Just run what could possibly be the last competitive run of the year and it was bad. I wasn’t very tuned into doing this one. This last year has mainly been dedicated to long distance off-road. I wanted to sample that kind of running. Job done and I thoroughly enjoyed the year. My overall running improved over most distances. Including the short distance track training sessions. This is why I was disappointed with a lackluster performance at a local 10k. It hurt more because I was racing with 4 other club members. 1 of which I should have at least gone over the finish-line with. The others are just too fast. As it was, I was 34 seconds down on him. Next year I’ll fix that. Most of my year’s long distance running is non-competitive, because I put most of the miles in with just me and the dog – with some distant distance goal in mind. The dog can run my legs off at the twitch of her tail - so no competition there then. I have to admit though, I have a competitive streak which ‘streaks’ more during shorter races. This is now the dilemma, to know how fast you can run any distance - you have to train for the distance or even the type of surface you want to race on. If I decide to run more Ultras this year, (Which I want to do) then I’ll not be thinking shorter distance speed - so won’t be as fast as I could be. Maybe the simple solution is forget about short distance racing, unless I’m prepared to forget about Ultras even marathons! Who knows, maybe circumstances will dictate what distance and type of running I can do in the future, so I may get a crack at becoming competitive over the shorter distance yet. Short distance would be fairer to the family because far less time is needed for training. But how I would miss those Welsh hills.