Hi Jodie! What are you up to at the moment? I am in the middle of my season. I just finished the Commonwealth Games and now I’m competing at the European Championships in Zurich. It’s all very go at the moment.
What’s your favourite place to run? Where I train. As sprinters, we don’t run in very exciting places; we just go to the track. But I love where I train, and there’s indoors as well, so when it’s cold I don’t have to go outside.
Do you remember your first ever race? I was in year three, so I must have been about seven, and I was racing against the year sixes. They said I couldn’t beat them and I did. I was really proud of myself and that’s when I decided I wanted to be an athlete.
When someone asks you for a training tip, what do you tell them? Set yourself a long-term goal, then little steps along the way so that you feel like you’re achieving something. Sometimes when you train you feel like you’re going through the motions. If you feel like you’re actually achieving something, it will spur you on to achieve the next thing, and I think that’s really important.
Do you have a running gadget? As sprinters, we don’t really have many running gadgets; we just run as fast as we can to the next point.
Do you run to music? I can’t train to music, because my headphones will fly off, but I always warm up to music. What genre depends on what mood I’m in.
What’s your post-race indulgence? I have a weakness for pizza and cookies. Domino’s – my favourite thing – and nice cookies. And ice-cream.
What’s the worst thing about running? Lactic [acid] is my worst enemy and it shouldn’t exist.
What’s the best thing about running? Winning, says my competitive self. You can’t beat winning.
What’s the furthest you’ve ever run? Oh dear, the furthest I’ve ever run is about a mile – no joke. I don’t think I’ve ever run further than a mile, and even that probably took me about half an hour. I can’t run long distances.
What do you eat on the morning of a hard session? Porridge with a protein shake is my staple hard-session breakfast.
Have you ever run barefoot? That would not be good for my feet as a sprinter, but I have run barefoot on the beach.
What’s your greatest running achievement? My silver medal at the Commonwealth Games.
If you had to pick between Mo Farrah and Usain Bolt, who would you choose? Got to back Mo; you’ve got to back your own.
And who is the greatest-ever runner? That’s a hard question. I’m going to go with Michael Johnson. In my eyes, he was the greatest.
• Jodie Williams wears the new Adidas Energy Boost running shoe, adidas.co.uk/boost
Source: Read Full Article