Jessica Bray is a secondary school triathlete building her skills, fitness and experience. This is her story.
![Monday’s with Jessica [Ep 73]: Recovery Week](https://www.coachray.nz/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Mondays-with-Jessica-600-×-455px-13.png)
It’s already been a week since race day and what a race I have been getting to reflect on! Receiving the race photos earlier this week let me recapture the moments of the race I would have forgotten about, and put an image to remember them too.
View More Monday’s with Jessica [Ep 73]: Recovery Week
My race recap- the day finally came, the Auckland Half Marathon just like that is finished. The training up to this event has been eye opening in just what I love and want to achieve, but also what I can achieve, being so much more than I ever thought. I stayed with my Mum at the same place as last year when I competed in the 11km, but this year by the 11km point i was already at a faster pace than a year ago.
View More Monday’s with Jessica [Ep 72]: Auckland Half Marathon
We have entered race week. The feeling is strange not having a full week of training planned out, tapering will always feel abnormal and ends with being full of energy with it not all being used throughout intervals and long Level II runs. But this is the week I have been leading up too, putting all my effort towards and the motivation to push myself everyday.
View More Monday’s with Jessica [Ep 71]: Nearly Race Week
This week was a week full of training, and a step up in pace along all the boards of my runs. Usually I just have one run a week where I focus on intervals, pushing and holding the pace, but leading into my half marathon in less than two weeks Ray has added in pace into all three of my runs, making me focus on hitting the correct paces, but also holding and repeating them throughout what is on schedule.
View More Monday’s with Jessica [Ep 70]: Fast Shoes for a Fast Race
There is three weeks to go until my goal race arrives. It’s slightly unreal to think that it’s so close. It feels like I just decided to start my journey into longer endurance racing. The change has been more than I could have imagined and I’m so happy that I took the leap of faith and threw myself into something so different and so new to what I normally keep myself confined too.
View More Monday’s with Jessica [Ep 69]: Three Weeks and Counting
This week looked slightly different to the usual. It was my first week of my final school holidays leading into the short time I have left. This week I stuck to all of my training as planned and was very happy with my interval run I completed Tuesday morning, where I felt strong and capable in my running abilities.
View More Monday’s with Jessica [Ep 68]: Tramping Mount Pirongia
This week was a pretty standard week in terms of everything, as usual I completed all my trainings and had my first interval session of this transition phase which felt good and I’m excited to continue to ramp them up and build some speed and paced endurance leading into my half marathon in just over a months time.
View More Monday’s with Jessica [Ep 67]: Shave For A Cure
This week was a big learning curve for me and how much mental tiredness can impact as such as physical. This week I have my mock derived exams and I was off school studying getting prepared for them all week before each one. Having to be so focused and engaged for long periods of time and covering every subject that could possibly be brung up is quite exhausting.
View More Monday’s with Jessica [Ep 66]: Combining Study and Sport
This week, although I completed all my planned training it was like a puzzle piece of completion, less than half of the training was completed on the days they were set for. There were many reasons for the alterations in training but I knew I didn’t want it to affect my overall training plan. I thought out of the days I was busy and when that would affect my normal timings to train, some meant I had less time and some meant I needed to alter when I trained.
View More Monday’s with Jessica [Ep 65]: Grazed Knee![Monday’s with Jessica [Ep 64]: Long Run Home](https://www.coachray.nz/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Mondays-with-Jessica-600-×-455px-12.png)
This week I finally got to do my long run on Saturday. Most weeks through the winter I complete my long runs before school on Fridays, as I have football on the Saturday morning, this means I wouldn’t be able to have time to run beforehand as-well as football being very tiring on the body and would be too tired to complete after, or if I completed it before I wouldn’t be able to give my 100% in the game.
View More Monday’s with Jessica [Ep 64]: Long Run Home