Anna Hemmings

Home

You are viewing

annahemmings's journal
Log in Create a LiveJournal Account Learn more

Explore LJ Culture Entertainment Life Music News & Politics Technology

Advertisement

09 May 2008 @ 08:58 am

pre- Euros training camp

I'm now in sunny Milan on a pre-Euro champs training camp; training on the course that we will race on. I have raced here before, the last time was in 2001 and I had forgotten how nice the course is - its soooo clean and the water is green but you can see through it and its also really warm, which helps when you are getting splashed in K4! The big focus is on K2 and K4 now and both boats are going well. It is quite a change for me to be focusing on crew boats, but i am really enjoying it. Lots of variety makes training more interesting! Really starting to taper down now which means training is high intensity and low volume, love it!

Current Location: Milan

Leave a comment

04 May 2008 @ 10:36 am

Speaking Freely

"It was the Olympic team selection yesterday, I won 2 out of 3 events. Jess and I won the K2 race by over 2 seconds - woohoo!! We were delighted with our performance and it was quite comfortable. Our K2 journey until now has been quite tumultuous, so it was especially satisfying to win yesterday. We then jumped in a K4 with Rachel and Hayleigh and we won that by 2 and a half seconds. So I am realy pleased with these results. However, I came third in the K1 race which was disappointing. But I will now go to the European Championships to race K2 and K4 and try to qualify for the Olympics. We leave for a pre-Euros training camp in Milan on Tuesday... "

spoken through SpinVox

__

Current Mood:

jubilant

Leave a comment

29 April 2008 @ 07:05 pm

Speaking Freely

"Last weekend I had 2 days off so that I would be fully recovered and rested for the last few days of training before the Olympic selection this weekend. Neil and I took the opportunity to go to The New Forest for the weekend. We had a lovely, chilled out, relaxing weekend in the country. This week of training is going to be quite light. We are tapering down in preparation for the regatta. This morning we did K2 and it is going well. I'm starting to feel ready for racing."

spoken through SpinVox

__

Leave a comment

23 April 2008 @ 09:48 pm

Splashing about in a kayak

I'm pleased to say that I only had to take a couple of days off with illness and i am back to full training now and all is getting back on track.
I featured in an article with a journalist in the Daily Express today. Andrew Elliot came down to Royal to have go at canoeing and with typical male bravado thought he would be able to keep my kayak upright for more than a couple of paddle strokes, but less than two seconds is all that he managed!! And as if one dunking in the Thames wasn't enough he went back for more; he was either very brave and determined to succeed or damn right insane! The latter i suspect! To read the full article go the press page on my website http://www.annahemmings.com/press.asp and to see other photos go to the diary page http://www.annahemmings.com/diarydetail.asp?ID=81 It was a bitter cold April mornng and after three capsizes I'm surprised the poor guy didn't catch pnumonia! He was a great sport though for giving it a go and superb value entertainment!

Current Mood:

amused

Leave a comment

17 April 2008 @ 10:52 am

Feeling unwell, frustrated and annoyed! I have a sore throat and I don't like training when i am not 100% healthy, but I also don't like not being able to train! Jess and I had K2 sessions planned for this afternoon and tomorrow morning which I was looking forward to, so I am disappointed about that. Hoping that it will pass in a couple of days and i'll be able to get back on the water.

Current Mood:

frustrated

Leave a comment

15 April 2008 @ 03:12 pm

Speaking Freely

"I did a K4 session with Jess,Hayleigh and Rachel this morning. I realised it has been 7 years since I went in a K4! We did some split 500s, it was bit of a shock to get my arms going round at 145 strokes per minute. Whizzing round at that speed is also good practice for K2 and K1. It was an enjoyable session, I forgot how fast a K4 feels and what a different experience it is."

spoken through SpinVox

__

Leave a comment

09 April 2008 @ 11:10 am

Speaking Freely

"I took 2 days rest to recharge my mental and physically batteries after the weekend of racing. We have started back training with a bit of base work and endurance training before getting back to the speed work. Despite being a beautiful morning today with blue skies and sunshine it was still only 3deg when we got on the water. I had to do a 2km time trial and I did my fastest time of the year so far 8mins57 so I am pleased."

