Hannah England: I’d love to go for a long walk but I would have to adopt a dog first

Hannah England, a 1500metres silver medallist at the 2011 World Championships, competes for Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the European Team Championships in Gateshead on Sunday. Here, she talks about her perfect athletics-free weekend.
21 June 2013

A rare weekend without athletics would have to start with food, probably beginning with something Italian.

The biggest focus, though, would have to be the pudding. Chocolate eclairs are ideal for me — they’re one of my big weaknesses — but, as long as the pudding in question involves chocolate and cream, I’m perfectly happy.

If there was no running involved, I’d have a long lie-in on the Saturday and then the day would have to involve watching some sort of sport. I love going to see sport live, tennis in particular and was lucky enough to be at Queen’s on Sunday to watch Andy Murray win the final, which was an amazing experience. But as long as the sport is live, I don’t mind; cricket, football, rugby, whatever’s on really.

If the sun’s shining, I’d like to have a barbecue, ideally at a friend’s house so I can be lazy and don’t have to worry about the cooking and clearing up. That’s the ideal Saturday — getting someone else to do the work. As an athlete, away from training you try to rest and stay off your legs but, outside of the season, I love going for walks, so that would be the Sunday aim.

This will probably sound strange but I always feel a bit odd if I go for a long walk without a dog so, if I could, I’d adopt a dog for the Sunday of my perfect weekend and take it for a walk. I’m not sure I’d want a dog full-time right now because that would involve a lot of looking after.

Sunday lunch would be nice followed by a visit to the pub in the afternoon or in the evening for a pub quiz. I don’t know what it is about them but I love quizzes. It’s not that I’m particularly good at them. Actually, I’m probably a bit rubbish but that would be the ideal way to round off the weekend.

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