After taking a second off the 400m record, I'm beginning to feel all the hard work will pay off at the Paralympic Games
? Introducing the Guardian's Olympic diarists
With the constant rain, the training, and the (many) punctures, the days in Australia over the past month all seem to have blurred into one. But one day does stand out ? the one two weeks ago when I broke the T34 400m world record.
To give us a chance to see where we were with our training we had two track meets at the end of January, one in Canberra and another a couple of days later in Sydney. On the second day in Canberra I took a second off the 400m record with a time of 1min 00.67sec. Then in Sydney I came really close to my 100m world record. We've been training pretty hard and the track meets were just a chance to see how some of the other girls are doing and judge where I'm at, so to be hitting really quick times like that is something I'm very happy about. Hopefully it means this season is going to be a good one.
Then came the 10k road race around the opera house and harbour bridge, which wasn't quite as enjoyable. I only did it because I'd been told by everyone that it was a really good race, so I felt I'd be missing out not to do it. I thought: 'Yeah, I'll do it. It'll be fun.' But it wasn't ? it was hard work. Because of all the punctures I've been having I ended up racing on the tyres I use for travelling and they were sticking to my chair, not turning properly. Then there was a massive hill ?
To be fair before I switched coaches a couple of years ago I did a lot of road racing and my personal best for the 10k was pretty much half an hour dead on, and I did the Sydney race in about 33 minutes, so as I haven't road raced in about three years I was pretty happy with that.
And it's not all been hard work. After the competitions, my GB team-mate Shelly Woods went off on her honeymoon for four days. I was left in the apartment on my own so another of the GB girls, Nikki Emerson, and an Aussie girl came to stay with me ? we kind of had a four-day girlie holiday. One day we were like: "Let's go to the mall!" Nikki had to get her boyfriend a Valentine's Day present so we went to a Build a Bear workshop and we all built him a bear, with a poem in it and everything. You record a message on to this gadget and put it inside the bear so when you press it the bear talks. We thought it'd be funny if we recorded something really crappy and put it in there, so we did, even though it was slightly embarrassing. Still, I can't wait to hear if he likes it or not ?
There are only a couple of weeks left for me out here and it does feel like I've been away from home for a long, long time now. I'm missing out on stuff ? all this gossip keeps coming through on Facebook. My friend broke up with her boyfriend and she's like: "You should be here to look after me!" There's stupid stuff too ? my mum got a new haircut and she hasn't had a new haircut in forever, so I want to get home to see it. I'm missing the novelty of having a car and just being able to get in it and drive wherever I want ? the freedom that gives you. There are some days when I can't wait to get home, but hopefully not before this rain gives up and I get a bit of a tan.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/london-2012-olympics-blog/2012/feb/13/hannah-cockroft-olympic-diary
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