This weekend has been a much anticipate weekend for me, since qualifying back in January. Why...? because this is my first English schools, even though I was running as the older age senior girls, which also makes it my last. I would say my last few weeks have not been ideal in the lead up to this race, having picked up a few niggles. I knew I had to be fit enough to run English schools because I didn't want to hold a place in the team which someone would be able to fill, who was in a fitter position than I. Even though I have had little run training recently, I knew I would be able to run this weekend to a good standard. The journey up to Leeds started on Friday at 10:45 at Tonbridge for me, where I was being picked up by the Kent coach to make our way up to Leeds. It was a long journey following some delays on the motorway but we did finally make it to the hotel at around 6:30. This gave us just enough time to put our stuff in our rooms before heading off for some dinner. Dinner was really good, with a buffet style... perfect for all of us hungry runners. It consisted of some turkey, pasta, veggie lasagna and veg... a bit of a mix but none the less, very tasty. The time seemed to fly and after a team meeting, followed by a shower, I was ready to jump into bed. The hotel was nice, but I always struggle to sleep in another bed so woke up rather tired. I had also managed to pick up a cold over the last few days and waking up to not being able to breath through my nose wasn't ideal. After a quick pack of my bags, I headed down to breakfast. Again breakfast didn't dissapoint and even though there wasn't porridge, this wasn't really a problem as I'm happy to have toast instead. After checking out, we were ready to jump into the coach and head off to the course. Kent arrived pretty early to the course to give the people racing first a good two hours before their race, however it meant the senior girls had got there about 4 hours before their race. After having only arrived for 30 mins, the cold suddenly started to hit me and my toes were feeling it the worst. I was really starting to feel rubbish at this point because I could feel myself slowly freezing. Thankfully Holly (who won the senior girls race) allowed us to jump in her camper van to warm up... honestly I am not sure what I would have done without this. This meant that even though we were unable to support all the races we were keeping warm and stayed in here up until the hour before our race. On my warm up I actually felt like I warmed up... well I never cooled down after getting out the van, so that was good. However in the warm up I could feel my hip flexors tightening, which worried me as this had really stopped me in my tracks at the inter counties the previous weekend. After applying some gel, I was hoping they would hold up for the race, considering it was only 4km but hilly. We were soon waiting just outside the start line and then we were called into our pens. This is when suddenly the weather turned on us... the wind suddenly blew up and the air suddenly turned to ice. Just as the gun went, the sky started to snow... this combined with the winds created a lovely blizzard for us to run in. The first 5 minutes were some seriously tough conditions and my fingers and nose were so cold. The course went by quickly with a short and a long lap, made up of a lot of uphill, then straight back down again. The conditions under foot had turned pretty horrendous by the time it was our race and was fine in some places. However in others, keeping your spikes on your feet was the problems. Coming into the last 100m it was a slight up hill and I really had to dig deep through this and finally crossed the line in 123rd. If you had told me a month ago I had come 123rd out of the over 300 girls in my race, I would have been disappointed. But, with the injury problems I have had and the previous two bad xc races (affecting me mentally), I was actually chuffed to come in where I did. More importantly I had made it to my first and last english schools xc champs and made it to the end of xc season, just about in one piece. Kent just missed out on a team medal, but we had some amazing individual performances within the team, picking up 1st, 9th, 14th and 16th.