spoken through SpinVox

__

Current Mood:

cheerful

Leave a comment

07 April 2008 @ 10:02 am

Speaking Freely

"It was the first race of the year at the weekend. In the K1 500m I finished 3rd behind Lucy and Rachel. I didn't feel as if I raced my best, so this was a disappointing result. I then raced in the K2 500m with Jess and with only a handful of training sessions behind us we finished 2nd. Only 0.2 secs behind the winners, Rachel and Hayleigh. This was an encouraging result. I then raced the K1 200m and finished a very close 2nd behind Lucy. Again just 0.2 secs. Final race of the day was the K2 200 meters and this was a disaster. The wind was blowing a gale and the starter started the race when we were parallel to the start line. Needless to say we gave the other crews about a 2 length lead before our boat was straight and we were able to stat our race. Looking forward to improving on these performances at the main selection for the Olympics and European Championships next month."

spoken through SpinVox

__

Current Mood:

discontent

Leave a comment

04 April 2008 @ 12:31 pm

Speaking Freely

"Hi. I am on my way to Nottingham for the first big sprint regatta of the year. I am looking forward to racing. I will be racing in the K1 500m at 10:30 tomorrow morning and the K2 500m with Jesica Walker in the afternoon. I will keep you posted with results."

spoken through SpinVox

__

Leave a comment

26 March 2008 @ 10:04 am

Going home!!

After 8 and half weeks in Seville its finally time to go home! And i can't wait! Training has been great, this last week in particular really moved up to the next level, so I am happy. Mostly we had great weather and conditions - especially compared to the delightful weather that England has been receiving lately. However, after almost 9 weeks of being away from home I am definitely ready to go back to home surroundings. I am not looking forward to training in 3 layers and wooly hat but i have a job to do and an important race in 10 days time!!

Current Mood:

excited

Leave a comment

16 March 2008 @ 04:13 pm

More racing

On Thursday, we did some more K2 races; I did one race with Louisa, we had a really bad lean which wasn't fun! We finished 3rd. Then in the afternoon i raced with Hayleigh and we had a good race, flying off the start and leading for the first 350m, but then we were overtaken just towards the end and again finished 3rd, but it was close and it was a fun race! Not surprisingly it was a fairly subjective process; but none the less the coaches anyalysed the results, made ranking lists, graphs and pretty pictures and nothing particularly significant came of it. Most of the original crews are sticking together and Jess and I will paddle together at the first regatta, which i am happy about.
With all the racing over it was time to get back to training. And then on Friday night Neil came out to visit me, which i was so excited about. Unfortunately it was only a short visit and he has gone home now, but it was great to see him and the weather was glorious which Neil was particularly happy about.

Current Mood:

optimistic

Leave a comment

12 March 2008 @ 05:41 pm

Race offs in Seville

So we're back in Seville after a brief trip home and it sounds like we got back here just in time - avoiding the hurrendous storms that have hit home. Its pretty damn warm here and there are starting to be quite a few red bodies about!
The coaches are keen to nail down some K2 crews during this camp so that we can start preparing for the first regatta (and selection) in April in Nottingham. We started with a couple of K1 races in order to create a ranking list. I won the first race but then messed up in the second one and finished a very poor 5th! The races were 40mins apart and my time was the fastest overall so I was pleased with the first performance. I didn't feel particularly ready to race given that we haven't done any speed work yet and we only just started doing 500m time trials last week. So it was a decent start.
The coaches then drew up some K2 combinations, we had two races today and we have two races tomorrow. I started the first race with Jess and we had a real shocker; we have paddled together in training a few times and it has been great but it just didn't happen in the race. We finished 4th but i hope we get another chance to try again tomorrow. This afternoon i paddled with Lucy , we had a good race and we won with Abi and Louisa close behind in 2nd place.
I'll keep you posted with tomorrow's racing...

Current Mood:

content

Leave a comment

04 March 2008 @ 05:20 pm

Speaking Freely

"I have been back from Seville for 5 days now and it is fantastic to be home. Well it was until this morning when I was training on the lake at Eton at 8:30am and 5 mins into the session it started snowing! - 2 deg C, gale force winds and snow! It was not much fun! needless to say I can't wait to get back to the Seville sunshine. However when I am away I miss my boyfriend and my family and friends. So its a real conflict... Being here in home surroundings with my family and friends and the cold or good training in the warm in Spain... hmmm..."

spoken through SpinVox

__

Leave a comment

26 February 2008 @ 11:30 am

Training

For the first time this year we started to do some 500m efforts (a little bit earlier than usual but we have to go faster earlier this year becase of Olympic selection), the session was 12 x 500m on/500m off, it was long session but it was great to get back on the 500m course and get familiar with the race distance again. It took a couple of efforts to get back into the rhythm but after that it was good, I'm just really knackered now - we were on the water for over 1hr30mins including warm up and warm down. But the bonus was that the sun is shinning strong again - yay! Get to work on the tan for the last few days before we go home on Friday. Can't wait to go home, and this time its for a whole 8 days not just 3!! This is basically our 6th week in a row here and a change of scenery and home comforts is going to be very welcome; although i'm not looking forward to training in the cold! Guess you can't have everything!

