Personal Bests:
Abbie in the beginning warming up with Dad, Alex, at Louth XC Under 11!!
800m – 2.15.7
1500m – 4.11.3
3000m – 9.18.12
5000m – 16.21.44
10,000m – 33.56.13
5k Road – 16.11
10k Road – 34.30 [32.00 on Short Leeds Abbey Dash]
XC for GB – 13th European Senior Women’s XC Championships 2019 in Portugal
XC for GB – 17th European U23 Women’s XC Championships 2018 in Holland
XC for GB – 80th World Junior XC Championships 2015 in China
I was asked by Keith and Mark at The Lincolnshire Runner, if I would be interested in writing a little something about my running career so far, and of course I said yes! Running has been such a big part of my life; it wouldn’t be dramatic to say that it defines who I am. So, I thought to kick it off in style, my first blog would venture back to the very beginning, where all this running malarkey started.
I’m not sure how many of you know this, but my dad was a half decent runner back in the day, specializing in 400m, 800m and 1500m (and with enough persuasion the odd cross country). I think he was secretly hoping the running gene, or rather the running bug, had passed onto my sister and I. So, this explains why my first memory of running involved the best kind of bribe a six-year-old Abbie could have – sweets! Once a week, the three of us would do what at the time felt like a long run to the local sweet shop (if only I were to know what was to come!). I later realized it was just over a mile. However, here’s the twist, if we managed to run all the way there without stopping there would be a bag of sweets with our name on it. Of course, running back without eating any, or rather running back and trying to breathe normally while secretly chewing, was the most difficult part of the whole thing. I think this little taster into running kickstarted what was to become an intense passion for the sport.
As I got older, while still carrying on the runs every so often, I think I tried just about every sport out there. From cricket, to swimming, to tag rugby (the less said about that the better!) And after a very short stint of trying to become the next Maria Sharapova of tennis where I learnt I have the hand-eye coordination of a potato, I realized running could be the one for me. So the decision to join Lincoln Wellington athletics club was a very easy one, and even though I was only eight years old, I remember it very clearly. With my mum and dad watching from the side of the track, me donning my first pair of running trainers from The Lincolnshire runner, Laura and I joined in with Linda and Larry’s group, doing the first of many pyramid sessions to come. Unbeknown to me at the time, from this point onwards, Tuesday and Thursday nights from 6pm to 8pm had just been booked up indefinitely.
During my time at Lincoln Wellington, I have been extremely lucky to have received the continued support and advice of various coaches. This is especially true of Rob Lewis. Rob has been, and still is, a major influence on my running career. While I was very lucky to have achieved some success at junior levels, Rob has been instrumental in transitioning me through to the senior ranks. This journey, as many of you have experienced (or will do in the near future) can be a very perilous one, with many twists and turns in the road. Rob was always conscious about an athlete doing too much too soon, and as he often said, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” As a result of this, my training has been carefully planned with an eye always being kept on the long-term goal of attending major senior level competitions. Each year from 2011 onwards, the distance and pace I run has been very gradually increased, sometimes by a matter of five minutes on certain runs. While this doesn’t seem like very much at the time, after nine years my training is very close to reaching its peak capacity (I really hope so anyway! I can see Rob reading this laughing to himself if this isn’t the case, which is a very worrying thought). So, I think a thank you is in order here to Rob and his unshakeable support and invaluable knowledge for the past decade. I will be writing a little more on this and its combination with university training in a later blog too.
When thinking about the people who have inspired me to run, until quite recently the answer could be found in inspirations a bit closer to home. While Olympians and famous athletes have shown me the very best that running can bring, in my earlier years it was the girls in my own races who had been my biggest inspiration. Being able to see the distance between us in races or watching them smash out amazing times on the track, showed me exactly where I wanted to be. However, since attending Loughborough University, my inspiration expanded to include the more famous faces a lot of us are more familiar with. Just walking onto the track and sports buildings next door, there is almost a tangible air of aspiration to succeed. Training amongst athletes who are UK leaders in their events has shown me the drive and dedication needed to achieve. And the biggest dream of being able to attend competitions such as World Champs and the Olympics, doesn’t feel quite so impossible anymore. The very slight 0.01% chance that I have of making it has made every step of hard, seemingly never ending sessions, completely worth it. And I hope that one day, everyone who has supported me throughout these many years of running, can know that they also played a huge part in inspiring me to train harder and push myself to that next level. So right now, the attempt to go from ‘that girl who runs with her dad on his bike’ to ‘the girl from the Olympics’ is officially in motion!
Big thanks to everyone at Lincolnshire runner for all their help over the years, and for this opportunity to share some of my running ramblings!
Abbie x
