I am very sorry, that this post is so late, I have been pretty busy and sorry for the lack of photos in this post, but I wanted to get a blog over to you this week, so here it is: For most of last week I have been pretty excited for the race last weekend, Kent XC schools. I had never done this race before, well this isn't really surprising considering this is my first XC. As usual I was at school on the Friday and I made my usual carbonara dinner, which was delicious as always and I got in an early night. In the morning I was up by 7:00 doing last minute preparations and also having breakfast. When I got to school breakfast I was glad to see a large pot of porridge and lots of bananas... perfect that was my breakfast sorted. I rolled onto the school coach for 8:30 and soon enough we were on our way down to Dover. Yes, Dover! It seems a bit silly to me, to put a race which all the Kent schools go to, right on the edge of Kent and sadly for us this did mean it took rather a long time to get there. Fortunately 1 hour and 20 minutes later, I could see the sea and the white cliffs of Dover *relieved sigh* we were nearly there! There was lots of chat on the bus, mainly about how there wasn't a piece of flat land in sight. Fortunately when we got to the school we were relieved to see it was a relatively flat course with a few sudden uphills but nothing too major. I set out to walk the course and quickly came to the reality of how frozen the ground was, because I was turning my ankles and I was in my trainers, this did worry me a bit! The course was 2x 2km laps, which were pretty straight forward. The last 200m consisted of a short sharp hill and then a curve around to the finish. After a nice long warm up and many decisions about whether to wear gloves or not, I was standing on the rather packed start line. I was in the senior girls age category, but we were mixed in with the inter girls and there was no way of telling who was who, but luckily, there was quite a large percentage of people I knew in the race from club races. BANG! The race was off, everyone made a sudden sprint and for one moment I thought I was in a 400m race, I saw myself just being over taken by more and more people... this isn't a rare occasion for me at the start! I decided in the first lap I was just going to settle down and get into my rhythm and on the second lap start making my move and catching people. This pretty much went to plan and on the second lap I just started to pick people off and maintain this. Coming into the last 200m a girl was 5m off me so I put in a desperate attempt to catch her and so nearly did, but my legs just didn't have any more in them and I came in 1 second after her. This was very annoying but I could tell that my speed at the end, even though it didn't let me catch her, it has got better.
I was handed my slip of paper with 11th place on, which actually turned out to be 10th as they made a mistake so I was chuffed to have made it in the top 20 to get my place in the inter-counties in two weeks time to represent Kent. Tomorrow I am off to Parliament Hill for the South of England Champs, which I am very excited for! Good Luck to anyone running tomorrow. G x
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Apologies about the delay of this post coming up, but ever since I have come back to school this term I have been up to my head in work... okay pretty much only Maths work, but I have finally got most of that done now, so I have put some time aside to blog! This weekend I had Kent XC Champs at Brands Hatch and I'll say it now but I wouldn't say it went well or badly, it was just okay I guess... Having come back from Lanzarote on the Thursday and racing on the Saturday, I always knew I was going to still be tired, but I just didn't know to what extent. After two good nights sleep back in my own bed, I woke up ready with a surprisingly large amount of energy. My usual tradition on the friday night of carbonara pasta, while the rest of my family had chillie con carne was no different. On Saturday morning, again I stuck to my usual breakfast, even though I was kindly offered bacon and eggs by my dad (which usually I would never turn down). Once we had arrived...perhaps a little too early (but I am not a fan of being in a rush). Dad, mum and I set out to walk the course, with the course map in our hands. It was a bit chilly but after walking half the course, we had soon warmed up and were taking one of our many layers off. The difficulty I have, of only just taking up XC is that almost all the people in my race, will have run the course at least one time before and they can know what to expect... me on the other, I wasn't quite so ready for how I would feel running up the last hill. After carrying out my warm up, with drills and strides, I was on the start line ready to go and also a little bit squished as the start had a few more people than in the previous kent leagues, and I guess that was all to do with the fact it was Kent XC Champs. The start was just as pushy as I expected, but luckily I got out okay and found myself in a nice little pack, with many other TAC runners too, which worked nicely. The course was 2 small laps and 1 considerably large one. The first 2 small laps flew by and so did I to an extent, I found myslef in a comfortable position, further ahead than I had expected. Perhaps I lost concentration because of this, or perhaps my week of seriously intense training had caught up on me, because as I came into the last 1km and also the last (only) hill, I was tired... very tired. Yes perhaps I had gone out too fast, but that felt comfortable at the time and it didn't help it was a hill at the end, which just dragged on and on. In the last 1km I lost 3 places and I came across the line in 11th... which well I was initially happy with, but looking back I would have liked to have done better. I will definitely take some positives from the race though, because apart form the first km, I felt more stronger than usual, and although I didn't finish it off well, I guess that is definitely something to take away and improve on. I had made the decision to make the most of my training week in Lanzarote and I hope that will benfit me in the long run, especially with the rest of a very busy cross country season to folllow. I have got a very busy January of races, so I thought I would leave my post all about my training camp in Lanzarote for Febuary, but I'll be sure to keep the photos from there still posting on my instagram, to help motivate everyone through the winter. Well done to everyone who raced last weekend, as I know lots of people had their county champs.
