Alice strides to whole new level

THERE will be a spring in the step of Alice Randall after she won gold in the walking championships over the weekend.

Last Sunday Randall won the Australian under-20 road walking championship in Wollongong.

Even though Randall is the national under-18 road and track 10km champion, the move to an under-20 event took her out of her comfort zone.

“I was not very confident going into the race,” Randall said. “I was quite nervous and needed to focus on what my plan was to settle my nerves.”

The Guilford Young College Year 11 student won the 10km race in a time of 53min 10 sec and finished seven seconds in front of the next best competitor.

The race was held in blustery conditions, which Randall said made the event difficult.

“The conditions were horrible and really windy,” she said.

“My plan didn’t change because of the weather but it did make the event harder.”

Randall started walking races through the little athletics pathway and took a liking to the sport after some early success.

“I think I have always been pretty good at it,” Randall said. “I remember doing it when I was quite young and I remember being good at it then.”

The 17-year-old is now looking forward to her next race which will be at the All Australian Schools Championships in Adelaide in December.

“I will now be training for my next race in December,” Randall said.

“The goal from here is to keep breaking my PBs.”