What a year!

After many years of enjoyment and success as a decathlete, I made a huge decision to concentrate on a couple of events! My career as a 400m hurdler begins!  This year has been a huge learning curve but I am very pleased with how I have adapted to my new event!
My 2012 season started off very slowly. After fantastic warm weather training in Spain, running some of the quickest times of my life, I was buzzing to get back and race. Unfortunately there was one major problem, the British summer which was very disappointing his year, consisting of wind and rain which never seem to stop for the first two months of competition!
The 400m hurdles is a real tough event, you have to really learn and understand the event which you can only get through race experience.
Due to my speed between the hurdles, I never was able to get 15 strides all the way round. It wasn’t until my race at Loughborough international where I was chopping on to hurdles, not using my speed to my advantage, that I decided 14 strides was a must! Steve, my coach, had known this all along but I needed to be beaten to really realise it was an essential part of my race!
The very next day we were down the track mastering 14 strides to hurdles 5! A visit from Sally Gunnell to my training session gave me great encouragement. Unfortunately I wasn't able to really try it out on the track due to horrendous headwinds down the back straight, and that's where my inexperience showed, I just couldn't run into a head wind using 14 strides, but the event is all about adapting and racing what ever the conditions!

UK Under 23 Champion

All the hard work paid off. My first taste of success was at the England championships in Birmingham, after running a heat and semi, the final was a bonus, I came out and got the bronze medal in my first championships over the hurdles and also a slight pb of 51.8! In awful conditions, I was the only athlete to manage a PB!
A month afterwards was the under 23 championships at Bedford, after winning my heat with ease a medal was on the cards for sure! I felt focused and ready! I won in a winning time of 51.2, my first ever title, http://www.flotrack.org/coverage/249472-2012-National-U20-U23-Championships/video/642490-U23-Men-400mH-Final and was a good father's day present for my dad!! http://www.athleticos.org/coverage/249472-2012-National-U20-U23-Championships/video/642314-Sebastian-Rodger-National-U23-400m-Hurdles-Champion
Running for my new team, Shaftesbury Barnet Harriers, against top athletes in the Premier league, helped me in my progress in learning to run the 400m hurdles. It wasn't until the second to last event at Barnet where I finally got my stride pattern down and it worked so well! 14 strides to 5 and 15s home, I came 2nd behind one of the best in the country, and took some good scalps along the way! A pb of 51.10 and a 400m relay split of 46.2, good days work!

A new PB running in the Olympic Stadium

The following week I had the highlight of my season being able to race at the Olympic stadium in a test event only a couple of days before the Olympic games started. I came 2nd in a class field and ran another pb of 50.64 my first run under 51!
Travelling to Sweden, on my own, was another great experience. I came 2nd in a elite field with 50.98 in very windy conditions. The past month of training had all come together and I can run my stride pattern in any conditions! So was pleased!
The final British league was in Liverpool. I was up for a quick race and I won the race with a pb of 50.50 and it felt easy! I knew physically and mentally I was capable of running low 50s and even in the right conditions a sub 50! 
My last race of the season was competing for Sussex at CAU inter counties, Bedford. After winning the heat easily with a time of 50.89 I new I was running well in the final and I won by over a second with 50.65. My second title of the year! I knew I can and will run under 50 seconds. I tried to find opens in this country or abroad but after talking to Steve and Greg, my physio, it was decided that I needed a rest to get ready for a hard tough winter training - I cannot wait!!

CAU Intercounties Champion

This year was all about learning the hurdles and racing which I have achieved! But it hasn’t only been about the hurdling. I ran only 3 times over 400m flat, opened with 47.9, then 47.2 at Newham and then a 46.99 at Barnett. I would have and should have been running much faster if had raced more but am happy with the progress, also running 21.56 in 200m, that time will also be smashed next year!
Am very pleased how this year has gone. My times have put me in the top 10 in the country, number 2 on the Under 23 list, 2nd in the Sussex all time list and all in my first year!
Am now just on a break for few weeks, and then will be hitting the winer season hard, 2013 is going to be a big year! Watch this space!!
This year wouldn't have been possible without great support from my family, Chloe, friends, Steve, David Vandyke, Chris Minn, Ian Wilson and Greg Funnel at Optimum Muscle Care, who has kept my body in peek condition throughout the season! A huge thank you guys!