BBC Sport's Steve Cram wishes the current crop of British middle-distance runners would race cross-country as often as he used to do.
We are on the cusp of the switch between the cross-country season and the indoor season, and that has got me thinking about the priority each should have.
For middle distance runners, cross-country is an integral part of the winter training load.
You do not have to be winning races left, right and centre - but for 800m and 1500m athletes the endurance and stamina is perfect.
True, I didn't like it when I was slogging my way round through six inches of mud, but I did it.
You should focus on endurance, not on racing
The indoors thing has been a huge problem in that it has become a big emphasis in some athletes' seasons.
That means people end up doing track work all year round, something which wouldn't have happened 15-20 years ago.
For me, the way I was running on the country or on road relays gave me an excellent indication of how the winter was going.
Some have argued that the indoor circuit is more alluring because there's more glamour associated with it - but very few of our men do very well indoors anyway, so there's no more glory there.
It seems easier - and the thinking is, well, if you can do three minutes 44 seconds indoors, you should be able to do 3:42 outdoors.
I just don't think it works that way. If you do the same sort of training all year round, you just don't get any better.
You're also more likely to pick up injuries if you're doing high-quality track work all year round.
You should focus on endurance, not on racing.
Quagmire
I do have some bad memories of cross-country. I could be very hit-or-miss.
The worst one I remember running was down in Epsom, having just come back from warm-weather training in Australia.
You can imagine what it was like - fantastic out there, and I come back to sleet and mud and lots of eager club runners who want to beat me.
It was a quagmire. I got halfway round and I just thought: "What the hell am I doing?"
You don't have to beat the 5,000m and 10,000m boys, but you should make it your aim
All these club runners, a lot of them not even very good, were going past me laughing and asking how I was.
Another time I had to drop out of the Nationals in front of my home crowd at Town Moor in Newcastle.
I shouldn't have bothered starting. I had a dodgy ankle and the surface was a nightmare, really bumpy and uneven.
So there were a few nightmares - but a few successes to.
I won the Northern cross-country, sixth in the Inter-Counties. The nine miles of the Nationals was a bit too far for me - I could do that on the roads, but maybe not in the sludge.
But the roads can be just as good.
Benchmark
I look at today's milers and say: "You should be able to run 10km in under 30 minutes and 10 miles in under 48 minutes."
They look at you as if you're stupid, but if they're training well they should be able to do it.
You don't have to beat the 5,000m and 10,000m boys, but you should make it your aim.
My benchmark in the north-east was Brendan Foster, or Mike McLeod and Charlie Spedding.
They were the top distance runners in the world but I was racing them every Saturday and trying to beat them.
That wouldn't happen these day - and I think that's wrong.