500 days and counting

First of all I’m sorry for not updating my blog sooner, and it is only because of a push from Derbyshire Times that I am writing this one.
To be brutally honest and nakedly truthful I have been too exhausted to attempt to sit and write this blog. I’ve started to work two days a week and continue to train hard, but this is not the cause. Instead, I feel emotionally and psychologically drained and weary. The stress that has come with less than 500 days to the Olympics is almost more than I have found that I can bear.

This stress is mainly manifested by not performing, with the pressure to perform twisting my fencing style into a terrified rabbit-in-the-headlights style: a frustrating cycle. The stress is also magnified by the inescapable Olympic theme running through London and the UK.

The encouragement, passion and interest on the radio, TV, billboards, is absolutely what I would hope for (and what my sponsorship relies on) but I can’t deny it's not stressful to experience constant questioning along the lines of “Do you know if you are in the Olympics yet? Should I bother getting tickets? Should I get a ticket for the early rounds or the finals?”.

After a particularly stressful day of funding meetings and goal setting, I sat down to watch Coronation Street, eat some Chocolate and forget about fencing and the ‘O’ word before I had to go to evening training. Sounds like a solution eh? But aaargh, there, on my Wispa, smirking up at me, were those damn Olympic Rings teasing me and laughing at my thought that I might be able to avoid the Olympics for half an hour of my life.

The stress to perform is becoming ever more public as the excitement for the Olympics heightens. Today I got a text from my friend saying she got a leaflet through her door in Chesterfield with the words ‘meet and greet the amazing Olympic athlete, Hannah Lawrence’ at a Brampton Manor function. (I think the Advertising Agency might have something to say about that). All these moments cause a voice to scream in my head “WHAT'S going to happen if I don’t get in”.


But then I remember that all athletes who have ever made it would have gone through similar thought processes and that I’m pretty sure I am not the first person to have ever stressed out about having pressure to perform as an athlete. And now I feel silly for writing this whole post where I have moaned and felt sorry for myself, and not written about the last competitions

So - in a nut shell: have had ups and downs, with Leipzig A-Grade fencing my best yet and very narrowly losing to a Korean in extra time to make the Last 64, and getting knocked out of the team event by the overall winners, Estonia. Barcelona A-Grade: fencing terribly in individuals and not making it on to the team who then did badly losing to Japan. Finally, to Naples at the European Club Competition fencing for London Thames Fencing Club where, with the pressure dropped, I fenced like a praying mantis(patient and explosive) and loved every minute of it.


For a general update, I am 125th in the World which is currently not enough to qualify but I am moving ever further to the top, second ranked Brit in the World Rankings, and third ranked in National
Rankings. (for more stats
http://www.fie.ch/Competitions/FencerDetail.aspx?param=FEC61CE5E2D2DF9195E37082079DB6E )