Princess Helena College

Girls involved in the trip: Frankie Knight, Dani Reid, Emily Guthrie, Annie Reid, Sophie Gill, Lucy Thomas, CP Herron, Kate Chambers, Eliza May, Hannah Dawson, Benita Albert-Faluyi, Nicola Byrom, Millie Pollok, Hannah Sayers, Emily Kilby, Isabel Clifford, Libby Cuthbert.

Mrs Keenleyside, Miss Hone and Miss Robertson took 17 girls to Club La Santa in Lanzarote for a week's athletics training during the Easter holiday. Club La Santa offers more than 30 sporting facilities, including tennis courts, aerobic sessions, beach volleyball, an Olympic size open air swimming pool, mountain bikes, kayaking, an athletics track and much more. It is a sportsperson's paradise!

PHC was joined on the trip by 34 boys and 6 staff (including Mr Keenleyside!) from The Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, Elstree. Of course, this motivated and excited the girls even more and they formed many new friendships.

The girls trained twice a day, morning and evening. Field events were covered in the morning, whilst the evening sessions focused on improving fitness, strength, speed and stamina. This included beach running, core and upper body conditioning, agility and pace drills with ladders, and some resistance work. Technical work on sprint starts, sprinting style and relay changeovers was also incorporated and a time trial over 200m was set as another training session. Over the course of the trip, a number of personal bests were set in a variety of track and field events. Well done to all those girls who achieved this!

Between the two training sessions, a variety of activities was organised for the girls. These included football tournaments, bike rides, swimming sessions, a diving competition and volleyball tournaments. Trips out of the complex were also organised and included visits to the house of Caesar Manrique (a local artist), the market at Teguise, Fire Mountain and the local caves.

During the last two days, the girls took part in a ‘pentathlon'. All the girls were put into teams with the boys and they competed in 5 events. They began with a choice of either 100m or hurdles and then had a choice of two jumping and one throwing event, or two throwing and one jumping event. Finally, they all ran an 800m race. Prizes were on offer for the winning team and the most successful girl in each age group. The winning team was composed of six boys, and Annabel Reid and Isabel Clifford. The individual age group winners were Emily Kilby, Kate Chambers, Annabel Reid and Danielle Reid. An additional prize was given for the highest individual point scorer in the pentathlon; this went to Annie Reid. This competition produced even more ‘pbs', particularly in the 800m. Congratulations to all the girls!

The trip was extremely successful and we look forward to going again next year. Invitations will be sent to selected girls shortly.

Mrs D. Keenleyside (Head of PE)