JHI 2017- Evie Conway

The JHI in North Wales this year was really good- the areas were both great. We stayed in small cabins with our teammates and apart from tea we were self-catering as a group of about 6 which was really good. It made it feel really cosy in our little cabins when we all had our soup and hot chocolate around the fire.

The individual day was on Gwanas, a lovely moor. I struggled at the beginning with tired legs as it was gradually climbing the whole time, and it wasn’t a flawless run, so I came in thinking I had done badly and expecting a poor result. Luckily I had been technically very good for almost all of it so I was only beaten by Eilidh (1^st) and Anika (2^nd), who are both much faster. Anika (also Yorkshire) had a good run out there being second, so we had 2 Yorkshire members on the podium for W16. England won the individual day, just. The ceilidh with all the teams that evening was very sweaty and cramped but still very fun.

The relay day was on a similar area, but started a very long way up a very big hill. We seemed to all have very similar gaffles so didn’t start to separate until about halfway through the course. I still ended up running most of it with Kirsty from Scotland. It was a very brutal course physically, so trying to stay ahead of Kirsty on the steep uphill run-in started fires in my quads and I was so out of breath and exhausted. On first leg Eilidh came 1^st, Anika 2^nd, with me 3^rd and Kirsty 4^th, the same order as in the individual race. Kirsty’s team won in the end, with Emma Wilson and Pippa Carcas. My team, including Laura King and Rachel Duckworth were second. Anika’s team including Niamh Hunter and Caitlin Irving were third. It was a successful enough day for England to just beat the Scots overall, although they took the relay trophy.

Evie Conway

Photo credit to Wendy Carlyle