Sally McLellan BLOG

Well i dont really know what to say. I have had a brilliant last couple of races to my european campagne. I won in london and a new australian record to add to the list in monaco.

The london competition was held over two days and my event was on the 2nd day, so i went out to watch the day before. It was bitterly cold and raining and it was very windy, all the conditions that track and field athletes hate. I think that everyone who was competing on the second day were praying that the weather was going to have a turn for the better.

The next day ended up being great, the sun was out and it was probably about 5 degrees warmer. Strangly though I didn’t feel as good in the race than I thought I would, even though i won, I won I didn’t feel as though I raced and hurdled as good as I could.

Moving onto Monaco. What can I say about Monaco, it’s ashame in a way that I was there to compete and not for a holiday. It was so hot and the sun was out everyday with not a cloud in the sky and the best thing is that our hotel is right on the water, we stayed at the fairmont hotel, yes I know very ritzy. Moving onto the day of the race, I woke up on the day not feeling the best I woke up on the wrong side of the bed and was a bit grumpy and tired. I thought that I would try something new for this race, and that was drink coffee, I have never in my life finished a cup of coffee and this time I had two, and my god was I wired haha I just could not stop fidgeting and talking really fast it was so funny. My coach Sharon was really quite worried about me, anyway it all worked out fine and when it was time to warm up and get ready I focused and it was all good. Anyway getting to the race I felt really good and strong, I got my trade mark start and just pushed all the way to the finish line and felt so good all the way, i have never felt this good in a race before, so at least now i knnow how i feel when i am running good.

I am now in stockholme and it has started off as a nice day hopefully it can stay this way. I have heats and finals here, today my first race is at 510pm and then the final is at 730pm. It is a stacked race here tonight so it is definitley going to feel like the world champs.

Anyway ill let you know how i go, hopefully it will be another win for me before i head into the world champs.
I am feeling good today so lets see what i can pull off.

talk soon love sal.

We are now in Cologne, we travelled by train from Luzern and personally, now that i have done it, i think that going by train is the best way to travel internationaly. Airports seem to be a lot more restrictive, you have to be there 2 hours before you fly, so that means usually having to leave about 1-2 hours to get to the airport, then checking in with only 20kg when your travelling for ten weeks. Security can sometimes be a pain, having to usually line up for ages and take out all your liquids that could possibly be explosives, this all has taken you about 3 hours already and all you have done is get to the airport, while on a train in europe you have almost reached your destination. I really like the fact that even though it will take me 5 hours to get there at least i am getting somewhere the whole time stress free usually without havng any problems or delays. here is a photo of me on my way to cologne on the train looking very happy. sorry that there are three i didnt know how to get the other two off.

Well good news and bad news.
Rome was very dissappointing, i just had no rhytm that night, i got out of the blocks very sluggish and just could not keep up. I think some of the reasons why is becasue all of the flying that i had done in that first week just took it out of me for my racing. Luzern is my favourite place in the world behind australia, it has so much character about it and it just has a good feel to it. Two days ago i went up one of their biggest mountains called pilatus, it was absolutley beautiful you could see the swiss alps and they all still had snow on top of them, you could also see the whole of luzern. The competition was last night on the 15th was a very slow going one, although i did win my race it was won in a very slow time. The competition was running way behind and by the time they got to my race it was 35 minutes behind time, i think that my time could’ve been about a 12.4 time but when you are sitting around for 35minutes it does take a bit of the spark out of your body.

I am on my way to cologne in germany today on the train, i think that it will take about 5 hours to get there so its not to bad, i will basing myself there for about 8 days before my next race in London at crystal palace stadium, i feel that i need about a week of training under my belt before i do anymore racing otherwise i wont be fit for the big one in august, the world championships.
other than that i am fit healthy and ready to get into some work.
i have put some photos up of the track and me in the call room in rome, and also a lot of luzern photos. some of the phots from luzern are from the end of the competition, they always have fireworks for the crowd

Hi everyone,

well i had a stella win in lausanne, it was the worst weather in the world that night it was pouring down rain and just as we were going into our blocks there was a flash of lightening.

i started very fast out of my blocks, i knew that if i could beat everyone out of the blocks then i could possibly win the race. I rememeber the day before i was talking to my coach and i said “i think that i can win this race tomorrow” and she said “well you will definitley throw a cat amoung the pigeons”. i felt very confident that day.

i am now in rome and compete tomorrow night at 8:43pm. the weather here is absolutley beautiful ad sunny so should be another good race tomorrow night. i have some photos form today when i went to see the coloseum.
there is one there of the cobble stones that you have to walk over, very dangerous if you were wearing high heels. unfortunately i dont have photos yet of lausanne i am still trying to get them.
talk to you soon, and let you know how i get on in rome.
love sal

I have arrived In Switzerland, this is probabaly the most beautiful country in the world that i have ever been to, behind Australia of course. We were driving down the motor way and across the river that was on the side of the road were the alps. First we were driving past the french alps then the swiss alps then behind that were the italian alps, i have never seen anything so beautiful.
I am racing tonight at 9:05 at night, i am feeling ready to run fast i am in the lane 6 next to the bronze medalist form beijing and the former world champion from 2007, so it is going to be a good match up, also in the race is the olympic champion from last year and and pretty much everyone in the top ten in the world hahaha. if you want to get results straight away then go to www.iaaf.org and go into competitions and find the date 7/07/09 and then they will come up with the results.
better go now i want to go nd see the olympic museum that they have here.

love sal

Unfortuantely my iphone isnt working here, i have written 2 blogs but havent been able to send them, the first one is on sotteville.

Blog 1, 1 of 1 wins: I had a great competition in Sotteville. I won my race in a time of 12.75 sec, my second fatest time fo the year, Not bad for being off the plane for 3 days. I felt really good during the race. Its looking really good for the rest of the season for me. my next race is in lausanne switzerland so hopefully i can go 2 of 2 races. Here are some photos of the track that i raced at, and the pool area at the hotel.

Blog 2, Airports: I arrived at orly airport in paris on monday and a section of the irport was blocked off. There was a security risk that someone had left their bag at an elevator door unattended. so the security backed us all up so noone could go near it. it was only for about 10 minutes and the lady turned up and claimed her bag. What i found strange was all the security was doing was backing us away from the bag but just leaving the bag where it was, i thought that they may have moved it away from the airport and get rid of it,but i guess that is how they do it france. i Have some photos of the airport where it was all happening

Just about to board a flight to Paris now. I compete on Sunday in a small town called sotteville I’ll let you know how I go talk soon

Sorry forgot to add two photos one of my bag before I started packing and one of me at the airport ready to go.

Sitting at the airport now getting ready to leave. Very excited. Not looking forward to the flight very long and a lot of jet lag. Talk to you soon.