It was a long journey home and I finally made it into bed at about 10pm. However as I am writing this now, I am in bed and have been for the last few hours feeling pretty horrendous and just can't really even get out of bed. The long xc season and the stress of being in my final year of school has just all hit me I think. I need some time to chill now, recover and come back strong for track season. G x
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This Wednesday I had a mid week race; the King Henry VIII relays. It is a relay taking place in Coventry, with girls teams of 4 and boys teams of 6. To start off with Coventry is about 2.5 hours away from my school, so I was not looking forward to the travelling, but it is always a fun and exciting race. My journey up consisted of a bit of chatting but also a lot of latin revising for my test the following day (and I am pleased to say that the test went well)! After having driven for a good 2.5 hours we were able to get off the coach and stretch our legs. We quickly registered at the school and then made our way over to the park. The course is an odd one because you spend about 80% on a path but then the other 20% is in a muddy woods... not really ideal when it comes to choosing footwear. I eventually went for my cushioned trainers as I am dealing with a bit of a shin splint problem at the moment, so I wanted something which would cause the least bit of aggravation. I was the third leg which I actually quite liked in the end. When I was handed over the baton we had a big lead, so I set out to keep this gap as big as possible. The course isn't hilly at all, just the odd slight slope, so I was thrilled with this. I felt strong over the first 800m and then I was off into the woods... thankfully because it was pretty chilly the mud was slightly frozen, however there were too patches which were so so muddy. When I got to these points I was so concentrated I just ran straight through the horrible mud. I was very relieved when I finally got out of the woods back onto the path. The boys set off 5 minutes before the girls so by the time my leg came around we had just caught up some of the slower boys and I found this really helpful because it meant I could use someone as a target to chase down. I found the last 200m the hardest as my legs were tired and my shins were sore but I was pleased to hand the baton over, still with a big lead. We finished in 1st place at the end with over a one minute lead, which I was thrilled about and so was the rest of the team! It was a great day out and coming home with the win made it even better. However my shins have been getting sore over the last week so I've decided to just give cross training a go until next week to help this problem settle, I can already feel that they have recovered and I know I'll be back running very shortly.
Grace :) Kent schools has been an important race in my diary all season because I have had a lot of feelings about doing well in it. Last year (blog post here) I came 10th and I then went on to the schools inter-counties, where I then missed out on English schools selection. Last year I was able to say 'I have next year,' however this year is my last year of school, so it was my last chance. This gave me an element of pressure that I placed onto myself. I didn't want to dwell on this and I felt my nerves didn't really effect me that much. Anyway, moving on from all this chit chat and I'll explain how the actual race went. Setting off in the morning I knew we were going to be in for some pretty poor weather, after the forecast said 100% chance of rain from 7am to 2pm... I wasn't too amused by this. On arrival the rain was on queue and we all sat in the car with not much motivation to get out, it was pretty miserable. I made a dash to the registration to avoid the rain and then I was straight back in the car. Finally there was a point where I needed to get out, I combined my warm up with walking the course to allow for the minimum time in the rain. By the time I found myself walking to the start line, I was pleased to say that the rain had eased off a little. I whipped my water proof off at the last minute as the whistle went for 2 minutes remaining. Standing on the start line I started to focus in on the race and what I needed to do. Senior and inter girls were running together which made it challenging to know where you are amongst your own age group. The gun went and everyone went off extremely fast, I did try to go with it but I knew it was just too fast and unsustainable, so I just focused on getting into my own rhythm. When we reached the first small uphill, I tried to work my way up the field and I continued to do this throughout the race. After the first 2km lap of two was done, I knew I wasn't where I wanted to be in the field, although I didn't have a clue what place I was in the senior girls race. On the last 2km lap I really just tried pushing on and giving it my best shot. The very wet conditions led to really muddy fields and it felt like the mud was sapping all energy from my legs. Coming into the last 200m of the course, I knew someone was coming up behind me. At this point I didn't know what age group they were in so I really pushed right to the end and I found some mental strength here that I've never really used before... I think because the possibility of english schools selection meant so much to me. I crossed the line in 3rd... I actually couldn't believe it. I had been running around the course just hopeful of top 4 in order to gain automatic selection for english schools. To come away with a medal was just out of my dreams, I couldn't believe it, I really couldn't. The race definitely took its toll, as I struggled to stand up and try and catch my breath at the end... at least I knew I had really pushed it. My two big goals of this year was to be selected for inter counties and english schools, both things I had failed to do last year. To know I will be going to both of these now, honestly makes me so happy. I know I will be buzzing for a while after one of my best ever races but training continues and hard work is still to be done to hit the rest of the xc season with purpose.
