When the snow fell on Thursday, I was pretty happy until I realised that, no we weren't going to be having a snow day, and yes I still had to go into school. Then when the rumours went around that the run might be cancelled, and some peoples reactions were 'YES no tough xc race,' but mine were the complete opposite, I was very up for the race and had been excited for it, for a long time and I didn't want it to be cancelled. Anyway when the email came around to confirm that the race was on, I was thrilled. When I walked down to the park, I was shocked to see how much snow was still on the ground, because most of it had melted in school. After a nice warm up (in the snow) my feet were nicely cold and wet and my socks were already covered in mud. Once I had done a few drills, I was soon jumping up and down on the start line, trying not to get too cold and a few nerves were starting to come over me. It was my first senior Knole run and this is quite a well known schools race in the south east, so I was keen to do well. Soon enough the gun went off and with a few pushes and shoves, I found my space, although not quite in the position I wanted and all I could see was people running past me, and at this point I was definitely starting to panic. I refused to let this effect me, and I tried to stick to my game plan, which was pretty simple...'don't go off too quickly.' The course started with a a lovely steep uphill, now this hill is quite a bit of a killer... I mean it is a pretty tough hill to run straight up, straight away in the race. I would like to say that once this hill was over it was all a walk in the park, but no not quite. 3 more large hills later and that would be the finish. I started steady and I got into my rhythm, although it was disrupted a few times by for example skidding down a slope. Once I was about 3/4 of the way around I just had one more section left, and this was a sharp uphill, followed by a sharp down hill, followed by a little flat section to the finish. Coming into the last hill I was in about 23rd and I was starting to think, I need to seriously pick up the pace and thankfully I did a bit, I finally got my leg moving. Secretly I felt like I was zooming up this hill last hill (although I probably looked like I was about to collapse) but I felt good. I really tried to push at the top of the hill, and I did manage to take quite a few places. When I finally got to the last flat section, I was really trying to stretch my legs out but unfortunately I was just pipped at the post (by one of my fellow school runners, which made it slightly better) and I came in 17th. Phoebe (one of my close friends from my school) came in first by over a minute, which is pretty impressive. Overall my team I was in won, which was a great result and our B team came forth. Afterwards, I was pretty quick to get my jacket on asap, as it was pretty chilly and luckily it gave me an opportunity to test my dry robe out, which I had got for christmas. Even though I got a few odd looks in it, as I walked around in my floor length jacket, I wasn't too bothered, because I was nice and toasty warm. Most of us then stayed to watch the boys race which was 2 laps of this gruelling course. Then we were quick to venture back to the sports hall to warm up, and not to mention of course eat some cake too. We had the prize giving and we went up to receive our medal. Overall I came 17th out of about 120, which I was pleased about, but of course being me I still wished for a better result and hoped to be able to improve in the future. I hope all those who have been racing this weekend, have gone well or you've had good training. I'm hoping that the weather is going to start warming up soon and I also have another race next weekend, which should be fun!
G x
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On Tuesday I had a good school session, although we have definitely now reached the muddy season and legs covered in mud will become a popular thing. This was my last school session before the end of term and I am looking forward to next term which is full of cross country races. The last day at school was pretty relaxed and our maths lesson consisted of making christmas trees with our calculators, which I must admit was pretty fun! The last day was definitely in need for alot of us and we celebrated by going iceskating up in London, which was great fun and I even managed not to fall over at all. I was pleased to say that I hadn't got ill yet this winter, but when I woke up on Thursday morning, I knew I was coming down with something. I am now writing this 4 days on and I can't say I am feeling any better, and I am going from boiling hot to freezing cold, along with a nice chesty cough which has taken most of my voice away. The frustrating thing is, I havn't run since Tuesday and all I want to do is get out there and run. This morning I have had to miss my long cycle, which is annoying as the weather is nice for it, because recently I havn't been out much because of either the rain, ice or just how cold it is. Anyway, hopefully I'm going to be getting better soon, and I really hope to be back to training on Tuesday, although I am not going to push it if I'm not ready. The exciting thing is, that it is the count down to christmas, with exactly a week to go, I am in the festive spirit and starting to get excited!
