An inspirational weekend
Sport changes lives ....
This weekend the delightful Mr Bob and myself have been at our annual British Athletics Supporters Club event. We’ve been attending for the last goodness knows how many years and during that time we’ve had the privilege of meeting some amazing British athletes, both up and coming and gold medal winners. One very notable year was when we got the opportunity to meet Jessica Ennis-Hill shortly after she’d won her fabulous Olympic gold medal in London. How she coped with the expectation of the whole nation is beyond belief.
The weekend is also an opportunity to meet up with lots of people who we’ve become good friends with over the years and the great thing is that every single person who attends already has something in common, we all love athletics, so it’s not hard to strike up a conversation with someone you didn’t previously know.
We had a real treat on Saturday morning when we listened to one of THE most inspirational women I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. Connie Henry is an ex-triple jumper whose career highlight was achieving a bronze medal at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur. She was open and honest in saying that despite her hard work and strict regime she realised that she had gone as far as her physical abilities would take her and she retired quite early in her career. That takes real guts to admit that to yourself but she retired happy in the knowledge that she had done everything she possibly could have and had no regrets. She then went on to have a career in broadcasting before realising that she was destined to set up a sports Academy for disadvantaged youngsters, drawing on all her knowledge and life events that she had encountered during her own childhood and throughout her life. Connie is proof that sheer hard work, guts, determination, never giving up and taking a few risks here and there will culminate in achieving what you want in life. Her talk was also confirmation to me that sport really does change lives in that it goes way deeper than the actual physical side of sport. It’s mental as well as physical, it provides a social aspect and in the case of Connie’s Academy it provides a family for those youngsters and learnings for life. trackacademy.co.uk
As you can tell, I was deeply moved by Connie’s talk. She spoke about everything I believe in and all the things I’m trying to incorporate into my own life to be the best I can be. I recently ran a half marathon and finished in 2:00:24 - 24 feckin seconds over the magical 2 hour mark!! Initially I was absolutely gutted, I’d worked so hard, had felt really good throughout the race yet missed the mark by seconds. Then it started to sink in about what I'd actually achieved, first of all at the age of 49 years and 7 months I’m still capable of knocking out a 2 hour half marathon without doing anywhere near the amount of training that I used to do when I was younger, not bad for an old bird! Secondly, I could be satisfied that I’d done everything possible in the build up to the race with the amount of time I'd had available for training and thirdly, I’d given absolutely everything during the race itself, I couldn’t have done any more. I was able to hold my head high knowing that I’d done my best with what I’d had to work with and for that I was grateful and couldn’t ask for anything more. For me, that’s key in everything I do. If I do something and I know I couldn’t possibly have done any more then I feel happy and proud whatever the outcome. If I do something and haven’t given 100% then that’s a different matter, I should be disappointed in myself and it’s a wake up call to do better next time.
.... I've witnessed it first hand and I've also experienced it myself. My blog this week is a small step in helping to spread this message far and wide.
This weekend the delightful Mr Bob and myself have been at our annual British Athletics Supporters Club event. We’ve been attending for the last goodness knows how many years and during that time we’ve had the privilege of meeting some amazing British athletes, both up and coming and gold medal winners. One very notable year was when we got the opportunity to meet Jessica Ennis-Hill shortly after she’d won her fabulous Olympic gold medal in London. How she coped with the expectation of the whole nation is beyond belief.
The weekend is also an opportunity to meet up with lots of people who we’ve become good friends with over the years and the great thing is that every single person who attends already has something in common, we all love athletics, so it’s not hard to strike up a conversation with someone you didn’t previously know.
On the Friday night we had a fascinating talk from Chris Cohen who was Competition Director at the World Athletics Championships in Doha, and my word did he have some tales to tell. If I wasn’t already in doubt about the IAAF choosing a nation with no interest in athletics, I was left in no doubt afterwards. It was only down to sheer determination and never giving up on Chris's behalf that things actually happened. I’m going to leave that story there otherwise I’ll get myself into trouble and cause an international incident! Thankfully, the amazing performances by the athletes surpassed all the political drama.
We had a real treat on Saturday morning when we listened to one of THE most inspirational women I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. Connie Henry is an ex-triple jumper whose career highlight was achieving a bronze medal at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur. She was open and honest in saying that despite her hard work and strict regime she realised that she had gone as far as her physical abilities would take her and she retired quite early in her career. That takes real guts to admit that to yourself but she retired happy in the knowledge that she had done everything she possibly could have and had no regrets. She then went on to have a career in broadcasting before realising that she was destined to set up a sports Academy for disadvantaged youngsters, drawing on all her knowledge and life events that she had encountered during her own childhood and throughout her life. Connie is proof that sheer hard work, guts, determination, never giving up and taking a few risks here and there will culminate in achieving what you want in life. Her talk was also confirmation to me that sport really does change lives in that it goes way deeper than the actual physical side of sport. It’s mental as well as physical, it provides a social aspect and in the case of Connie’s Academy it provides a family for those youngsters and learnings for life. trackacademy.co.uk
As you can tell, I was deeply moved by Connie’s talk. She spoke about everything I believe in and all the things I’m trying to incorporate into my own life to be the best I can be. I recently ran a half marathon and finished in 2:00:24 - 24 feckin seconds over the magical 2 hour mark!! Initially I was absolutely gutted, I’d worked so hard, had felt really good throughout the race yet missed the mark by seconds. Then it started to sink in about what I'd actually achieved, first of all at the age of 49 years and 7 months I’m still capable of knocking out a 2 hour half marathon without doing anywhere near the amount of training that I used to do when I was younger, not bad for an old bird! Secondly, I could be satisfied that I’d done everything possible in the build up to the race with the amount of time I'd had available for training and thirdly, I’d given absolutely everything during the race itself, I couldn’t have done any more. I was able to hold my head high knowing that I’d done my best with what I’d had to work with and for that I was grateful and couldn’t ask for anything more. For me, that’s key in everything I do. If I do something and I know I couldn’t possibly have done any more then I feel happy and proud whatever the outcome. If I do something and haven’t given 100% then that’s a different matter, I should be disappointed in myself and it’s a wake up call to do better next time.
The rest of the weekend was just as inspiring but these two presentations really left an impact on me and provided me with the clarification that you should never give up on something you believe in. As I said earlier, sport and fitness go way deeper than the physical act of doing it. I’m proud to be able to say that my fitness sessions have helped people to cope with serious illness, job losses and job changes, moving house, pregnancy, menopause and a whole host of other life events and throughout it all, we've laughed, laughed and laughed some more.
In keeping with ‘not normal November’, your homework this week is to approach something that you really want to do through fresh eyes. What will it take to get that thing you want? The more obscure and bizarre way the better because you owe it to yourself to know that you’ve done everything possible and couldn’t do any more. You got this, go smash it out the park!!
#not-normal-november
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