august 2008 blog

Well, what can I say?

The Beijing fortnight was, without doubt, the best two weeks of my life!

We arrived in Beijing on 5th August, having spent 10 days at our holding camp in Osaka, Japan. There was a great feeling of anticipation and excitement within the British Team and we were not to be disappointed! Even though we had all seen pictures of the various sporting venues, it was amazing actually being there and walking around, seeing everything with our own eyes.

The Water Cube was spectacular, particularly at night when the ‘bubbles’ were lit up in a multi-coloured display. The inside of the stadium was enormous with two 50m pools, a diving pit and seating for 17,000 spectators.

The Olympic Village was also very impressive. The accommodation blocks were arranged in countries and comprised apartments for 6 people. The British block had been fitted out with extra touches, courtesy of B&Q - bean bags, pictures, lamps and blankets on the beds. There was another 50m pool within the Olympic village for the quick ‘dips’, which became more and more common towards the end of our tapers!

The competition itself took place during the first week and was fantastic, with world records being broken left, right and centre. The mood within the British team was very positive and we were all really boosted by Rebecca Adlington’s 2 gold medals and Jo Jackson’s bronze.

I was personally very pleased with the way I swam. I PB’d in the 100m backstroke and made it through to a semi-final, coming 10th overall, and in my stronger event (the 200m backstroke) I made a final, coming 6th in a new British Record of 2.08:51. It would have been amazing to finish with a medal, but at 17, I still have plenty of time to get to the very top (before London 2012!).

After the swimming had finished, there was a great party hosted by Speedo - it was good fun to mix with swimmers from other countries, away from the poolside. The Speedo party was the first of many in that second week and there was a great atmosphere of celebration, culminating in the closing ceremony. We hadn’t been able to attend the opening ceremony, as the swimming started the following day, so it was fantastic to finally be inside the spectacular Bird’s Nest Stadium.

The whole of The British Team competed exceptionally well and we swimmers were all proud that our 6 medals (3 from the pool and 3 from open water) boosted the GB team’s medal tally and helped us finish 4th overall. To celebrate, British Airways flew the whole team home on a Jumbo with a gold nose and there was a big reception for us when we landed.

Although I was absolutely shattered by the end of the fortnight, I will have many lasting memories of my 1st Olympics and it has really inspired me for London 2012, where hopefully I’ll be one of the medal-winners.

I now have a good rest to look forward to, before training starts again in October, and have already enjoyed a week away with my family, in Portugal.

Thank you for all your support through to Beijing.

Lizzie

july 2008 blog

Hi from Japan

We collected our Olympic kit from the NEC on 14th of July and it really began to sink in that we were actually going to the Olympics. The kit was fantastic and I think “Team GB” is going to look great. There was even an outfit included for meeting the Queen at Buckingham Palace!

On 25th July, the whole of the GB swimming squad left for a holding camp in Osaka, Japan, the idea being that the heat and climatic conditions there would be very similar to Beijing.

Caitlin, Fran and me

It has certainly been very hot and humid here, and there have been good things and bad things about the camp. It has been fantastic to be with the whole British team and to prepare together. The atmosphere had been great and there is definitely a growing sense of excitement. And it has been really good to be on taper, at long last - the pool sessions are getting shorter and shorter with a lot more rest during the hard parts of the sets. The food in the hotel hasn’t been that great and I think we are all looking forward to experiencing what they’ll have to offer in the Olympic Village. It’s been much too hot to walk anywhere, so there’s been a lot of sitting around in hotel rooms and no sightseeing!    

I just can’t wait to get to Beijing now and start the experience of my first Olympics.

I’ll update you from there.

Lizzie

p.s. My second career in tug-of-war

may 2008 blog

Hello from Loughborough!

After the excitement of World Short Course Championships in Manchester, I moved into my new flat in Loughborough and started training with Ben Titley and his squad. The end of April/beginning of May was spent in Palma, Majorca on an Olympic Women’s Camp. This was a good week of hard training and it was great to be together with the rest of the Team (as well as getting a bit of sunshine!).

