Bouncing Back By Highland judo competitor Steph Inglis: Each time I’d visualise coming back with a medal
Competition days start the night before at the weigh in. We would fly from Edinburgh on the earliest flight on Friday morning, travelling somewhere in Europe for our competition.
I have spoken about judo being a weight-controlled sport so as soon as we would arrive and be checked into our rooms the first thing we do is check our weight to see if we needed to lose any or if we were OK. My strategy was to arrive at my hotel with no more than 1kg to lose. This was something I knew I could comfortably do, and my body could handle, and I would break this up into two runs.
As soon as I had my weight check I would head out for a 30-40-minute run consisting of 20 minutes of continuous running as a warm-up, then sprinting to get my heart rate up and start to sweat off 1kg.
I’d work with my teammates who were also losing the last bit of weight and we would do some circuits for a further 20 minutes. This was also good for loosening up after our travel. We would then grab a shower and a quick nap, wake up, check the weight and head to the shops to get our supplies for the next day.
At judo competitions you do not break for lunch, so you must make sure you have enough food to last you throughout the day. We usually bought things we could snack on to keep up a constant supply of energy. We wouldn’t risk eating too much at once as it wouldn’t be long till you were called back to fight. In my basket you could always find bananas, sweets like Haribos, Jaffa cakes, water and I would take my own sports energy drink.
After the weigh-in was checked off we would all rehydrate and head out for a nutritious meal, this would be something like chicken pasta. Then it would be sewing on your back-patches ahead of the competition. By this time the draw for the competition would be out, I always liked to look to see who my first fight was and who was in my side of the competition.
I used to predict who would win, and after winning my fight, who I thought was most likely I would have next. I would then do my research on my opponents and find out key information starting with if they were right-handed or left-handed players or stronger at standing or groundwork judo. This allowed me to come up with a game plan.
Competition day started at 6am. From the moment I am up I am listening to my music preparing to get in the zone, visualising coming back to my hotel room with a medal.
At breakfast we were quite cheeky. After fuelling up on porridge, yogurt or toast we would take advantage of the buffet breakfast and make up some sandwiches for the day ahead. I was a self-funded athlete after all!
I used to make up ham, cheese, and jam sandwiches. A combination you might turn your nose up at, but it is actually very nice! We would smuggle out the sandwiches which we wrapped in our napkins, grab our bags and board the bus.
The journey to the venue was intense; you were travelling with players from lots of different countries eyeing those up in your weight category, while also being eyed up.
I would put my headphones on and not speak to anyone and just listen to my music and focus on my game plan.
• Part two of Steph’s insight into competition day will be in the Courier next week.