Current Location: Seville, Spain

Current Mood:

tired

Leave a comment

23 February 2008 @ 06:03 pm

The weekend - yay!

Its saturday afternoon and another week of training is completed. As much as I love training, I love getting to Saturday afternoon and knowing that I get to rest my body for a day and half, I get to chill out and not think about training. This week we went back to base training and had quite a few long paddles - 16km steady and the like, which i quite enjoy. We also did a couple of training sessions with the Italian women's team, it was great to race against them and having different people in the group was fun. Most of the time its just Jessie and I, although the eccentric Amoret, who makes me laugh and is addicted to apples has been training with us for the last two weeks, so thats been nice. Four other girls from our team were out here for 10 days and although we didn't train with them much it was fun to have them here. We hung out with Hayleigh a lot and now that she has gone Jess and I miss her...

My mum is arriving this evening and will be here for a couple of days, so I'm looking forward to that. I get to go and eat more spanish tapas! Just hoping the rain clears up...

Current Location: Seville, Spain

Current Mood: jaded

Leave a comment

19 February 2008 @ 09:29 pm

Sevilla!

Hola! Alls well in Seville, the weather hasn't been as consistent as before but it still sounds like its a lot better than home! Training has been pretty good generally although its very busy here, particularly with rowers - urgh! Had bit of an argument with a sculler and his coach from the GB rowing team today, he almost ran me down and didn't seem to see what the problem was, but they don't see and that is the main problem!! So annoying! He caught me at a bad moment and I wasn't in the most friendliest of moods and he consequently experienced the fiery latino temperment that surfaces in me every now and then! However, back on land all was resolved and we apologised to each other.

My sister came out to visit me at the weekend and that was fun. I miss her and it was great to get out and about and mainly away from 'base camp' and a change of scenery. My mum is coming out on this weekend too, so thats cool. I love having visitors!
laters A xx

Leave a comment

07 February 2008 @ 01:06 pm

Speaking Freely

"It has been a good but very hard week of training here in Seville. My muscles are sooo tired! Looking forward to a massage tonight and then I can't wait to go home tomorrow. Excited about seeing my boyfriend, sleeping in my own bed and chilling out for three days before returning to the masochistic world of training!"

spoken through SpinVox

__

Leave a comment

01 February 2008 @ 01:35 pm

Speaking Freely

"Hello, all is good on the training camp in Seville. Until today it has been blue skies and sunshine every day, it's perfect. Training is going well. The blisters on my hands and feet are starting to heal, whilst the training is getting harder by the day! Lots of endurance training and this week we started 2k time trials. After just 10 days of being back on the water I did 9mins08 on my 2k time trial, I am pretty happy with this as a starting point. We have also started doing some resistance work and the session last night killed me! I am now extremely tired and cant wait for my rest at the weekend! Some decent, non-greasy, spanish food would be nice too!!!"

spoken through SpinVox

__

Leave a comment

23 January 2008 @ 05:25 pm

Sunny Seville

I am now in Seville for a three week training camp and its absolutely glorious - blue skies and sunshine everyday since i arrived! Its sooo nice to paddle in the warm, with no spraydeck, no hat or gloves and only one layer of clothing! Makes such a difference. Today was only my third day back on the water after practically 3months off and its starting to feel pretty good already. My co-ordination and technique didnt take long to come back which was surprising. This morning we did 6x 1000m every 7mins and 2x 750m and my average time on the 1000s was 4min38, which i was pleased with for my 5th session back! So all is good apart from my hands and feet which are cut to shreds!! Oh the joys of our sport!

Current Location: Seville, Spain

Current Mood:

chipper

Leave a comment

16 January 2008 @ 02:16 pm

Speaking Freely

"My lungs are really burning after my cooper test this morning! However, I am pleased with the results because I improved since I did it last time. The test is how far you can run in 12 mins. I did 3030 meters - new PB! It was very hard, my lungs are hurting and my legs are aching. Add to that, my arms are also aching because yesterday we did tests on bench pull and bench press. But it was worth it because again i improved. The test is 10x1min bench pull and 10x1min bench press and its how many reps you can do in each set. I improved by over 10% - woohoo! So I am pleased. Annoyingly however, I was just short of my targets on both tests but I did improve and its all moving in the right direction... Now just counting down the days till I hit sunny Seville... "

spoken through SpinVox

__

Current Mood:

satisfied

Leave a comment

Advertisement