Lizzie


april 2008 blog

Hi Everyone

november 2007 blog

Hi All (from sunny Australia)

We arrived in Sydney on 30th October after the customary, exhausting 24hr trip. We had 3 days to recover before competing in the Sydney leg of the Fina World Cup – a short-course competition held over 2 days.

It took me a good week to settle back into a normal sleep pattern, but I seemed to be okay once I was in the water. The first day I swam in the 200IM and 200m backstroke, winning the latter with a small PB of 2:05.25 (I was quite shocked at how fast I’d swum). On the second day I swam the 100 backstroke heats and broke the British record with a time of 58.61 – it was my first Senior record which was pretty exciting. 

Tim Kerrison told me he’d ‘mislaid’ the recorded video, so I’d have to break the record again in the final (where I was up against Tay Zimmer, Sophie Edington and Emily Seebohm – all World Class swimmers). I had a great swim, breaking the British and Commonwealth record in 58.14 and winning some very welcome Christmas present prize-money.

From Sydney, we went on to the AIS at Canberra for 2 weeks of intensive training and a competition against the Australians. I swam a ‘respectable’ 1:01.99 to win in the 100m backstroke (long course, this time).

The best part of the trip has been here on the Gold Coast where Fran and I share an apartment and really revel in the outdoor training (it’s generally very sunny and warm). We’ve got 3 weeks here – most days we’re so tired from training that we’re in bed by 8pm. It’s great having cooking facilities and being able to schedule meals when you need them.

Back home soon – I’m really looking forward to being home with my family at Christmas.

Have a great Christmas.

Lizzie

october 2007 blog

By the time you read this, I’ll be in Sydney, Australia.

september 2007 blog

Hi All!

I had a great time in Portugal – just chilling and a tiny bit of surfing. It’s likely to be my last holiday until next summer – I’ll be expected to train right though Christmas and the New Year.

A week after arriving home, I set off to the Seychelles to get a good set of aerobic, distance training under my belt at the start of the new season. I was really looking forward to seeing the beaches and doing some outdoor training.

The camp was quite small – dominated by Ian Turner’s GB swimmers – but the group of girls included Mel Marshall, Becky Adlington, Becky Cooke, Jo Jackson and Jemma Lowe (my room-mate). We had some very funny moments together and lots of photo-opportunities!!!

We were all pretty exhausted by all of the training sessions, so we didn’t do much sight-seeing. The beach near to the hotel was gorgeous (a few red body parts were spotted during the first week!). Our one and only real exploration was a trip on a boat to the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, we were all seasick on the boat and it spoilt the day a bit.

 The food prepared in the hotel was really good – especially the tuna kebabs, which were awesome!

I arrived home in the last week of September and have a month of hard training ahead of me before I leave for Australia at the end of October.

I’m going to try and juggle a couple of A-levels (maybe Biology and PE) - Lincoln Minster School have been very good at trying to accommodate “Miss Awkward”.

Next Blog I should be on my way Down Under!

Catch you later,

Lizzie



august 2007 blog

Lizzie



july 2007 blog

Hi Everyone

Well, it’s all been happening here.

We made it to Antwerp for the European Juniors Competition. Flying from Birmingham airport via Brussels, we were bussed to a hotel about 5 mins walk from the pool. I was sharing with Ellen Gandy which was great because she was going to have a heavy competition programme like me! The party of about 23 athletes (15/16yr old girls and 17/18yr old boys) and 10 coaches and technical staff was a moderately-sized team (the Russian team was massive).   

In the finals, I went out slightly too quickly and tied up a bit towards the end – winning Gold in a ‘respectable’ 2.12.36 - a couple of seconds ahead of the next competitor. It was great to be on the top tier of the podium again.

Sasha Matthews got a bronze in the 400m Freestyle, Marco Loughran had a great swim in the men’s 100m Backstroke to win gold, and our boys won silver in the 4x100m Freestyle relay - all fantastic for the team’s morale.

