After a great showing in the Scottish Indoor Championships, the 2022 British Masters Indoor Championships at Lee Valley turned out to be a bitter disappointment.
I didn’t run well and made some poor tactical decisions, albeit I have to admit to being concerned about the track from a safety perspective, having almost fallen on my two previous visits there.
The track is famous for being uneven on the approaches to and exits from bends and I have to be honest this was preying on my mind. I was out in lane 6 for the 200m, which was unbelievably bumpy to the point where I stumbled twice and had to back off before finishing in 4th place overall. It speaks volumes that Mike Vassiliou the European Champion and top seed (who ran a great race) was in lane 3 rather than in one of the higher lanes as would be expected for indoor seedings.
I followed up the 200m with a tactically poor performance in the 400m. No fault of the track this time it was just bad racing, but thankfully it taught me a valuable lesson for the rest of the season. Having fallen off the pace in the first lap and let the leaders get too far ahead at the break, I then had a racing incident with Tennyson James, just as we both started kicking at the start of the second lap and I finished in 4th place. Unfortunately, Tennyson was disqualified after the race for the incident, and I was promoted to 3rd place. However, this was a bitter sweet feeling and definitely not how I would want to win medals.
Racing aside, I had a great trip, as always, with Ron & Kath Stewart and Lourdes Bradley from North Shields Poly Athletics Club.
Stuart Lynn - Masters Athlete 