Young athlete is ready to impress
FOURWAYS – Not only is she head girl, a straight-A student and a member of her church band, Sarah Copeland has also been making great strides in her athletics skills.
Matric was always going to be an exciting year for HeronBridge learner, Sarah Copeland.
Not only was she appointed head girl of HeronBridge College, but she is hoping to build on her athletics career that reached new heights in 2019 when she competed twice at a national level.
The first was as an individual for her club Fitness For Africa (FFA) Athletics Club at the South African Junior Track and Field held in Paarl, and then again in September when she received provincial colours to represent Central Gauteng Athletics (CGA) for cross-country held in Pretoria, where she finished 8th in the junior girls’ category.
The excitement of 2020 did not come without a truckload full of responsibilities though. Being head girl means more representation and duties than a political candidate.
And being a provincial runner means training in all sorts of weather conditions, long runs on the weekend, track sessions two to three times per week, as well as demanding racing weekends in one of the strongest middle distance provinces in the country.
“Stress has hampered my training and even races. I know that I have to be relaxed to perform at my best,” she said.
A busy schedule does take its toll and she has been ill often this year leading to disruptions in her training programme. This has caused her to miss a few opportunities to compete at track meetings as well. However, this track season was her best to date with victories over 3 000m and 5 000m at CGA league events, winning a gold medal at the 3 000m race at the Tuks Top 10 meeting, and culminating in a silver medal at the Central Gauteng Athletics Championships in the 5 000m for junior girls.
Best times so far for Sarah includes 00:04:47 for 1 500m, 00:10:33 (3 000m) and 00:18:03 (5 000m).
With SA Juniors being cancelled due to the Covid-19 virus, her focus has now shifted to preparing her training base towards the 2020 cross-country season. With an increase of the race distance to 6km she will have to increase training mileage as well and the current lockdown with running being far more restricted doesn’t help.
She knows that everyone is in the same boat though and staying fit during tough times will lead to achieving more goals later during her final school year.
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