The next day I swam in the 50m Backstroke and the heats for the 4x100m free. In the backstroke semis, I broke the Championship record (29.18), but was just beaten to the gold 40 minutes later in the final by Christin Zenner (Germany) who broke the record again (not much of a record-holding period for me!). Christin turned out to be a generous sparring partner throughout the three backstroke events. I have no doubt we’ll meet again!

On the fourth day, I raced in the heats and semis for the100m Backstroke and 200m Individual Medley, beating my PB in the latter and making it through to both finals seeded first.

Ellen won a bronze in the 100m Butterfly, Marco a silver in Backstroke and Lauren Collins got a silver in the 200m Freestyle. But the evening was capped with a fantastic 4x200m Freestyle relay gold for Britain (Sasha, Ellen, Rebecca Turner and Lauren).

The final day of the competition left me with 3 evening finals, about 30 minutes apart. The 100m Backstroke saw me taking gold and a championship record in 1:01.37. Because I was ‘swimming down’ after the race, Lauren went and collected my medal and stood in for me during the National Anthem.

My next race was the 200m IM final – I turned after the Butterfly in 7th place (I defo need some work on my fly!). I was leading after a very quick backstroke section and still 2m ahead after the breaststroke.

But in the last 10 metres of the race I could hardly turn my arms over – I was completely exhausted. A Polish girl followed me to the wall, just 0.32 seconds behind me. We’d swum at the most extraordinary pace (I have no idea where this race speed came from), but it was the second fastest time ever swum by a Brit and ranked me 13th in the World this year, in an event that I rarely swim.
     

Lauren as ‘’Lizzie No2’’

Whilst I tried to keep myself cramp-free in the swim-down pool, Sasha very kindly did my podium duties for me (the spectators and photographers will have been very confused by now).

The girl’s final race was the Medley relay which I ‘led off’ for the GB team, followed by Alex Warren (breaststroke), Ellen (butterfly) and Lauren (freestyle). We were really buzzed and absolutely stormed the race, winning in a huge championship record of 4:09.29.

The boys got silver in their medley relay and the team finished an impressive 2nd in the medal table with 6 Golds – just 1 Gold behind Russia.

I arrived back in the UK, totally exhausted, but with only 3 available days of training before the National Championships in Sheffield (which start tomorrow). After that, the tapered training starts, before I fly (with a group of GB swimmers) to Japan for a big international meet. At the end of August, I’ll be back in the UK, then joining my family for a few days of rest (and surfing) in Portugal.  Oops – and GCSE results sometime.

Take care (and please don’t ever assess my carbon footprint!)

Lizzie

june 2007 blog

Hello All!

Not much happening here, apart from a raft of GCSE’s exams. I guess they went about as well as I expected – some major gaps in knowledge/syllabus/ability-on-the-day, but I was reasonably pleased with papers and the prospects for my results.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do next year, in terms of any formal education. I might try and keep an interest in a couple of GCSE’s at the same time as concentrating on my swimming full-time for the first time. It very much depends on what distance learning we can arrange because I’m likely to be in Australia for most of the year. I might even try my hand at the early phases of an A-level!

Anyway, back to swimming. Training is going pretty well. The European Juniors take place between 18th and 23rd of July. I have mixed feelings about being defending 200m Backstroke champion – there’s quite a lot of expectation on my shoulders and I won’t be fully tapered for the event, but after a couple of swims, I should be pumped up for some good racing. 

Must head off to bed – it’s 10pm and I’ve been going since 4.11am (roll on Australia!).

The Juniors will be reported on the British Swimming website – I’ll let you know how I get on in next month’s update.

Bye for now

Lizzie

I’ve taken three Spanish exams and English literature so far. Not too bad, although it would have helped if I’d squeezed in a few more lessons in Spanish. The next lot of exams start on 4th June and are quite well spaced through the 10 days that follow. The worst thing about swimming during exams is the early morning swims – if it’s a morning exam, you can feel quite buzzed up after a swim, but an afternoon exam is a real battle against falling asleep (I’m not sure if the invigilators have a policy for students who snore!).

