Aspiring Borders athlete Ava Richardson enjoying running gauntlet of ever-bigger competitions
Learning how to run is relatively easy. Learning how to run fast, on the other hand, is a bit more difficult, but aspiring athletes can take on board that need for speed with a bit of commitment and application.
How about learning to run fast with a burgeoning weight of expectation on your shoulders to win races and do it time and time again, though?
That’s a challenge all runners face once they step up to contest national competitions and no longer run just for fun, and it’s one currently confronting a crop of young Borderers now looking to raise their game after showing promise over the past couple of years.
Among them is Lauder’s Ava Richardson, a 17-year-old cross-country and hill-runner coming to the end of her school years at Earlston High.
She’s part of a clutch of talented teenagers nurtured by Lauderdale Limpers and Gala Harriers with encouragement from more experienced clubmates, their teachers and their families.
Ava first gave notice of her potential as a 15-year-old by qualifying in sixth place for the east team contesting 2024’s Scottish inter-district cross-country championships and ending up third overall, helping her team finish as runners-up.
She then went on to compete for Scotland in an international hill-race in Spain and helped win the nation’s first team medal for over a decade, finishing just behind Spain and the USA.
The teenager also ran for Scotland at last year’s London Mini-Marathon after winning a national team road-race with Gala Harriers clubmates Kirsty Rankine and Poppy Lunn.
Ava has enjoyed her swift rise through running’s ranks but is honest about how her emotions have changed and how issues have arisen as she’s tried to maintain cofidence and self-belief while going up against ever more competitive fields at national and international levels.
“It has been challenging,” she said. “I’ve not quite cracked how to manage it yet, but it is definitely something I’m working on.
“I push myself quite hard, and it has become harder in training and competitions to the point that it was actually a limiting factor in my last cross-country season.
“Sometimes I got so nervous and freaked out that I would panic and just couldn’t put a race together.
“I wasn’t feeling the same excitement on the start-line. I was more scared of what was going to happen, rather than looking forward to seeing what I could do, so, over the last year, I’ve had to put more work into that mental side and try to get back to the love for running and reminding myself why I wanted to do it in the first place.”
Rediscovering the love of something that came easily as a child, running with freedom and having fun with friends, in a competitive environment seeking qualification for major competitions, selections and Scottish and Great Britain vests is far from straightforward but Ava is giving it a go and is determined to pull it off.
Apprehensiveness before performances is something all athletes experience and Ava is no different, but she reckons she’s beginning to work out how to deal with it – and her third place in December’s east district cross-country championships in Stirling in December among a field of runners from the Borders to as far north as Aberdeen would suggest she’s getting there.
She now works through coping mechanisms that include visualising races in the days beforehand, putting headphones on and listening to music as she warms up to help block out negative thoughts, then taking a few breaths at the start-line and reminding herself of positive experiences at previous races.
Ava has experienced coaches Neil Renton and Graham Capper supporting her, alongside mum Keira and the rest of her family, and she also being given backing by Scottish Borders Council’s athlete support programme, helping with building strength and conditioning, physiotherapy and nutrition advice.
Ava cites Dundee’s Eilish McColgan as an inspiration. The 35-year-old European champion and Olympian – currently British record-holder over 5km, 10km and half-marathon distances – is an ideal poster girl for overcoming challenges, having coped with great expectations to follow her mother Liz onto the world stage whilst having to put up with regular vitriolic online abuse about her slim figure.
“She did well at national level in Scotland at the same age as me, then went to university and fell out of love with the sport a bit, but then came back to athletics and worked through the challenges,” explained Ava.
“You look at everything that’s been thrown at her on and off the track and look at what she’s achieved, the records she’s broken, from steeplechase to 10,000m – she’s incredible.
“I also like how she stands up against the online stuff and speaks about it and shows girls that it’s not a case of what someone says goes. It’s actually what you believe and trusting in yourself and the people around you that matters.
“She has massive resilience and that really inspires me.”
The future looks rosy for Ava as she works on developing her own resilience and not allowing challenges, doubt and nerves to stop her doing what she loves.
She’s now looking forward to a summer of hill-running and she’s got several uphill-only races lined up to test her physical and mental strength.
British and European events are on the horizon, and she dreams of one day following McColgan to an Olympic Games.
She knows there is a lot of ground to cover before she’d even be in with a chance of contending for such a high-profile assignment, but after rediscovering her love for running, she’s just happy to be having those sorts of dreams once again.