G x Recently I have been really struggling with getting time to spend on my blog because the truth is 6th form is pretty dam hard, and the IB (My exams I do at the end of upper sixth, where you study 7 subjects... 7? Yes 7 not 3 or 4 like A levels!) is pretty intense. I find myself struggling to squeeze in all my sports around my heavily overflowing homework diary! The perks of boarding though are fab because I am spending one less hour of my life travelling and that time is either spent getting some extra sleep or squeezing in that extra gym session or homework. The truth is, being an athlete, a blogger and a student all at once is pretty hard! Perhaps that is why I was ill last weekend and most of this week, but hopefully my body will soon get used to the new routine of boarding life and fitting my sport in too. However hard it is, I love it. The feeling I get during and after sport is just great and would never change it for a thing. At my school you can go home every weekend, which works well because if I have a triathlon I can come out of school for that and if I just need to get out of school and get some sleep (which ended up being my weekend last week, when I was trying to get better). The perks of coming home is definitely getting my bike back and being able to either go on a nice long bike ride or having a turbo session. As much as it is great having the big gym at school, where there are bikes which I use, there is always something nice about being on your own bike. I also have Saturday school so we often go to the club races and represent the school. Saturday school I don't really mind but when a small school fixture clashes with a more major club fixture, school often takes priority. Here is a quick snap of us last week at the Blackheath & Bromley relays, luckily I am feeling a lot better than I was in this photo and so I started sport again on Thursday and it was so good to be back running, swimming and cycling! I think I was going mad having 4 days doing nothing, I found myself with so much time on my hands. At the moment I am ready Mo Farah's autobiography but annoyingly I have been given a novel to read, which is due in in 2 weeks so at the moment all my reading is on this book , it is called station eleven. It is a pretty confusing book which I am just in a hurry to finish now so I can get back to reading Mo. I have had an okay week of training this week, not the best though because at the beginning of the week I was still recovering from being ill but I am definitely feeling better now, so next week should have a good solid week of training before another triathlon next Sunday.
Love G x I have had a really great training week back at school this week, including numerous swimming, cycling and running sessions. When it came to Friday, I started to feel a bit rough, I woke up with a blocked nose and had a sore throat, so I tried to relax and try and recover asap. Saturday morning came and well... I didn't feel great! Nonetheless I prepared for my race the same as normal but with a difference, because I was obviously at school. I walked into breakfast hoping there would be a bagel to accompany my porridge, but no there wasn't -_-. In the end I had my porridge with granola, then a waffle (instead of my bagel) with chocolate spread and then finished off with a hard boiled egg, just for a quick protein hit! Oh I forgot to mention the two actimels too ;) to sum it up school breakfast is pretty good! After we arrived, we all sort of went off in different directions because we were all starting at different times, because of depending on what leg we were running. I was third so I didn't start warming up until the first runner started. It was a 4x 4km course, the course was half around fields and then the other half was up in some woods, where there were some nasty hills. I did my usual warm up of about a 2km jog and then some drills like high knees, then to finish off I did some strides to wake my legs up to some speed. Soon enough I found myself on the change over line, waiting for Phoebe to run in. Sabrina had started the race off and did a great first leg, then Phoebe carried us through the second leg and by the time it came to me we were in the lead. This did put a lot of pressure on me because I had to make sure I kept us in a good position. I was on a mission, however the slight issue of me feeling like my wind pipe was slowly closing on me didn't fill me with much confidence, but I wanted to do my team proud and not let them down. The run started off nice and flat and then the climb up into the woods was the tough part. The run all together went pretty quickly but I didn't manage to quite hold my position, I got over taken by a Blackheath and Bromley girl, who came flying past me, so I tried holding onto her for a bit but soon realised this was not a sustainable pace for me so I quickly got back into my rhythm. The last 600m I tried to just push as much as I could because I could feel another runner coming up behind me, who was in fact a girl from Tonbridge AC (my club however I was competing for my school in this race), afterwards I found out she was actually a girl in my training group and who I am good friends with! After a fab 4th leg from Carlotta, we finished in third *whoop* We were pretty happy with this result as it was just the beginning of the season and we have lots more races to come. I was meant to have a triathlon tomorrow but I had to sadly withdraw this evening. I took a long time to decide whether to or not but in the end I didn't want to risk get even more ill and then risk missing some training and school work next week. I am spending tomorrow recuperating before I go back to school in the evening.
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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