Reflecting on his first race of the season in Ostrava. 1 June 2010

Following a breakthrough on the international scene at the IAAF World Championships last year, Dai Greene is looking forward to his 2010 campaign. His blog for Definitive gives you the low down on his first race of the year………

I have recently been away warm weather training in Formia, Italy for a couple of weeks. It was great to get away and do some quality high intense training. Its surprising how much faster you can run with the soaring temperatures. However, returning to the UK was a frustration as I was met with dark clouds, 8c and rain!

After my trip away my first race was fast approaching. Despite training well I have been unable to do as much hurdling as I would usually due to a niggling foot problem, which has chosen to rear its ugly head at the most inconvenient of times. But I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to race the reigning World Champion, Kerron Clement (USA). I knew my foot would be OK to race but it just meant that I was going to be a little rusty over the sticks.

Time to travel to Ostrava for my opening race. I land in a small airport called Brno, and I quickly find that my phone has no reception here, I cannot contact anyone. The problem seems to be affecting a lot of other athletes, not a great start to the season. When the race rolled round I found myself really on edge and nervous, I just wanted to get it over with. I knew I had an unfavourable lane draw, with all my serious competitors inside me. This made my race plan easier in a way: Don’t let them catch you!!

I did exactly that for 360m, until I hit hurdle 10, stumbling slightly into the next lane. I finished 2nd in a European leading time of 49.05s, a very good season opener with clear room for improvement. Since then I have been very confident of the season ahead, you never really know where you are until you race. My next race is in Oslo this Friday 4 June, its part of the IAAF Diamond League series and will be one of my biggest races outside of a major champs. The field is likely to be full of top names and I’m looking forward to getting stuck in and improving on my first race.

Hope you tune in to watch, think it’s on Eurosport, otherwise check out our twitter or facebook page to find out how it goes.

Dai