Asda Athletes

For the Children in Need day I visited my Asda store in Wrexham and helped to raise money with Pudsey. Was really good to go into store and help Asda in it’s support of such an important charity. Children were donating money to have their photo taken with Pudsey.

Great couple of weekends sailing recently. First there was the Laser Inlands in Grafham: Had a reasonable start to the event with two 4th’s as well as a slightly disappointing race where I rounded the top mark first and lost out on a couple of beats finishing the race in 11th. The second day was flighted into gold and silver fleet racing. In gold fleet I had a great day with two 3rd’s to begin with and then ending the event by winning the last race. Finished the event in 4th which was a nice way to round off a great season

Last weekend I tried out a new boat, the RS800, a twin trapeze skiff in Plas Menai with a fellow laser sailor. We had a great time and it was really good to try something new and gain a new skills base for the future. We are both going to continue in this boat alongside laser sailing so as to keep options open for future sailing

Towards the end of my busy summer I went to Cowes and raced in their annual 6 day regatta with two other Laser sailors. We raced in a J80 keelboat, we had some early challenges as we hadn’t sailed the boat before but quickly over came these to get a 2nd in the last race and finished 4th overall. The event was a great experience as I hadn’t done anything like that before and as well as sailing the J80 we got to go on a Corbi33 for a day, giving us some experience on a bigger boat.

The final event of my summer was the Laser Youth Europeans in Nieuwpoort which I prepared for with some per event training in Penarth (South Wales) so as to practice in a tidal venue like Nieuwpoort. I started the event with some consistent results putting me in the running for Gold fleet which I then held for the rest of qualification. Once gold fleet racing began I found that this was a very different experience to qualification as the racing was so close that the slightest mistake would cost you dearly, but nevertheless it was a great experience to race against the best radial U19 sailors of Europe. I finished the event in 53rd overall which was fantastic, especially for my first Radial euros.

During my trip to London to see the Olympics I visited Sports Aid Athletes House which gave me a chance too see profiles on other Sports Aid athletes who had made it to the top of their respective sports.

In London I went to the Olympic Park and went up the Orbit Tower. Seeing all the stadiums and the atmosphere that had been created around the games was very inspiring as an athlete and a firm goal to aim for.

The following day I watched Ladies Beach Volleyball, with a fantastic setting at Horse Guards Parade near to the London Eye and Big Ben to name a few!

The following day we went back to Olympic Park to watch men’s Hockey at the Riverbank Stadium which was fantastic, 2 great matches.

Great 3 days at London 2012

It’s been a hectic few weeks of sailing recently starting with the Laser Nationals in Abersoch. This was a great event for me and I came 8th overall providing great preparation for the Euros later this summer with goods winds and great racing.

Then last week I was in Pwllheli for the Topper Nationals where I was coaching as part of the 4.2 Nationals, giving me chance to be at an event where I wasn’t sailing for a change!

I then went straight to Hayling Island last weekend for training with the GBR youth squad. We had some steady breeze on Saturday at around 15knots with blue skies, great sailing and the rolling waves made this even better. Sunday graced us with some great weather too with winds gusting at around 25knots forcing back into the bay to continue training. The focus of the weekend was to do with stress and how we deal with this, so we did some high intensity exercises to try and replicate some of these situations. Overall very useful and enjoyable weekend!