At the age of 51 I become the international cross country masters 10k champion for the British Isles in the over 50s group. It had been a long hard journey to get here and I had hoped to do it the year before when I turned 50 but had to cry off due to injury. So here I am looking back over my thirty four years of running trying to identify what the significant points were along the way.

I was an athlete desperate to move from county standard to regional and maybe national, at senior level, but never did.

Maybe there are readers who can relate to this.

I started running in September 1976 after leaving North London Polytechnic. Working as a trainee accountant I ran my socks off for 2 years, achieving Worcester track 5000 champion in a time of 15:08 and 50th in the Midland cross country championships.

First Pivotal moment as a senior

Left my job that I hated and went to Loughborough University in Oct 1980, just to run. The degree was incidental as I already had one. First university training run from the athletic pavilion stands out as the most memorable run I've ever done. I was as fit as I could be knowing it would be a huge burn-up. The spreads of talent was incredible. Over 50 of us poured out of the pavilion to do 5 miles on the road. I was 5 minute miling just to hold my place near the front. After 2 miles we entered a housing estate and piled down the middle of the road, cars stopped, passersby stopped and cheered and kids rode their bikes alongside cheering on Seb Coe. I couldn't believe how fortunate I was. I was in a candy store. This set the tone for the 3 years at uni; running hard in training and badly in races. However in 1982 I salvaged something when I won the BUSF cross country B race, having come 19th in it the year before.

By the time I left Loughborough I was exhausted, having tried everything to make that jump up but still firmly planted at county standard. In 1983 I stopped running.

Second Pivotal moment

In 1994 at the age of 37 I started again. I'd been living in Oxford for 4 years and had made some money but rather than buying a house or investing it I decided I'd be a full time runner and live off my savings, with a view to doing as well as I could as a veteran athlete.

Third pivotal moment

Not knowing beforehand that Nick Rose was running, I couldn't believe it when he jogged past my car while I was having my pre-race sandwich. A great thrill. In 1977 /8 ?? he won the national cross country and I was 919th. I can still remember showing my boss his picture on the front cover of AW. He was impressed with him and disappointed for me as he was aware of the massive gulf in ability between us. So it was a great honour to run alongside Nick and at a national cross country championship some 31 or 32 years later ??