Well the start of the New Year has been an exciting one for me!I moved out of the house I have been living in with family friends and moved into a flat on my own!!! It is good to have my own space and I have had great fun arranging everything. Even if though it took 3 weeks to sort the internet and telephone line - anyone would thing I was trying to build a rocket! The biggest problem I have encountered so far is trying to decide what to cook for my self twice a day!! And the quantity – I knew I ate a lot but I had no idea actually how much!!!!
Before returning from England after Christmas I competed in a low key local indoor competition so that I would have competed before the North of England Championships. This took a lot of dedication as the comp was on the 2nd Jan; so that meant no partying for me on New Years Eve - being an athlete is not always fun by a long way!! I did the 60m in a time of 7.84. The long jump was not as good as I had to go straight from the 60m to the jumps and the competition had already started so I had no time to measure my run up accurately and alter it accordingly. I also decided I would run a 200m for a bit of fun as I had never ran one indoors and due to the banked curves it is very different from competing outdoors. I loved the experience and to my surprise I won it though I did take me a long time to recover!! On getting home and talking to my mentor I realised that my 60m time was only 0.04 off from the qualifying time for the Aviva UK Trails & European Championships.
I flew back to Malta for what was planned to be 10 good days of training with my coach, but which was disrupted as I became sick. I returned to England again for the North of England Championships with a few of my Maltese training partners who are also members of my English club. It was just supposed to be a progress check to see where I was up to and nothing more especially as this is my first year as a senior athlete. However, it started a roller coaster! In the 60m, which is not my best event, I came 3rd. However, again my start let me down and I missed the qualification time by only 0.02 seconds this time. I was really happy with the placing but I have to admit I was frustrated that I missed the time again. The following day I had the long jump and the 200m but after my success in the spr
ints the day before I withdrew from the jump to focus on the sprint. I’m still in shock to tell you that I won the 200m!!!! I had no idea I would do this and neither did the commentator!!! I was absolutely ecstatic – I had made the first step on the ladder to achieving my dream and very much unexpectedly!On returning back to Malta I received an email telling me I had been selected to compete in the Manchester team in the McCain City Challenge in February. After some emails around I found out I had been selected to see if I could run the qualifying time for the trials. I felt very lucky to be given the opportunity not only to try and run the time again, that I had done several times in training, but to also represent my city. You will have to wait till the next blog to find out what happens!!!
