Yesterday, I was sent off on my first school athletics match at Hurstpierpoint college and lets just say I wasn't expecting the track to be grass, but it was a bit of a surprise when someone told me the night before. I knew that it wouldn't exactly make much of a difference, I still had 7.5 laps to get my head around, whether I was running on grass or track. After getting off the coach with 30 mins to my race, I rushed off straight away to go and warm up. With there being not many fields near, my warm up was on the track round the outside, which isn't the most interesting, however it did the job well. Soon we were called over to register, and split into two. The juniors ran first and then the inters and seniors ran together, after. However I hadn't factored in that the juniors were going to run first, so I found myself ready, when I still had another 15 mins before my race... not ideal. I shuffled up and down and did some strides to kill the time and before I knew it I was on the start line. The gun went and off we flew, in my new spikes to be exact (only worn for a few training sessions to wear them in). The race started very quickly and I found myself at the back of the pack of about 15. At this point it worried me a little, I could see the leaders already making a lead and I felt like I was just chasing everyone down. I soon got into my stride, and began to pick people off slowly and with 3 laps to go I was with the top two and I decided to make the move and go for the lead. I knew this was a little risky as there was still a good 1km left to race, but I felt I was ready. I held this lead and it just grew as the race went on and I crossed the line in first place, I was pretty happy. Although it was a low key race, that was the first race I had won, and the feeling was great. Afterwards I got to see Emma ( fruitsandroutes.wordpress.com ) another fellow blogger, and also an old school friend, which was lovely! After a long afternoon, when I finally got home I was pretty tired and just wanted my dinner and then to go to bed. So, as I am in school this weekend, I ordered Bills on deliveroo, which was super tasty and just what I fancied. I haven't had this meal before, but I'll definitely be going for it again soon. I hope you all have a good weekend and if you are running the mini marathon, good luck! Love G x P.S. My GB trust arrived last week, already for Slovakia in May. Although I am going to take a backseat in triathlon this season and focus more on running, as managing all the training with school is becoming pretty tough. However my race in Slovakia I am still very much looking forward too!
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I couldn’t think of anything better than doing a 1500m on Easter Monday. Secretly I had been going through the whole weekend looking forward to this race, it was my first track race of the season and actually my third proper track race. It was Tonbridge AC open meet, so nothing very important but an ideal season opener! After arriving promptly with at least an hour spare, I picked up my number and sat and chilled for a bit. Soon we all realised that there was a bit of a delay and I didn’t start my race until about 11:30 in the end, but I still went on my warm up and stayed warm and ready until the start of my race. The race was split into 3 heats, and I found myself in the third heat, which was a bit worrying initially as this was the quickest one, and I was slightly sceptical that I was going to be at the back. Standing on the line, I was tucked on the inside of the bend, which didn’t end up being too bad. The gun went and we were off, after narrowly avoiding a pile up and trip over in the first 100m. The laps went by quicker than I could think, I didn’t want to make the mistake of going off too quickly so only once I was settled did I try picking off people. On the last two laps, I managed to pick the back group off and then work my way through the next group that had separated by this point. After giving the lap everything I had left in me, I crossed the line with about a 15 second pb, so you could say I was pretty pleased with this, but still I have aims, and I haven’t got them yet, so back to work I’ll go! After the race, my legs didn’t feel too bad and not too much lactic, and any that was left was shaken out on my nice chilled cool down with Phoebe, Nicole and Richard! Once I had finished my cool down, I was quickly ushered off into the car, as my parents were waiting for me patiently ;) I am back to school on Wednesday night sadly, and I do not want to go back. Even though I have had to work most of my Easter I would rather be at home, but oh well, hopefully this term will go quickly, even with exams. Soon I’ll be on summer holidays, and then I won’t have to do half as much work, which will be much more fun!
