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17th January - Sussex schools XC I managed to come 2nd in this race and was over the moon when I got the letter for English schools. My plan for the last two months was to work on my speed, however this didn't really happen due to my injury. It was bound to happen with race after race nearly every weekend with my awful running mechanics and with chronic tendinitis I didn't know I had. Despite this I was proud of my performance this weekend but for me the weekend was more about having a good time with the best people. Friday 16th March 2018 Journey Part 1: Beth and I got the train to Chichester station where Alice and her mum met us to drive to Withdean. I can tell you getting the train with all your XC stuff is a bit of a mission. Part 2: Withdean --> Leeds This was a very long journey; leaving Withdean at 1:00 and arriving at the hotel at 8:30 (including a few quick stops). 7 hours allowed for a good catch up with Emma, Beth and Alice (sometimes talking about the 'randomest' of things) but it also felt like we would never get there. When we finally arrived at the hotel we found our rooms and got our Sussex tops. Alice and I stretched/relaxed for a bit; going to bed just after 10pm. Saturday 17th March 2018 Rise and shine! We were warned about the 'mini beast from the east' in the week, and it is fair to say that he had arrived. it was very chilly and there was a light layer of snow outside that was only going to get worse. Alice and I were up pretty early so painted our nails and got everything ready to leave after breakfast. Breakfast buffet = pure excitement. As Emma said in her blog post, if you don't get excited about a breakfast buffet, who are you? Emma, Beth, Alice and I had the classic race day porridge (a mistake I made before Loughborough - not having porridge) amongst other bits and bobs from the buffet. We set off just after 8:15am for Temple Newsam, it was freezing outside and we knew all the layers would be needed when we got to the venue. 9am- we have arrived- straight to the merch tent! We were practically the first team there so the stock was high. Next stop was the loos but a mini blizzard hit as we were making our way over there. I had so many layers on and basically looked like a balloon but I was still freezing! We still had 5hours until our race; most of this time we spent curled up in the Senior Sussex tent trying to keep warm. We had an explore of the venue (finding some amazing brownies) and did as much of a course walk as we could in the conditions. We took a trip to the coffee 'cart' where I was completely roasted when I asked for a cup of hot water. He was very unimpressed with me. (eek) The hours passed by and before we knew it we only had an hour until our race. We decided that we needed a good hour to warm up as it was jolly cold! My ankle was sore whilst warming up; this made me a little more anxious about the race; whether it would be ok whilst running (which it was; most of the time) 2:25pm We made our way down to the start area with our Sussex team manager. I was very nervous, as was everyone. Layers off (my golly it was freezing in shorts- that's if you count Nike pros as shorts or just longer pants) We walked over to the pens and got in race order. I was placed at the front for Sussex, I wasn't the most comfortable about this because I don't get the fastest start,so when the gun went all the fast front runners 'engulfed' me (fast starts are something I need to work on for next season) The start of the race was uphill and super muddy and to add to this hard start another mini blizzard hit. Luckily this subsided after the first lap. Looking back, I think the course was quite nice and I really enjoyed it but the mud was quite deep in some places and was like sinking mud; you had to move fast so you didn't get stuck or loose a spike. I think I could've ran a bit faster for the last 1km and had a better sprint finish but to be honest the finishing stretch was like a bog which made it difficult to run let alone sprint. Alice and I went to get the results and was very happy to see that our team placed 15th / 40 and that I had managed to come 68th/323. As many people have said ‘after a bad race, there is always a good one’ – this has happened with Loughborough and Leeds. I think that I had a big runner’s high after this race as I was very happy and energetic haha. Unfortunately Emma and Beth's places and chip times got mixed up which caused a lot of confusion. We packed up the Sussex tents ready to leave just as it began to snow heavily, we dashed to the coach but had to make sure we weren’t too muddy to get on. (quite hard after XC aha) Here’s to another 7hour journey home. I think I was still quite high on endorphins so Alice and I listened to some tunes and had a lil boogie. We stopped just outside Nottingham at a service station for dinner. Guess who happened to be there? Adam Peaty! The world record holder in breaststroke! I was gutted to miss him but Leo and Will got a picture with him (very jealous). I finally got back to my house at 12:00am, I was absolutely exhausted and jumped straight into bed (I couldn’t be bothered to change) I can’t believe XC is over, so happy I went out on a high, amazing weekend with best people; as Emma said, “I wouldn’t have wanted to spend my weekend freezing my butt off with any other people than my chums!” Amazing performances all round, a special well done to Inter-girls and Senior Boys for placing 3rd as a team! GO TEAM SUSSEX!!
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