On bank Holiday Monday I’m off to a training camp near Barcelona with Lincoln Vulcans (my home club). I’m going to have to fly back early to get back in time for a Maths GCSE. My eldest brother (Tom) is staying at home to revise for his A Levels. My younger brother (Will) is off to the Ardeche, canoeing and rock climbing (lucky devil).

We’ve been trying to sort out which competitions to enter over the summer. My likely schedule is:

JULY – Antwerp – European Junior Championships
LATE JULY – ASA National Championships
AUGUST – Japan Meet

I’ll try and have a complete break from swimming for a week, or so, after the Japan trip – and then it’s the start of a new season and Olympic Year!

Bye for now.

Lizzie



april 2007 blog

Hi All!

Well, I’m back in the UK, having competed at the World Swimming Championships, and then at the Australian Age Group Nationals. Totally exhausted, but very pleased with what I’ve achieved!

Last time I wrote, I was about to start competing for the GB team in the World Championships.

My first event was the 100m Backstroke which I guess is my second best event. It was critical that I swim faster than ever before in the morning heats to get through to the semi-finals.

I was pretty nervous going into the race (the stadium was huge) and despite recording a fast morning swim, I just missed out on the next stage of competition. I was pretty disappointed – not because I hadn’t swum well, but because I knew I could have been competitive in the next stage (I usually swim a lot faster in an evening event).

There was what seemed like an endless wait for the next and easily the most important race of my life - the 200m Backstroke - which was held four days later.

Again, from my seeding of 14th, it was going to require a really quick swim to guarantee going through to the semi-finals. My time of 2:12.68 was nearly on my P.B (2:12.41) and left me seeded 12th into the semi-finals. I was delighted just to have another chance to swim!

That evening, I was due to swim in the first heat of the semis and from Lane 7 (not exactly where the action is, but still!). I had the most nervous and exciting six hour wait until the semi-finals.

In the semi-finals, I got really flustered trying to manage the sponsor’s competition labels at the same time as remove my tracksuit just in time for the race.

You have to wait until after the TV cameras have gone past (being in lane 7 or 8 is more hassle than it looks!). So, when I appeared on Grandstand I looked really happy – in fact, I was almost crying with laughter because I felt like a swimming variant of Mr Bean.

I think the clothing problems might have dissipated some of the nerves, because I set off like an absolute bullet. I’m pretty good on underwater starts and turns, so at the start of each length, I appeared to be storming through the field.

Some of the older/beefier swimmers are much quicker than me on top of the water, so I was quickly hauled in by them and despite turning in 3rd place at the 150m mark, I eventually touched the wall in 4th place in a major personal best time of 2:11.20. I had a nervous 5 minute wait for the second semi-final, but luckily I got through in 8th place to the World Championship Swimming Finals. I was in 7th heaven (although, again, I was going to have to swim it from an outside lane).

On the morning of the next day, I swum the backstroke in the GB medley relay team in a personal best time of 1:02.06, and we qualified for the finals to be held that night. Then it was my big moment – from Lane 8 in the final of a competition second only to the Olympics. It was great – I swam like I’d never swum before and although I only improved by one place to 7th, I broke my own PB again (2:11.08) and was ‘’as happy as Larry’’ for the rest of the trip. It was great to perform at a level above where I was expected to!

 
Fran and Lizzie on a bus

Straight after the Worlds, Fran, Jess and I went to Perth and competed in our own Age Groups in their Nationals. We were pretty well ‘done-in’ from the Worlds, but were set the challenge of swimming our morning heat swims as finals, really quickly, against almost no competition.

We weren’t allowed to swim in the later stages of the competition, but would have won loads of golds between us if we had been. I improved on my best time for the 100m backstroke – posting a 1:01.52 which would rank me 16th in the World this year, and also swam the fastest 2007 Individual Medley time in Europe for a 16yr old girl which (hopefully) bodes well for the European Juniors in Antwerp this summer.

