European Mountain Running Championships, Bulgaria

Personally, a disappointing race. I'd been struggling with an injury (nerve tightness in my glutes and right leg) for a couple of weeks but thanks to treatment from GB team physio Graeme Everard, stood on the startline feeling the problem was under control. And, for the first lap, it was. The course wasn't as steep as these races generally but with each lap consisting of a mile straight up followed by a mile straight down there was nowhere on the course to relax and the racing was fast and furious. Great Britain packed well on the opening run-in through the town and thankfully the wild dogs we'd been warned about seemed to be well out of the way. Quite a few bemused spectators around, plus we were live on Bulgarian TV throughout the morning!

Descending for the first time, I was third out of the Brits and feeling quite confident, running in the top 30, but at the bottom of the descent my glute starting tightening again. Gradually this spread to the right leg and then my foot - couldn't get going on the climb and lost a lot of time on the descent, with my foot jarring instead of rolling with the ground. Dropped to 56th, pleased to finish and be part of the team but gutted I couldn't improve on last year's 34th. James McMullan had a strong debut in 23rd, followed by Gareth Raven in 25th and Orlando Edwards in 31st, and with the team matching last year's 7th we at least showed we can beat the Germans at something! The whole GB team, incidentally, wore either X-Talons or Mudrocs. Turkey's Ahmet Arslan retained his title for the 3rd time and with 4 in the first 6, Italy once again dominated the team race. GB did leave with 1 set of medals as the Junior Boys picked up bronze in their race.

So, this race has just made me even more determined to run well at the upcoming trial race for the World Champs team. I'm back training now after plenty of physio treatment and lots of painful nerve stretches and looking forward to the rest of the summer.