Jessica Bray is a secondary school triathlete building her skills, fitness and experience. This is her story.
If you were to ask me a few days ago how I thought this run was going to go, I would have probably thought badly. I felt fatigued, tired and sore. With each tapered training run through the week I still felt heavy despite the de load of mileage. Something came over me Friday night as I started my solo road trip down to Taupo, I suddenly felt excited, energised and ready to race.
View More Monday’s with Jessica [Ep 60]: Taupo Half Marathon Victory
This past 2 weeks of racing has by itself shown me what I can achieve through consistency and the love of running. I have raced both my Thames Valley Cross Country Champs going up against all the surrounding schools, before most recently racing at Waikato/Bay of Plenty Cross Country Champs, up against all the larger schools around including private schools like St Paul’s, and St Peter’s. Coming from a school with only 2 going to race each year on average I am definitely not one of the larger schools that attends.
View More Monday’s with Jessica [Ep 59]: PODIUM
Over the past week my cross country season has begun, theoretically this is my better field of competition to track and field with it offering slightly more distance and a more complicated terrain. My school cross country was my first race and it went well setting out the front from the start and pulling away over the slightly shorter 3.5km race, finishing 5 minutes ahead of 2nd place giving me confidence in my ability and showing my training paying off.
View More Monday’s with Jessica [Ep 58]: Club Racing
We are finally one week until my first cross country of the season. Moving out of track and athletics season and into the colder months means I’m entering my last round of cross countries as a high school student. My last chance to produce my best running yet.
View More Monday’s with Jessica [Ep 57]: Time To Get Going
This weekend I did something slightly different to normal, I moved my long run and bike forward one day giving me time to go on my first solo hike, I had just brought all the new gear I needed and planned a route, although I did muck up my route slightly I still got where I planned on staying just with a different route there than expected.
View More Monday’s with Jessica [Ep 56]: Going Bush
Yesterday was a key point in my running journey so far for me. I competed in the Waikato secondary schools athletics and was entered in the 3000m race. Usually I avoid running track events as they aren’t my strongest suit as I train off track and more for longer distances, but when it comes to anything under national athletics there isn’t anything else but the 3000m as the longest distance.
View More Monday’s with Jessica [Ep 55]: Waikato 3,000m Champion
This week was slightly differently set out to my usual, instead of my normal school routine I had a week away in Palmy competing with my school for the volleyball nationals. I’ve been playing volleyball since I was in year 9, so this was my 5th year playing but due to COVID and other sports overlapping I haven’t been able to make the past 2 senior nationals.
View More Monday’s with Jessica [Ep 54] – Volleyball Nationals
This week I competed in my schools Thames Valley athletics championships, where I competed in both the 3,000m and 1,500m. Luckily both of these events were spread across the day allowing me to recover enough to still give a go effort in both.
View More Monday’s with Jessica [Ep 53] – Thames Valley Champion
This week I hit a milestone that I was hoping to reach but wasn’t expecting to this quickly due to the changes I’ve had through my training and bulk of it.
View More Monday’s with Jessica [Ep 52] – 5km Personal Best
This week my training has continued to increase again as it has been for the past few weeks. I’m starting to feel more like myself through my consistent training and levels hit in zone. This week I had my school swimming sports, this year was the first year I went into it with a mindset that wasn’t all about winning and trying to break records, meaning that if I didn’t hit those expectations I wouldn’t be down on myself.
View More Monday’s with Jessica [Ep 51] – School Swimming Sports