We all left Perth physically and emotionally drained after 54 days away from home. A busy time for me at home, though – straight into GCSE revision and back into training.

No complaints though – life is great.

Catch you soon!

march 2007 blog

We are now in Melbourne on the eve of the World Championships. Everybody is itching for things to get underway – most of us have been training for the last 8 months specifically for this event. I’m seeded about 22nd in the 100m Backstroke, and 14th in the 200m Backstroke. 

The accommodation here isn’t as nice as it was on the Gold Coast, but the pool in the Rod Laver stadium is just awesome. The biggest stadium I’ve competed in before was in Budapest last summer.

I’m supposed to be swimming on Monday, then again on Friday in my main event – 200m backstroke (heats in the morning and semis in the evening, hopefully). I’m not sure what the team plans are for the medley relay yet – Mel Marshall may well swim the heats and/or the final depending on how we both swim earlier in the week.

Next time you hear from me, I’ll also have competed in the Australian Age Group Nationals in Perth (with Fran and Jess) and I’ll be safely back in Lincoln revising for my GCSE’s and training like mad again for the summer competitions.

Don’t expect any medals from the Worlds for me (unless there’s a bout of food poisoning!).

Well, we got here eventually – I forget, each time, just how long it takes to get to Australia. Twenty-four hours of confinement – the only break in the boredom was the woman sitting in front of me on the Singapore to Brisbane leg, who was suddenly taken ill. On landing, we had the full environmental health squad storming the plane, complete with SARS masks – very dramatic!

We are staying in the Beaconlea apartments in Southport, which are great. 

Fran and I are on the 11th floor and have a fantastic 180 degree sea view over the Gold Coast. The first thing we did was to go out and spend $340 on food, provisions and everything else we needed. We only had a 20kg baggage allowance for 8 weeks so all the normal snacks and cosmetics had to be bought when we got here. The apartments are self-catering, so we’ve had to cook by ourselves (without any parental input) – no cooking, no tea!  Things like spaghetti Bolognese and stir-fry, with loads of veg, are the favourites at the moment.

We’re mostly train at Southport School, which is the offshore centre for the top junior GB lads. The school looks pretty amazing and the grounds and facilities are awesome.  It sometimes makes you wish you were a boy, as there’s no equivalent overseas training and educational facility for the top GB girl swimmers.

SOUTHPORT SCHOOL & GOLD COAST BEACONLEA APARTMENTS

Jess Dickons is joining us soon. We’re all really good friends, having spent most of our competitive GB careers travelling to far-off places. We tend to train separately from each other as Fran does a sprint programme, Jess is a fly specialist and I’m a middle distance backstroker.

The weather is absolutely boiling and incredibly burning. We’ve only been here a few days and Fran and I are already peeling!  I managed to miss a section of my forehead with the high factor sun cream (pretty dangerous, when I mostly train on my back, facing the sun). I looked like a Red Indian warrior for a few days, much to the amusement of everyone else!

We get a day off each week and although we haven’t been anywhere yet, there’s talk of going to see the surfing competitions down the coast (and check out the local talent!)

The rest of the GB team are arriving this weekend and I think well start to do some team-building and general preparation for the World Championships.

We travel to Melbourne on 20th March, ready for the biggest competition of our careers to date (swimming runs from March 25th- April 1st). I’ve just started my taper and my biggest hope is in the 200m backstroke. It would be great to P.B and make at least a semi-final against the best women in the world. I’m not sure whether I’ll be selected for the GB medley relay squad, but it would be fantastic if I could swim the backstroke leg in the heats at least.

I think the morning heats run from about midnight – 2am UK time, on Sky - so it’s pretty unsociable for watching, but finals will be in your morning.

After the Worlds, the three girls (me, Fran and Jess) are going straight on to Perth where we will compete in the Aussie National Age Groups against girls in our own age groups. 

I expect the next update will be after the World Championships.

Wish me luck!