G x I woke up to the rain chucking it down on my roof, which usually I am a fan of because I like listening to it, but on Saturday I wasn't too amused because I knew that I was going out to run in it. After my usual pre race breakfast of porridge with a banana (and not to mention my carbonara the night before), I was ready to go. I had wrapped up warm, although I was half debating whether it was skins weather or not, but in the end I realised I actually didn't have any skins at home, and that they were both at school, so that was that decided. After arriving the rain started to hold up, however there was still a very damp feel in the air. There was also the fact that there was a very sad tone to this race, because we all had Lucy and Stacey at the forefront of our minds. If you haven't heard these two girls were killed on Tuesday in a road traffic accident at just 16 and 17 years old. This is all too real for everyone in the running world, because they were hit when out on a club run, which we all do at our various clubs on a Tuesday and Thursday. Whilst warming up I got to have a quick catch up with Carlotta, which relaxed the tone. We held a minutes silence for Lucy and Stacey on the start line, which gave us all time to think of them before our race. Once we had all got ourselves together, before we knew it the gun went, (although this time it was a whistle because the officials gun broke). I felt like I had a good start for once and that I was ready to go. The first section of the course was around a field which was relatively flat, to my relief. However when we made the turn into the woods, we all knew we had one long climb to the top in front of us. I had previously had to think quite hard about what length spikes to put in because the ground was a lot wetter than previous races, however there was a lot of stoney sections, so in the end I went for my 9mm. The decent down was tricky, because it was very uneven, tree roots were everywhere, and there were lots of corners. When I made it down into the last field I was next to two other girls and I soon realised we will be battling it out until the end. With 200m to go I didn't have anything left in my legs and I came in 11th, behind these two girls. I have pretty mixed feelings about this because two weeks ago I came 9th, and I was really aiming to improve on this, but it just wasn't to be on Saturday. I will continue to train hard through the winter, as I am keen to keep progressing and build up my fitness. Each race just makes me more and more motivated to keep at it! It was nice being combined with the U20s too in the race, as it made the field bigger and it also meant I could race with Lucy and Emilia :D I have had a very busy weekend with a duathlon today following yesterday's XC race. I will be writing a blog post on that some time this week, but I have a lot of work at the moment, so I need to get that done before writing my next blog post. I hope you have all had a nice weekend and if you were racing you wore a black ribbon to remember Stacey and Lucy. I am now waiting on whether I have been selected to race for Kent, however my chances are quite slim but I guess you never know.
G x I'm not sure how to start this blog post but it seems reasonable to talk about my night before preparations. On Friday night, I had already enjoyed my day off and making the most of resting my legs. Of course my dinner was the usual large bowl of carbonara followed by a glass of strawberry milk and banana, whilst the rest of my family were eating magnum ice creams. Although once I had finished all of my food, I was way too full to even think about an ice cream. After walking the course I was worried I was tired already. I had been told that the course was hilly, which I tried to just put aside in my head but when I was walking the course, I soon realised that I was going to have to face them head on and give them my best shot. This time the course was 4km, 400m longer than last time, but when I was walking the course it felt a whole lot longer... this was probably due to how much it went up and down. The course finished with a very short and sharp hill which I knew I needed to save some energy for, otherwise I wouldn't make it up it very quickly or at all. In the warm up I felt sluggish and was worried about how I would race with my legs feeling like this. Thankful when I put my spikes on, it seemed to give my legs a new lease of life, or maybe it was just my clif bar kicking in. The race started off quick but my legs just didn't feel ready for that yet, so I let myself settle into it and take each hill as it comes and to just concentrate on my own race. At the top of every hill, there was always a down hill. I know this might be stating the obvious, but you knew when you reached the top because you would suddenly go downhill, instead of flat... if you get where I am coming from. I realised that on the down hills, I was just going to have to go for it, because I felt I couldn't really attack on the up hills. This came with the problem of trying to control both my legs and arms, and as you can see from the photos, I didn't do a very good job at that... even though I was trying extra hard to maintain my form. The last 400m was the hardest 400m I've ever run, I was side by side with someone and after last week I decided that I was going to win the sprint finish this time, and I am pleased to say I did. However I did have to pay for it, because afterwards I was so out of breath, that I couldn't speak for the next 4 minutes. Once I had recovered, of course there was time for some group photos, and this one above of Clara and I, I absolutely love... perhaps its because our yellow sheets of paper match her shorts ;). I am really keen to do the next Kent XC League, however there is a school fixture which may take priority over it. Overall I am really pleased with 9th in this race as two weeks ago I was 13th, so it is nice to see an improvement! I am back to school tonight, which will be a bit of a shock to the system, after two weeks off. I have the National XC Relays to look forward to next weekend. I am so excited for them, as I haven't done them before! I hope you have all had a nice weekend.
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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