5 live sprint relay

Leading out a team of proper athletes in front of 16,000 fans - live on BBC1 - is not something I ever thought I'd do.

Having confidently predicted all week that I "don't generally struggle with nerves", I was shivering with fear and adrenalin as we were led out into the Stadium at Crystal Palace.

The 4 x 100m Legends relay at the Aviva London Grand Prix not only gave frustrated wannabe sportsmen like myself the opportunity to sample an unexpected slice of glory, but also provided a fascinating insight into the lives of our world-class athletes.

Arriving hours before the race, calculating what and when to eat, nervously pinning on the race numbers, warming up, waiting for that final call into the arena - the whole thing was an incredible adrenalin rush.

I was lucky enough to form a 5 live team with producers Amy Hill and Imogen Crump, with a mere Olympian in Iwan Thomas running our anchor leg. Iwan even let me use his 1998 European Championship gold medal-winning spikes.

The competition was Roger Black's Independent on Sunday Team, John Regis' mob representing the Daily Telegraph, and recently retired sprinter Jason Gardener's crew running for The Mirror.

Amy managed to tweak her thigh in warm-up and faced a late fitness test, while Imo's main concern was the realisation she was actually going to be running in front of millions of people on live television.

As you will see from the video, we managed to overcome the nerves to make a reasonable fist of our first, and probably last, shot at a sprint relay.

Iwan had given us one training session and was reasonably confident, but he knew Roger Black's team were the big danger. And so it proved, although our silver medal could well have turned gold had race stewards given closer inspection to Black's clear breach of lane discipline down the final straight!

I'm now wrestling with the desire to do some competitive sprinting, while trying to remind myself I'm a 32 year old man who is more at home in the pub than on a track.

Iwan's keen on coaching our team again next year and Gabby Logan's promised to get involved too. Perhaps with the Logan competitive streak we can give that silver the Midas Touch!