Outdoor Season May-July 2019

Travelling sucks!

I bet you’re surprised to hear me write that considering how much I rave about travelling around the world!

But that’s not what I mean.

I love visiting new places.

I just don’t love faffing about with the multiple trains, planes and automobiles it takes to arrive at a destination.

I’m quickly discovering that there are few if any direct flights to … most places from Manchester.

Whereas in the past I used to take a quick and easy 1 hour direct flight from anywhere in London to Marseille, the other week it took me 2 (delayed!) flights and ten hours door-to-door. EXHAUSTING.

And right now, I’m at the airport at the start of what will be a 9 hour door-to-door trip back home from Varberg, Sweden. Yay.

But that’s the only part I dislike about travelling. I wouldn’t change anything else for the world. I am so blessed right now and I thought I would share with you a massive update on my competition, training and travel schedule since starting my outdoor season in May.

I’ve had a total of six competitions.

Bedford (UK) – 27th May 2019 – 6.59

Low expectations as ever for the first meet of the season. I told myself that I’d be happy to jump anywhere between 6.30-6.60m. Perhaps, I should have wished for something greater…

Chania, Crete (Greece) – Sun 9th June 2019 – 6m / fouled out!

I felt … SO GOOD and SO READY to jump far .This competition felt like a wasted opportunity to jump the World Champs standard of 6.72m. I haven’t jumped the standard this year and it is disappointing to waste meets like this due to poor runway discipline. This means that I couldn’t figure out how to get on the board properly – my first two jumps were fouls and then my final jump was so far behind the board that it ended up being insufficient to progress to the final three rounds. I don’t even really count this as a competition, to be very honest! 😅

…it sometimes doesn’t matter how you feel on the day if you know you’ve put in the work over the past months and years to excel at what you do.

Filothei, Athens (Greece) – Weds 12th June 2019 – 6.53m

I was actually so sick for this competition and SO ready to go home. I don’t know whether I was sick with nerves or just unwell because of the food. Either way, I thought about pulling out of the competition at various points during the warm up. And so I’m proud of myself for finishing with this distance – consistent over the 6.50m mark and it was enough to win the competition.

Berlin (Germany) – Sat 22nd June 2019 – 6.51m

I finished third here in a high-quality field against multiple World and Olympic Champion, Brittney Rees and world leading female long-jumper, Malaika Mihambo.

Again, I was over the 6.50m mark. The main disappointment for me was there were only 4 rounds. I would’ve like 2 more rounds to try to work on some of the things I was doing wrong.

Marseille (France) – Tues 2nd July 2019 – 6.70(w)

I left the best jump until last! This was a very welcome and unexpected big jump, particularly because I was suffering from a horrible cold on par with man flu. This is proof that it sometimes doesn’t matter how you feel on the day if you know you’ve put in the work over the past months and years to excel at what you do. And it is also proof of the importance of a good coach to help you correct mistakes to jump further. Thanks, Dwight!

Varberg (Sweden) – Mon 15th July 2019 – 6.38m

Eurgh. What can I say? We all jumped sub-par…except the young Swedish talent, Tilde Johannsen. She finished with 6.65m and the win. I came third behind her and Tisanna Hickley’s 6.43m leap. I can also tell you that a 7-metre jumper who jumped close to 6.70m only last week finished with 6.28m and had multiple 6.0 jumps. This is really unusual. Everybody felt and looked a whole lot better than the results showed so this could be due to the newly-laid runway being too soft (it was laid 2 weeks ago) and/or the dipped board. Either way, the crowd were excellent and really engaged. The stadium was packed and all of us girls enjoyed the experience despite the poor distances.

Next Stops:

London Anniversary Games (UK) – Sun 21st July 2019

UKWL (UK) – Sat 3rd August 2019

Birmingham Diamond League (UK) – Sunday 18th July 2019

UK Champs, Birmingham (UK) – Sunday 25th July 2019