17/01/23- Preparing for SAISA Track and Field

This year SAISA Track and Field is being hosted in Chennai, India in February 2023. This will be my 4th SAISA track ever and I am really excited for the competition, as it’s the first one back since the pandemic. It’s really strange to recognise that I am one of the ‘seniors’ on the team this year, as we have an overall young and new team. One of my responsibilities this year is to help Sam as ‘co-captain’ with leading the warm ups and cool downs for the session (one of my CAS goals for this year)

Training During the Holiday:

Over the December break I have been training for the SAISA track and field competition that is going to be held from February 8th onwards. For the December holiday I went to my hometown in Australia, just south of Sydney. In order to maintain my fitness whilst here, I decided to go on runs to maintain my endurance and keep fit. I mostly did the same plan for each run, which was to just run around the area for about 20 minutes to half an hour, which I estimated to be around 4-5k each run. It was a really enjoyable way for me to explore the area by foot a little better, and for some of the runs that I was away from my home town on holiday, it was a nice way to explore new areas as well as see some nice scenery. 

Running with Miley :))

Beach Walk in Jervis Bay

Runs by the beach

Now that we are back at school, there are only a few weeks to go until the competition. I plan to attend the 3 mandatory training sessions each week, as well as at least one (if not more) morning sessions a week so I can practice running my events to build my endurance and make sure I have good times going into the competition. Now that the competition is only a few weeks away, I want to work on improving my times and distances for the competition. The 1500m, high jump and long jump are the 3 main events I want to work on as these are my strongest so far. My current time for the 1500m is 6:16, and I want to work on getting it to below 6 minutes before the competition. For my high jump, my current best is 1.40 meters, and I would like to be able to clear at least 1.45mbefore the competition. Finally for long jump, my current best is around 4.10m, and I want to be jumping around 4.50m for the competition. The same goes for my other events that I will be practicing as well.

Another aspect to the preparation is being collaborative, both among the whole team, but most importantly in our own age groups. I am part of the senior girls team, along with my Mali, Maya, and Eleez. The relays are a very important race in the competition, and practicing the changeovers for those is something we are working to get as close to perfection by the competition as possible.