I hope all those with school xc champs this week have been successful and any other races or training you have been up to. Love G x The Knole run is possibly not a course that I think about with hundreds of positive thoughts but I was actually excited for it this year. Last year I raced in the Knole run and you can read all about it here. Last year I came 17th and I was pleased with this at the time but this year I had higher hopes and was aiming top ten. My week before this race hasn't calmed down that much and with the addition of starting school on Wednesday that added to some tiredness. My Friday night pre race routine was similar to normal with pasta and a banana, however the Saturday morning was slightly different because I had to go to school... arggggg. The race started off fast and I felt I was in a good position going into the first hard hill. I was sat in the top six but the hill was tough, I tried to keep it calm. The race pretty much consists of uphill, downhill, uphill, downhill, uphill, downhill. I find this tough but I was able to keep in a good position but I felt the last hill was one ask too many and I lost a few places, crossing the line in tenth. My first thought was how had the rest of my team done. There were two Sevenoaks girls just in front which was promising and some were coming in a bit behind, so I was hopeful! Sevenoaks won and I was thrilled, I couldn't have asked for much more. After a tough race, I was delighted! A big bonus was there was some great cake at the end which was exactly the sugar hit I needed. I hope everyone who was racing had good weekends. I feel like I am back into the swing of school again now after starting next week, however the count down to half term has already began. I feel I am at the point now that I am ready to finish school and take my exams.
Love G x This week I have a very exciting workout video to share with you which I filmed with Ellen (teen runner blog, check out her blog as she is a great friend and has a running blog too) the other day. This blog post I'll also give you a bit of an over view of what I've been up to this week, but the main thing I have had this week was school... yes sadly I started school on Friday and its been pretty full on ever since then really. Fortunately I have had a chance to edit this video for you, which I have really enjoyed making and I hope you will all enjoy it. The music to the video is not the best but it's pretty hard finding good youtube legal musi so I hope you don't mind it too much ;) So here is my WORKOUT VIDEO which I'm really pleased with so let me know what you think! Here is also a written plan of the workout in the video: 1 minute plank 20x toe touches 20x alternate elbow knee 12x renegade row 15x half sits 20x single leg extensions 12x commandos And repeat Take 10 seconds rest between exercises and 30 seconds rest between sets! ENJOY!!! Other than filming a this workout video I have also been doing a lot of training this week as I continue to build towards cross country season, which I am really excited for. I have been trying to particularly work on areas which are my weaknesses so hopefully by the time I get to my first proper cross country in October I should have strengthened these weaknesses. This week has been tough I have found, after some solid training which I have enjoyed, I am a bit tired and school on Friday didn't help this much. On Monday though I feel like I will be back into the swing of school and happy to be back into the routine. For me I am a huge routine person and helps me almost stay focused so as much as I am not a fan of going back to school, secretly I quite like it.
I hope you have all had a great week, Love G x Hey, I’m Ruth! I have written a few posts for several blogs now and I’m big social media fan but for those who haven’t stumbled across me before, I’m an 18-year-old dental student in my first year at Leeds university. Oh, I LOVE to run too! I was really excited when Grace asked if I would write a guest post and even more so when she suggested If I would discuss my life juggling running and a dental degree- my two greatest passions! So far my time being a student athlete has brought about so many fantastic opportunities from representing the university in some amazing races to already being let loose on a real dental clinic! Ofcourse, uni as an athlete hasn’t been without its tough times either. I can work or train far too hard and feel incredibly tired without my parents or coaches right at the side line to help me through. At uni I often feel like I’m forced to make the choice between fully committing myself to running or being ‘half in, half out’ (training hard and partying hard). Full commitment means missing out on a typical uni social life but knowing you couldn’t have worked any harder towards running. The ‘half in, half out’ choice entails experiencing a rigorous running regime alongside a student life but neither of them to the fullest. With aims in marathon/ ultra-running at a much older age I opted for the later. Despite choosing the half in half out option, with parties for students most nights you tend to feel like the odd one out. You have to discipline yourself to go to bed before your race the next morning and at that point it’s so easy to only see the good in other people’s lives. You can start doubting your intention to train and question ‘what am I doing?!’ To me, that’s just about where the self-doubt stops. Everytime I wake up in the morning and train, I realise why I do just what I do. I get a sense of accomplishment every time I tick off a challenging session, whether I felt good or not, I woke up and I did it. Through my sports at uni, I feel like I have made some of the best friendships. It’s a strange sort of bond where you share your blood, sweat and tears every session. Your training friends are there when you are struggling to pick you up and tell you to keep going. There’s an indescribable level of desire everytime you toe up the start line to push your body to its absolute limits, to be quicker than last time, to beat your records and then to beat someone else’s records. Whether you run well or not, there’s something inside of you telling you to keep pushing and to get faster. It a hunger for more that you can’t describe or understand unless you’re a competitive sportsperson. Going to university and bringing my running commitment with me has been a huge process of learning my own personal balance between study, sports and social life. It’s about establishing individual limits (not someone else’s), how many hours of study, training and how much time can you spend with friends and then still find time to get enough sleep as well! All this with being happy in what you do and without (too much) stress! And when you can’t quite fit everything in, what do you prioritise and what do you choose to compensate? Being a student athlete is tough, but trust me, the benefits far outweigh the negatives. My passion and commitment towards my athletics is what, I believe has got me to where I am today. Its conveyed through to my academics and my athletic achievements have given me the confidence to aim high at uni. With the support of my friends, family and coaches so far, life as a student athlete has been extremely rewarding. As I approach the end of my first year at uni as an athlete here are some lessons to take away from my experience so far: -My family, friends and coaches are more important than anything else in the world. -Sleep = success. Get it and try to get lots of it when you can. -Halls are LOUD. When people say, they are loud, they’re not joking. -Bikes will get stolen, so A. Choose an old rusty bike and B. Purchase a D-lock. -Wilkinson’s is the most important shop on the high street. Don’t forget that. -Carrying your weekly food shop home is like combing the toughest strength and conditioning session with extreme weight lifting. -Running means a lot…but not everything. You don’t have to sacrifice your exams on Wednesday morning so you can fit in your Tuesday evening track session. It’s okay to say no sometimes. -Whatever the weather, bring a waterproof wherever you go. -Fruit is expensive! Except the 9 pack of satsumas from Morrison’s. - Self-love and confidence go a long way. -Taking time out and doing absolutely nothing now and again is important physically and mentally. -Don’t be afraid to try new things. -18 year olds are definitely not adults yet. -You will create some interesting new recipes- fajitas with bagels because you have no tortillas? -You can’t afford the new Nike pro’s. Don’t even bother to look. -Believe you can achieve and its crazy what you will accomplish. -Sell by dates are all lies -Whether you have a good race or bad race, the world will go on. -Runners = All the fridge and freezer space. Apologise nicely. -Procrastination = More stress later. -Every messy situation you get into, it will get sorted in the end. -Wherever you go, you will meet some amazing people. -Being a student athlete is 100% possible no matter the uni course, the level of competition, it can be done. All the best,
Ruth x 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!
Recently before this trip I invested in a go pro and I am hoping to start making more and more videos relating to my blog post and travels, so I have made a youtube account. The link to my video is below, so take a look and let me know what you think, and be sure to subscribe if you want to catch more of my videos in the future. So lots of you may have known about my trip to Lanzarote over new year, if you have been following me on instagram. Because I have been so busy in all of January and beginning of February, I haven't had a chance to get this blog post onto the blog, but now is the time. Over Christmas is a great time to go on a training camp, especially a warm weather one, because it is the time of the year where the weather tends to be pretty rubbish and motivation to get out on those cold, dark long runs is pretty low. We had a very early start of 2:30am, which I definitely would not recommend doing, especially if you are planning on not really pausing your training for a day of travelling, because you are going to be pretty tired, and unsurprisingly when it got to 5pm, when we were doing our first session, I was feeling a little dazed it is fair to say. However once that session was done, we headed for an early dinner. Dinner did not disappoint, the buffet style was perfect for everyone, Whether it was pasta, steak, fish, roasted veg or even ice cream, it had it all! My average day was swimming in the morning, normally a 1.5 hour session of about 4km, then a running session in the evening, which really did vary. One day it was a 7km run, one day 800m reps, or one day a long 12km run. Even though we only had just two base sessions, the resort had many many classes to offer during the day. I found