Glen Innes pair to contest Oceania Area Championships.

INTERNATIONAL MEET: Mikielee Snow and Gracie Martin at last year's NSW Juniors Athletics Championships. The pair will represent Regional Australia at the Oceania Area Championships next week.

Young stars of the athletics track, Gracie Martin and Mikielee Snow, have stepped up their training in preparation for the Oceania Championships.

The Glen Innes pair were both selected for the Regional Australia team, alongside three of their Armidale Athletics Club teammates.

Martin withdrew from theMelanesian event in Fiji last year but is fit and firing to line up at the starting blocks.

She will take her place at the start of the 200 metre and 400 metre races.

My training is going very well, it has probably been the best lead up I have had to a competition in a while, she said.

My off season training started off with longer slower paced runs to help build my base fitness.

Now as it gets closer to competition, we are sharpening up with some shorter speed sessions.

Snow competed last year and finished with a pair of bronze medals from the 4x100m and the medley relay teams.

She also made the finals in her races last year, a feat which she hopes to repeat at the Oceania Championships.

While she is a year older in the under 18 age group, Snow is expecting to come up against even speedier runners at this years meet.

The competition is definitely going to be tougher this year as there are way more countries then last year, she said.

I have around 25 in both my 100m and 200m and most of these athletes are older then me.

I am expecting some high level competition at this meet and a great chance to see how my training has been going and where I am at.

I am hoping to achieve a new personal best in either the 100m or the 200m, or even both would be great.

I would also like to make it to the finals in both the 100m and 200m.

The girls daily schedules are packed in the lead up to the meet, fitting in schoolwork and training for an international competition.

This years preparation has been going very well. I have had no injurieswhich is great, Snow said.

I have been doing a lot of track sessions and also gym and core sessions as well.

I also have been doing a lot of mobility work over the months of preparation.

Snow said the Championships are a highlight on her athletics calendar and excited to be travelling alongside her clubmates.

I am looking forward to both the amazing experience to compete with athletes from different places and to be going over with my Armidale teammates and other athletes that I have become friends with over my athletics career, she said.

The athletes will make their way to Fiji on Monday, before the opening ceremony on Wednesday and the girls start their eventson Thursday.

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Sights set on Fiji - Glen Innes Examiner