Love G x I have just about reached the middle of my easter holidays with only a week and a half left, I thought it would be rather appropriate to blog about what I have been up to with my training and everything else. Easter for lots of people means chocolate and lots of sweet things, however with the fact I have given up chocolate for 2017, that puts a stop to that idea. Even when I hadn't given up chocolate, most of my easter eggs just sat on top of the fridge for months, because I am just not too bothered by the prospect of chocolate... okay unless it is melted down and there are strawberries. If you have been following my instagram, it is clear to see the sudden burst of a lot more photos, and particularly more foodie photos. This easter I have definitely started to experiment a bit more with what I'm eating, okay this may mean an extra topping on my porridge in the morning, but one day I even tried beetroot wraps... this is very adventurous for someone who had pretty much the same thing for dinner for about a year of my life (that was carbonara pasta for dinner, and jacket potato for lunch, when I was about the age of 14 because I was pretty fussy). Here are a quick snap of 4 of my porridges I have had in the mornings. Only if the weather is nice and my porridge looks half acceptable will I take a photo of it, but most of the time it just ends up being an ugly looking porridge with banana on top, We often don't have nay other toppings because I eat all them too quickly in the house, so half the time there isn't anything else left to put on it. My usual base of porridge is oats, milk, flaxseed, banana and then anything else on top is adventurous. Some of my additional toppings this easter have been; natural yogurt, nuts, dried cranberries, chia seeds, raisons, blueberries, honey and granola. On my Friday rest day, I wasn't sure what to do with myself as most of my days this easter have consisted of revision then training (and a bit of socialising in there too), so when Friday came, I was certainly not going to be revising all day. So instead on Friday morning at the usual time of wake up, I found myself heading over to the leisure centre to join an 'ab attack' class for a brief half an hour. This was long enough to feel my abs had been challenged, but not too long that the novelty of my rest day had been taken away from me. After snapping a quick selfie in the very luxurious members changing rooms, I headed into the sauna and steam room. I did about ten minutes in both, and then I was done. This was lovely and relaxing especially because there was only one other person in either of them. I found it helped my muscles relax and let me just have some chill time. Here we go, here are the much anticipated beetroot wraps. Yes, I know they are rather bright, which made them great to get a photo of. However what were my actual feelings on how they tasted.... um, well not so great. Once I had eaten the first wrap, I was like 'these are quite nice,' by the time I got to the end of the second one, I quickly made the judgment that I didn't like them, and I would just rather a plain wrap... which aren't half as exciting or as photogenic. The left over fajita chicken and salad was delicious though! Of course I cannot forget to mention my scrambled egg and smoked salmon on toast as this has been appearing as my lunch or dinner almost daily. But for the first time today, I got to the end of it and said 'I can't deal with anymore smoked salmon and eggs for a few days.' I can't get through this post without doing a quick look at todays run because it felt like I was on holiday. The sun was shining, the sky was as blue as it can be and it was great to be training out on the grass. Even though at times I felt like the heat was draining me of energy, it was great because it felt like I was warm weather training, which just gives you that extra motivation to run a little bit faster. This session was followed by a pretty cold ice bath and banana smoothie, which was delish! I hope all of you, who are on your easter holidays are enjoying them and haven't been working too hard because I know most people have exams in the summer :( at least the weather has been pretty good!
Love G x This weekend I have been in the Loughborough area, doing the England Talent Assessment weekend, for triathlon. I only found out that I got in to it, at the beginning of the week, and I knew that there was going to be some tough competition, and the best triathletes in my age group in England would be there! My age group was 17-19 and me being 16 but turning 17 later this year meant I was bottom of my age group. We travelled up on Friday as we would have had to wake up seriously early if we were going to travel straight there on the Saturday. We settled into our little hotel for the night after having some tasty dinner and then I got an early night in. Most of Friday night, I was thinking about my swim and if I didn't make my swim in under 12 minutes, I would be sent home, so I was pretty concerned as I had never swam 800m before against the clock... yes, I know it was a bit risky me coming all the way to Loughborough, if I didn't think I could swim the time. When I arrived on the Saturday I was instantly intimidated by everyone in their various different kit. Most of the people had British Triathlon hoodies, with various different academies or regional squads written on the back. I did not want to let this intimidate me though and after a bit of waiting we were soon sent into our first lecture. After a very interesting morning of lectures, and picking up some good knowledge on sleep, nutrition, selection policies and physio, we were finally sent off to do our swim... argggg the moment I had been waiting for. We did our swim in Loughborough university pool, which was amazing! It had been split in half so we had to do 32 laps, which sounds like lots, but I split it into 100s in my head, so it doesn't sound so long. The 30 second warning went, and then we were off. Up and down, up and down, up and down... with 400m done, I felt a sense of relief but I struggled to work out how fast I was going. Finally I came to the finish and the time keeper said '12:03,' my heart probably skipped a beat at this point, and I thought thats it... I'm going home. To add to this I was the last one to finish my swim out of the other 24 people in the pool... To be quite honest I didn't think I would get anywhere near this time, as I only started swimming less than a year ago and I think if I had done the 800m time trial, 6 months ago I would have struggles to even hit a sub 13:30 time. Anyway, onto Sunday. We were all set off from the start according to our swim times. So, lets just say I wasn't in the best of places at this point, I had a lot of catching up to do. The bike course was on an old air field and the course was made up of 4x 5km laps. Each lap had two dead turns, which you can see from this photo above. They meant that you had to slow down, to a snails pace to make sure you didn't go flying off course or end up on your bum. In the end, I got lapped... not ideal but I was close, so so close not to be. This just meant all lapped runners had to start once the last cyclist was back, and then start about a minute later. The run was tough, after having a break between the cycle and the run my legs had started to seize and go all stiff. The sun started powering down on us and I could feel my back burning, but nothing a glass of water chucked over it couldn't sort out. Okay so I might of finished near the end of the field, but I have taken so much from this weekend. I now know so much I can work on, and goals I want to set myself. I have had a great weekend away too, and visiting Loughborough uni. I am currently still on easter holidays which I am loving, although I have lots of work to do.
Love G x |
HelloI'm Grace, a 18 year old runner, and fitness fanatic. Join me on my crazy journey through life, squeezing in an adventure in every second of spare time I have. Archives
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