What a difference a Year makes!

Last Tuesday I ran the Castlewellan Christmas Cracker, it was a run race with a bit of I difference; it was a pairs race, you had to cross the line with your partner. I was rather lucky to have a very good partner in the form of Andrew Christie, Andy is a member of the Scottish Triathlon Squad. The race was on and off road mainly off road, for 10 miles; basically the route sent you up every possible hill around or near Castlewellan lough. It was nothing that I was used to but was an extremely good hard work out which was all I was looking for, it was also a bonus that Andy and myself were running well and managed to finish 3rd overall and 1^st Junior pair. Not bad for not being runners, but to be fair the triathletes stuck it to the runners as the top 6 finishers consisted of 3 Triathletes, the other being Bryan McCrystal, who was ½ of the 2nd pair.

So if I come back to the title of the blog; ‘what a difference a year makes’, this time of year always seems to be a time of, out with the old and in with the new and reflection on the year past. Last year was a pretty eventfully one, best described as a bit of a roller coaster. This time last year I wasn’t even allowed to run never mind run a 10mile trail race. Even with my lack of running I still managed to achieve some good results, I managed to come 4^th in the British Junior Champs with only 2 weeks of running in my legs; which qualified me to race at the European Junior Champs, as big a disappointment as it was a lot of valuable lessons were learnt, I also got my 1^st Elite Win at the London Junior Elite Triathlon, and to top it off I got a top 10 finish in a Junior European Cup, with my 9th Place in Tisijauvarous, Hungary. Therefore I can still take some satisfaction from these results when they were achieved after being out of running for 8 ½ months.

Next year is another big year, it will probably be my biggest so far, a year in which I will be trying to establish myself at the Olympic distance, and get some good solid results under my belt. It is obviously going to be tough to make the jump up to Senior racing but I do think that this distance may suit me better, and I am obviously in a much better shape at this time of the year than my previous two seasons in the sport.

Looking forward to 2012 I wish everyone all the very best and lets make it a good one.

Good Luck and Happy New Year.