myself doing yoga and ab attack everyday. Then also I did a few one off sessions like ariel yoga (photo shown below), it is fair to say this was rather interesting. All my friends loved it but me on the other hand, lets just say I wanted to walk out after 10 mins. Weirdly it made me feel sick, I think it was the hanging and swinging sensation, which I did't really like. The blue track was great and I found my instagram feed turning very blue based, as it was great to take photos on! The week as a whole was seriously tough and by the last day, my legs were well and truly tired, and if you read my blog post KENT CHAMPS my week of hard training in my legs showed in this race, but I did know this was going to happen and but I knew I had to look to the future and the rest of my races in January. I would like to say that my hard training in this week, benefitted for my future races, especially my INTER-COUNTIES. One of the days I did a triathlon, which was great fun. However the swim was in a pool, and open water is definitely my preferred choice but it was nice it being a 50m pool instead of 25m. The cycle... well this wasn't nice. It was so so windy and I pretty much struggled to stay on my bike, let alone actually go fast on it, so this is where I lost lots of time because I was being a cautious rider and didn't want to fall off. With about a quarter of the cycle section left, a boy fell off his bike, which really scared me and made me even slower. At the end of the day I decided that I didn't really mind where I came and I focused on my swim and my run. My run was good, and the feeling of jelly in my legs disappeared after probably about a km. I have had a bit of a different week this week. I had the physio on Thursday and my foot injury which I had been holding for a couple of weeks was assessed and I am now off for 2 weeks, which wasn't what I wanted to hear. I am off to Boston, USA next week, which will be good fun, so I am really excited and hopefully I can pop into a few sports shops and pic up some new bits! I hope you all have had a good weekend, and if you have broken up for half term on Friday you have a relax week off! PS. Don't forget to watch my youtube video! (I have added the it below too). G x This weekend was my 5th consecutive race and I was hoping that my racing experience was starting to pile up. These inter-counties were pretty much selections for english schools and they had already selected the top 4 from two weeks ago, so all I had to do was get into the top 4 in Kent, simples... okay not quite that simple, considering I came 10th in the race two weeks ago. I made my pasta as normal, however I definitely did something wrong while cooking it this time, as it just wasn't as good as normal. After finishing all my little snacks and additions to my meal, I went to the relaxation of my bed, and got an early night in. When we arrived, I was pretty quick to get to the sweatshirt and vest shop because this was my first time representing Kent and it is fair to say I was pretty excited about getting the sweatshirt with KENT on. We were racing at Brands Hatch, which for once I had already raced at (last month for Kent XC Champs, which hadn't gone quite so well, so I was keen to improve on that). The one bonus I had in this race was, that I didn't have any pressure on me. As in I wasn't expected to get in the top 4 of Kent, but I did have the pressure of myself on me, just wanting to give it my best shot and to be honest I wanted to get into that top 4, a lot. The gun went, and I charged out of Kent's pen quickly, however I was clumsy enough to catch my finger on my number, then it started bleeding, which was a bit of a nightmare as I had to concentrate on my hand which now had blood all over it and trying to race. I quickly pushed my thoughts of my finger to the side and concentrated on my game plan. I found myself hanging onto a string of Kent runners and I felt like I was struggling to keep up, so I just pushed and tried my best to stick with them. We got to the bottom of the long hill to the finish and I could still see lots of girls in front of me, so I decided I was just going to give it my best shot up the hill. I managed to actually run up the hill, what seemed at a reasonable pace and I came across the finish line pretty tired, but more importantly in 18th place and 5th Kent girl, and I was happy with this, because I have had a few not so great races recently and it was nice to finish my 5 weekend streak of races with a good one. We were sure to take lots of photos after the race (not to mention the other 100 which I missed because I was on my cool down... oops). Overall I had a great day and now I am sitting at home and am still wearing my new sweatshirt, which I am very happy with! I have the next weekend off racing and the week after I am in Boston, USA on a science trip, but I will be sure to be running around touring the parks of the area. I also just need to wait for the confirmation of the teams for english schools and fingers crossed I should be the 1st reserve. I hope all you who were racing this weekend, whether it was inter-counties, BUCs or anything else, that they all went well for you. I now have a relaxed weekend planned, as I have managed to get all my homework down for the weekend!
G x 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 |
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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