Athlete Profile: Alice Garner
Name
Alice Garner
Course and Year of Study
1st Year Undergraduate – Law with Spanish Law
College
St. Hugh’s College
Sport
Running (Endurance)
Club
Aldershot, Farnham and District A.C, OUAC
Highest Competition Level
I have represented Great Britain & N.I on numerous occasions at international events.
Best Achievement
4th in the 5000m at the U20 European Athletics Championships.
Short Term Aspirations
To represent GB at the World U20 Athletics Championships in Colombia this summer.
Long Term Aspirations
Commonwealth Games, European Championships, World Championships…. the Olympics?
How did you get into the sport?
I have always loved sport and been active from an early age. Whilst football used to be my main sport, it only took a few cross country races at Junior school for me to fall in love and make the switch to focus on running.
What is your advice on balancing sport and academia?
Every second counts (not only in races, but also in everyday life). I try and organise the day into blocks and I use sport as my outlet and ‘break’ from work. The two compliment each other in many ways as running allows me to forget about work for a couple hours and when I come back to studying, I feel refreshed and much more productive. Of course, at times it is a tricky balance, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love running and I love my studies and so as long as my heart is in both, then I will always find a way to make both work.
How have you managed training during lockdown?
I have had to train alone a lot more, but other than that I was lucky in the sense that running doesn’t require any specialist equipment and is an outdoor sport meaning I wasn’t affected by lockdown as much as those in other sports would be. Of course, I missed competing but now that competitions have returned, I am much more grateful for the opportunity to race and in some ways that has helped motivate me even more to ‘give it my all’ at every competition.
