Saturday 17 March 2007

A bridge too far ...

On Thursday Amelia had a hurdles training session with Judy followed by a shot session with John. She seemed pleased with how both had gone and was relaxed and confident about the weekend to come.
We drove to Manchester on Friday night and stayed at a Travelodge close to the track. On Saturday morning, after a reasonable start and good breakfast we headed for Manchester SportsCity - the indoor track which was used as a warm-up area for the Commonwealth Games.
Amelia was still in confident mood as she lined up for her 60m hurdles race - the first event of the final indoor championship of the season.
The starter's gun went and Amelia made a rocketing start - unfortunately it was too fast a start! She had used her sprinting start instead of her hurdling start and was running so fast that she over-strode to the first jump. This took her too close to the hurdle to take off properly and she had to pull up. Instead of stepping over and continuing to take some points in the overall pentathlon, her deflated body told her to stop. She walked away with the wind completely taken out of her sails.
After a quiet chat (and a few tears) with coach Trevor, she came back to the track, reconciled to the fact that for today a medal would be beyond her grasp. However, she said she still wanted to compete.
Lining up for the long jump, half an hour later, she achieved a jump of 4.92m - taking off well behind the board in each of her three jumps - and placing her in 7th. The day was not going well.
Amelia then decided to enter the shot put, but to withdraw from the high jump and 800m, as she knew her energy had been sapped and these would be lost causes, especially since a majority of her competitors were high-jump specialists. She threw three shots, the longest of which was 8.25m, a new Personal Best and allowing her to finish her day on a more positive note.
Making no excuses, but after a week which saw Bob in hospital and a girl at the children's school killed under a bus, maybe this event was a bridge too far ...
Everyone has bad days, and Amelia is determined to learn from hers. Mistakes made today will not be repeated and the outdoor season begins next month. Winter indoor training now turns to the Summer outdoor training for a busy 6-month season ahead.

2 comments:

JCW said...

Never mind, no matter how disappointing, we know that you will learn from it, and nothing takes away from a PB on the day and quite a lot of remarkable achievements in a very short time. Not a problem in the long run (sorry, completely unintentional!). Lots of love from The Whites xxxxx

Anonymous said...

Well done Amelia!