23rd January, 2008

First of all let me apologise to you all for the lack of diary entries so far! As you know last season was really intense and its been quite a challenge taking on extra respoonsibilities such as writing a diary. Hehe!

However, its the new year and at least one resolution I've set myself is to keep you all informed and updated on what I'm doing and how the athletics is going... hopefully!

So, happy new year first of all. Last year was great, thanks for all your support through the website. I can't believe this this year has already begun.

On Saturday and Sunday I competed for the first time in a while. Loughbrough on Saturday was good, it was really pleasing to jump 1.91m in the high jump and I hope I can better it real soon. The hurdles was ok, I'm still in heavy training and I could feel it between the barriers. But it was all as expected really. Sunday was the same, it was nice just to compete actually, but there's still a lot of hard work ahead.

Next I go to Glasgow, which is going to be really tough, some great competitors are heading there so it'll be a real test this early in the season. Anyhow, better to get to training...

Speak soon, 

Jess
 

16th July, 2007

We received a phonecall today from Jessica as she sat waiting for another flight in Heathrow airport. Her eighth flight in the last 3 weeks!

Fresh (ish) from her Bronze medal at the U23 European Championships she told us how happy she was with the bronze medal and wanted a few words adding to her diary. So here they are, dictated only twenty minutes ago... its 16:46.

"I'm really pleased with the bronze. I had a bad start but recovered and ran a really strong second part of the race, so that was good" Jess commented. She also expressed how different it was just competing in one event.

"It was a little strange going through all the rounds, and there was a bit of a head-wind but I enjoyed it all". Asked if single events were the way forward, she responded without hesitation. "Nooooo!"


Jess' busy schedule continues this week, she flies back home to Sheffield and then tomorrow she's off to Germany as part of her promotional responsibilities. Then thursday she'll be back to attend her graduation at the University of Sheffield where she'll be presented with a degree in Psychology. 

Life as a professional athlete has well and truly begun. 

Hi, so it’s a couple of months into the season now and I’m really pleased with the way it’s going and the progress I have made since last season. It was great to begin my season with a personal best in the heptathlon and it was an added bonus breaking U23 record held by Denise Lewis. I think overall I was most pleased with my score in the heptathlon, however equalling the British record in the high jump was also brilliant - watch the latest video to see the jump!

Long jump has also been a big break through for me this season, it’s been an event that I have struggled with for so long and it has been so frustrating not performing to my full potential, however hopefully that frustration is a thing of the past and I can continue to progress forward!

Since Italy all my training has been part of preparation for the World Championships in August and my coach and I have been doing a lot of work on my weaker events, I don’t think I need to specify them! The next few weeks are going to be quite busy competition wise for me as on Thursday the 5th I will be flying out to Poland to compete in the European cup combined events. Then I will be flying straight out to the European U23 Championships where I will be competing in the high jump and hurdles.

Shortly after returning from the European U23 Championships I will be attending my graduation which I’m really looking forward to. This year has been quite challenging trying to juggle my degree with training and competing so it’s really nice to have finished and now be able to concentrate solely on my athletics. However I still wake up in a panic most mornings thinking I should be revising or tackling my dissertation!

This week will involve tapering off ready for competing this coming weekend, unfortunately I have missed a bit of training due to the awful weather conditions and flooding we’ve had in Sheffield over the past week. Luckily most of my friends and family were not too badly affected however many others across the city have suffered quite severely. Thankfully the rain has calmed down quite significantly and normality is slowly beginning to be resumed.

To sum up it has been a great start to the season however the season is still young and my biggest challenges are yet to come!

        Jess

I was really pleased with my performances at the European trails and at the Indoor City Challenge. Going into both competitions I was quite apprehensive because I didn’t feel as fresh as I would normally feel going into a competition, due to the fact that my training load is still quite heavy at the moment in my preparation for the European championships.

To run a personal best in the hurdles and to also jump 1.87 and have a good attempt at 1.92 was great. I was also really pleased with my personal best in the 60m at the Indoor City Challenge, the 60m isn’t an event that I tend to do that often however I felt quite strong and confident over it.

I had mixed feelings about the long jump at both competitions, I think that despite the fact that it was frustrating to keep taking off behind the board a lot of positives could be taken away from it. I feel as if all the components are there I just need them to come together at the right time.

The shot putt was quite disappointing simply because it has been going so well in training. It’s something that me and my coach will work on this coming week to make sure that I throw to my potential in the championship.

Overall really pleased with the way my final competitions have gone leading into the championships, nerves will surely set in soon but I’m really looking forward to it!

         Jess