The 400m hurdler remembers the Commonwealth Games in 2018 when he placed fourth in 49.18

The Commonwealth Games were early in 2018 because of being on the Gold Coast. The year before, I was in the best shape that I'd ever been in and, quite frankly, I thought I was in shape to win the World Championships. However, in the heats in London, I destroyed a hurdle and that took that opportunity away.

I still wasn't funded, still training on my own, but I had a little bit of a vendetta against the Commonwealth Games because that was the only championships I'd never competed in and I really wanted to perform well and prove something to myself.

I used what money I'd saved up to go out about two months earlier than needed, just to acclimatise and make sure I was prepared. I was very fortunate that someone I knew had an acquaintance out there who allowed me to live with them for half of that for free so I could train on the Gold Coast. I put everything, physically and emotionally, into performing at those Games.

I was coaching myself by then. I was very fortunate that I’d worked with Malcolm Arnold, and then with Loren Seagrave. I was always very keen on becoming a coach, and very curious as to the whys.

Malcolm taught me how to work hard because of how his programme works. It's brutal, and you survive it, whereas Loren was Mr. Science, and he taught me how to work smart. The blend between them both, and then my own philosophies and understanding myself, allowed me to then coach myself, but the problem is there's no other voice. It becomes very difficult to know more than you already know.

I was incredibly consistent when it comes to fitness, and not someone who started really slow and then suddenly comes out of nowhere. The strange thing, though, was preparing for a major championships without a season beforehand, not having that race experience.

I did the Queensland Classic and another small meet, on the same track, against two other people. Normally, you're looking at trying to get in 12-15 races before a championships. Now I was doing two that felt like my county championships, even if the athletes I was competing against were still of a decent standard.

I knew I needed to be prepared so it was also a case of having confidence – one in my training, but two in the fact that everyone else is in the same position for that time of year.

I was in phenomenal shape but the thing with the Commonwealths is that some events are incredibly competitive, and some are not so. I happened to be in an event that was incredibly competitive.

If you look at the three guys who finished ahead of me – Kyron McMaster was number one in the world at the time, Jeffery Gibson had already won bronze at the Glasgow Commonwealths and in a world final and then we had Jaheel Hyde, who was world junior champion and is one of the best. Behind me was Nicholas Bett, who has passed away now, but was world champion in 2015. It was a really high standard.

The heats were dropped so it was just a semi-final and final. That's another bit of stress, because you're just turning up and you're going for it. There's no feeling of easing into it, especially when having more races would have been quite good at that time of year.

But I believed I could win a medal and I never doubted that. Bar a little bit of a stumble at hurdle 10, I probably should have but I'm incredibly proud of that performance, because it was the first time that I appreciated how far I'd come.

When you think of my career, the many ups and downs – and the fact that four years previously I wasn't even running – I was out there and competing with the best athletes in the world for a medal.

The other thing is, I actually just focused on my race for once, rather than looking at other people and that comparison of “how are they hurdling? what are they doing?”

I executed the best race of my career. It might not have been the fastest, but the execution, the focus on myself and then the understanding of that journey were really powerful moments for me.

Obviously I was disappointed not to win medal, but I was content with where I was and what I'd done, and had an understanding that I couldn’t stop other people running fast. I could only make myself run as fast as possible.

I came fourth, yet that's something I really cherished for the rest of my career. I missed a bronze by two-hundredths of a second and a silver by seven-hundreds, but I celebrated that race because it was quite a journey.

I didn’t know it would be my final year. I put so much into that early part of the season that I was pretty much holding on for the rest of the year. Coming back from Australia, within that week, I flew to Qatar to do the Diamond League because I wasn't funded. I was working part-time jobs.

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Physically, I was just a bit cooked. But, as a sponsored athlete with Nike, I was told this was how contracts work – you have to compete in the major championships of that year, which were the European Championships in August.

That meant I couldn't shut my season down early. I needed to be able to stay and make sure that I kept my contract for that year, which meant that I was pretty much hanging on.

As told to Mark Woods. This article first appeared in the October issue of AW magazine.

Jack Green now runs Tasr, helping athletes with mental awareness. Find out more at tasr.io

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