How I Started
I was always a talented cross country runner, and in year 6 my teacher convinced me to compete in the Wolverhampton Schools Cross Country Championships. I trained and competed in championships like this from the ages of 11 until 15, at the age of 15, I moved to the Birchfield Harriers as they are the leading athletics club in the whole of the United Kingdom! At the age o 16, I received my fist English Vest competing for the West Midlands at the English Schools Athletics Event. After this, I was hooked and I couldn’t stop thinking about running! I fell in love with it. Hard to believe it all started with swimming!
My Greatest Achievement
My greatest achievement has to be getting my first England Vest at the age of 16. At this age, I was still young and didn't think I would make my first team until I was around the age of 20. So I managed to exceed my expectations and from then on I wanted to achieve the most I could in this sport and I am definitely not finished yet!
I have failed over and over and over again in athletics since transitioning from junior into senior but that failure doesn’t always have to be the end. It can also be the stepping stone for getting where you want to go. That is what I have discovered in the past 12 months.
As a junior I had a lot of success medalling at National Championships, English schools, and even going on to represent England in the schools International at the age of 16 followed by making England teams.
My Greatest Challenge
Then from there it went downhill. I started to experience what an injured athlete was like and I lost my coach. It all came at the same time. This put me in a dark place for a while because athletes who I had beaten previously all of a sudden started to excel and make GB junior teams. Not that I wasn’t happy for them but because what has happened to me? Have I peaked too early in my athletics career? Have I burnt out already? Those are the thoughts that began to haunt me.
One year you are running well next minute you are coming last in a race and running a few seconds slower than your PB. As soon as you have a few bad races and the times go on your power of 10 profile, the embarrassment is at an all-time high. That is what I experienced. I thought people would look at my statistics and think “what has happened her?” I know some say that good junior athletes cannot make the transition into a senior athlete and others say it doesn’t matter what you do as a junior, it matters what you do as a senior. Even though I was at a low point, I just couldn’t give up!
My Hobbies
When I am not training and competing I love to travel the world. I enjoy seeing all the different cultures as this is of interest to me. Besides travelling, in my spare time I love spending time with my family and friends, as being an athlete means a lot of your time is spent training/competing, meaning you have to sacrifice certain things in your life. So usually, when I have the chance to see them, I make the most of it. As I have such a sweet tooth my favourite food has to be chocolate but being an athlete means you have to eat clean in order to fuel your body correctly, so it is ready to go. I love eating healthy and seeing a variety of colour on my plate always makes it more appealing to eat. Even though I love chocolate and eating healthy foods you just have to remember to eat everything in moderation to get that healthy balance and drink plenty of water!
My Future goals
My main future goal for athletics is to just keep enjoying it and having fun. I want to be able to inspire others with my journey too! Of course I want to go to the Olympics and represent Great Britain but if you aren't enjoying yourself along the way, then trying to perform when you need to will be difficult. One of my main goals is to make the England team for the Commonwealth Games in 2022 as it will be at my home track. I can imagine the atmosphere in the stadium will be incredible.