Can you tell us the story as to when you found out you were

actually going across the border? so originally we were like right we'll do French tour then we'll do Madrid and then we'll use online semis as like a last resort backup we're going to use French as like a see where we're at and we're going to like push for Madrid and then see what happened after that and then French went way better than we thought so we were like oh we came seventh I think I went to the last day third but I knew there was like there's a really long handstand workout and I was like that's going to probably drop me down a little bit and then so I finished seventh and I was like oh I could give like Madrid a good crack and then day one of Madrid I think I think, was it in Madrid? No, that was France.

I didn't actually feel right.

So like there was a workout.

Oh no, it was Madrid.

A second workout.

I tested and trained and I was like, oh, I'm going to have a pretty decent time with this.

And is that a strategy that you and Rob have got? Yeah,

What's he like as a coach? Is he, like, i- is he demanding? Does he just kind of give you the stuff and expect you to do it? Does he check in a lot? Is he kind of, like, does he look at the, the emotional side and the psychological side, as well as just the physical? Like, what, what kind of plates is he spinning with you?

So, like, especially this season, 'cause, like, I used to never believe I'm, like, I'm never gonna be good enough to make the games.

Like, I seen, like, I trained with McQuaid, I trained with Lucy, and I was like, they're just so far ahead.

I was like, how am I ever gonna get there? So he's actually done a lot of work mentally with me at the start of this season to be like, "You got to get to those dark places, and you got to live in them.

And then you know when it comes to competition, when you get to that dark place, you can do it." So, like, we've worked a lot mentally.

There's been a couple of tears shed on my, uh, on my side from some of the sessions [laughs] that I'd finish and he'd be like, "That's not, that's not how it was meant to be hit." Like, we're doing a lot of, like, bike into running sessions, and, like, he's giving me some hard wattage to hit, and then I'm gonna have to go into, like, a 1K run at, like, a sub four-minute pace, and I'm, like, absolutely dying.

I get to, like, round four and I'm like, "I can't hold the watts." And if I don't, like, there was one session, I was absolutely dead from the weekend, tried to hit the watts, was nowhere near.

Is that purely just, like, do you think you had the physical capabilities and it was the mental side, or do you think that both were kinda building from, say, the last, like, 12 months-ish?