great event once as it falls on or around my wife's birthday and we're usually away but I ran it last year and really regretted treating it as a gloryfied tempo run as the going was good to firm.

This year the course was a total bog but I was still determined to have a real crack at it, looking to get top 200 which isn't as staright forward as it sounds! Mainly because I'm usually poor on this surface and the fact this is hands down THE most competitive race I the UKA calendar. The top lads and lasses go to Kenya for a month prior to prepare just for this race and it's a who's who of distance running right through the card.

I got there with plenty of time to spare and took in the earlier races, cheering on the local boys and girls in the junior racs and had a good warm up before getitng onto the starting line. The plan was to start off easy but with hindsight this was a mistake. The course itself is 9.8k and pretty flat. There were about three really boggy sections where the mud was above the ankle but in general I thought the course was ok. I worked my way through the field and after about 4 miles I got into a good group of runners and we pulled each other through the course. I had planned on trying to get under 6 min miles, running low 37 mins but going into the last lap I knew this was off but mot by too much.

I really wanted to run with a few of Liverpool Harriers lads. Sion Williams who I train with on Tuesdays and Lee Midghall and Carl Mountain - they are around my ability on the road but usually better than me on the country but I couldn't see them anywhere. With abut a mile to go I spotted Carl ahead so guessed Lee and Sion would be ahead again. I really pushed and fisinshed strongly and to my surpise I felt good all the way around, the pace didn't dropp off too drastically and I finshed 38.42 which is a minute quicker than 2011 and I was just inside the top 200.

Lee and Sion were over 1 min ahead which was a bit dissapointing but I enjoyed the race and had great support all the way arund from friends and family.

The following weekend I made the fatal error of going out on the lash all night Friday, didn't recover for Sunday and had a shocker at Arrowe Park, I was 31st and Penny Lane finished 2nd by 4 pionts! I was fuming with myself after it, as poor as I am on the XC there's no way I'd have finished 31st if I didn't go out and get bladdered on the Friday! You live and learn*

*well I don't, much!

The two weeks in between my training hasn't been very consistent. I was on a course with work last week nad could only run in the evening. I still managed a session at Wavertree which was scheduled to be 20 x 400 but foolishly started out doing 72 - 75 seconds and by the fourth set of 4 I was spent! Think it was because I hadn't run for 2 days I was excited! I done a good hills session with PLS on the Thursday, hitthing the hills really hard. I managed 40 miles which Abbey Dash tapper aside is probbaly just over half my usual average. This week I've got some good sessions and steady miles in - Tuesday was the Galen Rupp efforts of 6 x 4.30 mins followed by 6 x 30 seconds full pelt at the end. Dave has started to slip this session every 5 weeks or so, it's tough but good. Thursday I ran a 10k tempo, averaging 6 min miles which was tough in the cold and on my own - character building!

I'm off to see the Bootleg Beatles (not as the Bootleg Mark Chapman, natch) tonight so I predict another day on the couch watch TopGear/Bording Patrol tomorrow! Hopefully I'll recover enough to get a few miles over the weekend, maybe do a long run Sunday.

I've entered Telford 10k next weekend, I'm going to have a stab at getting under 35 - it's a long way to go to be cautious!