Lauren Bradshaw – Christmas Update

So it has now been 3 months since I started working as a specialist physiotherapist at Progress. It was a challenge to begin with, relocating to Cambridge from Nottingham, not knowing anyone – but I’ve been made to feel very welcome.

The staff and patients at Progress are a pleasure to work with and I feel I have settled in nicely to the team. Last week I had a fantastic opportunity to spend the day in theaters over at the Spire Cambridge Lea Hospital watching Mr Richard Villar perform numerous hip and knee surgery. It is always incredibly useful for my professional development to witness such procedures – especially as I work with a lot of these patients post-surgery with their rehabilitation phase. It has opened my eyes to the complexity of the distraction technique of the hip and I will now have an even greater understanding for my patients rehabilitation.  

Me at the start of my last race of the season

Outside of work I have joined the Cambridge Triathlon Club which I must say has been a real asset to my training and competing and I have again met some wonderful people and made some incredible friends. 

I have had a hectic year with competitions this

season and I am proud to say that I finished 6^th at both the 2013 World and European Duathlon Championships. I have since qualified for the 2014 Euro’s and Worlds which will be taking me to Holland and Spain during late spring/early summer next year. I finished my season this weekend with an off road duathlon as part of the Midlands Off Road series and I am happy to say that I won 2 out of the 3 events to take the overall title! So now it is time for me to relax a little and enjoy Christmas (although anyone that knows me well will know I find it hard to sit still and I will be running on Christmas day!). 

Off Road Duathlon Awards with Adam of One Step Beyond

 Training must go on for next year so I am busy planning the 2014 season which will see me return back to triathlon to complete the Vitruvian a half ironman distance race in August at Rutland Water. I am also traveling to Majorca for a week of cycling with Cambridge Tri to help increase my bike fitness – I hear there are a lot of hills out there which is great as Cambridge is as flat as a pancake and unfortunately not ideal for hill training!

I wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy new year and look forward to providing my next installment of news which may or may not have some interesting stories from my skiing trip to Switzerland – who knows!