Educating Essex.

Training has been going on well, despite the cold and gloomy weather. I'm really grateful to my coach, Ken Day, for turning out to help me 6 days a week. He is so dedicated and I appreciate him. In these increasingly cold evenings I have been finding that my toes and fingertips have been freezing during training. However, I have discovered some excellent inner gloves made by Karrimor so I have solved the fingertip problem. Working on the toe problem.

Yesterday I went to Harlow Leisurezone to do my strength and conditioning work and it was great to work with John Campbell again. John is one of those instructors who pushes you to your limits, which is exactly what I need. Put it this way, after a session with John you know you have worked!

I have been watching 'Educating Essex' on Channel 4 with great interest because Passmores School is literally just around the corner from my house. A few years ago I was invited to the school to present awards to the children and I found everyone involved really friendly. There was a real family atmosphere to the school that I liked and the Head, Mr Goddard, went out of his way to support me. As a trained teacher myself, albeit one who has only ever taught in Kenya, I found the behaviour of the staff and students very interesting to observe. In Kenya there was nothing like detentions and counselling when a student makes a mistake, it was just a matter of how many strokes of the cane were dished out! In Kenya everyone believes in; 'Spare the rod, spoil the child'. If you were thrashed at school you would be thrashed again at home by your parents for disrespecting the teacher. How different things are here. I really admired the way Mr Drew dealt with the students. To me he is an excellent teacher who really cares about the students he teaches and there didn't seem to be any problem he couldn't deal with. He was just so calm and never seemed to lose his temper even when provoked. Mr Goddard, the Head, was equally impressive in the way he went about his work and who could imagine seeing such a powerful man crying on national television. I really admired that because he showed a very positive side of his character in that incident and he should be seen as a role model by other professional people. The students who featured in the series, in spite of all their problems, will look back at themselves and it will make them better people.

Catch Up.

Well, I have been so busy over the past month or so since my last entry that I haven't had the time to get near a computer so here is a brief account of what I've been up to.

First and foremost has been training training training with both my wheelchair coach, Ken Day, and in the gym with John Campbell. I don't know what I would do without these two great men but I owe them both a lot for their help and support. They have made me sweat and groan with pain but I wouldn't have it any other way.

I competed in Knowsley last month but the weather was not good and I wasn't totally happy with my performances but at least it was good to be back in proper competition after a long winter lay off. However, I did enjoy visiting Liverpool, a beautiful city, especially the Roman Catholic Cathedral, which is spectacular and very serene. It was also great to spend time with Pete Wyman and his family who kept me well fed and entertained. Thank you.

Off the track I have done a couple of days work on the 'Eastenders' set as an extra and am beginning to feel a real part of the family there. It's good fun even if we do only appear on screen for half a second! I even did a scene outside the 'Queen Vic' with a glass of orange! I've also visited a few schools to promote sport and healthy living and really enjoyed interacting with the youngsters I met. Finally I was honoured to be asked to open a charity shop for the St Elizabeth charity in Harlow. These events really make me feel humble but also very proud to be asked.

This last weekend I was at Stoke Mandeville for the BWAA International event and was much happier with my performances, especially getting a gold in the 400m, and doing 31.68 in the 200m, just outside my personal best. I just hope I can improve again in Switzerland this week, which will form the basis of my next blog. watch this space.

Snow Go Area and Goodbye to Santa.

The weather over the past couple of weeks has been really awful, and especially over the past week when the snow came and stayed. As an athlete this has meant indoor training on rollers down at Harlow Sports Centre, and my usuall strength and conditioning training with my coach, John Campbell. I have been working really hard over the past few months and I'm looking forward to the New Year and the challenges ahead.
I've also been learning to swim and Neil Mann from Stewards School here in Harlow is the unlucky one trying to help me. I have never met such a patient person as Neil. He is an excellent teacher and has been working with me, off and on, over the past year. I must admit to finding it difficult to slot the time for swimming into my busy schedule, especially on these freezing cold winter nights, and when I got into the pool last week it was my first time for about 8 weeks. I managed to swim 8 breadths of the pool unaided and Neil was convinced I must have been having secret training elsewhere! I haven't and my success is all down to Neils patience and my own determination. It's good to learn new skills and my next target is to pass my driving test. I passed the theory so now its just the manual driving to master. I'll do it!
Outside of my sporting life I have been just like everyone else and getting ready for Christmas. Timothy, my son who is 8, is beginning to question the existence of Santa and wonders why he can't deliver presents to children in Africa, and do us parents give him the money for his presents. It's sad but inevitable that I think this is probably his last Christmas of believing in Santa. It's all part of growing up, at least in the developed world. As a child growing up in Kenya there was no such thing as Santa. We just woke up on Christmas Day and if we were lucky would be given a new dress or pair of shoes which would be proudly shown off at church. For us, the true nature of Christmas was to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. I feel that has largely been forgotten here in the U.K, at least it has if you have to judge by the media.
Anyway, it was still a delight to see Tim's face at 8.15am on Christmas morning as he opened his gifts, and to watch him happily playing throughout the day. I was shattered by the time I finally got to bed but it was a great day with the family. Roll on New Year.

Journey to the Podium.

I had a very busy weekend with my family and then on Monday it was even more hectic. I had to prepare for a trip to Bristol for a modelling assignment then head for Harlow Sports Centre for a gym session with my personal trainer John Campbell. We had a good workout that was being photographed by Elaine Tribley for her project for the Team Essex 2012, 'Journey to the Podium' ,where artists are teaming up with athletes to produce artwork in the lead up to London 2012. I'm very excited by the project and also I feel very honoured to have been chosen. John is an excellent coach and he has really helped me to develop my upper body strength, essential for a wheelchair athlete. It was a great workout, and equally great to meet up and chat to Elaine again. She is a very talented artist.
My husband, Norman, picked me up and we headed for Harlow Town train station to begin my journey to Bristol. We had to get to Liverpool Street then head across London to Paddington. The journey was made more stressful because of a bus strike but fortunately the 23 bus was running and we made our way through the rush hour traffic and arrived in plenty of time to catch the 6.30pm train.
As usual, when we reported to the room where disabled people can get assistance we were told off for not giving them 24 hours notice. It really does annoy me that disabled people are supposed to be able to plan everything 24 hours in advance whilst everyone else can just turn up. Anyway, my journey was made much nicer by travelling with another lady in a wheelchair and I arrived at my hotel ready for a good night's sleep.