Olympic Athlete Inspires TH Runners

Posted on: 06/11/2017

• Share this article:

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Olympic athlete, Liz Yelling, was the guest speaker at Talbot Heath school’s morning assembly last week and gave an inspiring talk to the pupils (and staff) who are preparing for their annual charity event, Run for Rwanda.

In her speech, Liz talked about respect, passion, and having grit in order to never give up, followed by an enthusiastic Q and A session.  

The Dorset based long-distance runner was keen to motivate and advise the pupils and staff, as the school is about to embark on its third charity run to raise money for its partner school in Rwanda. Previous donations built a water tank and refurbished the girls’ dormitory, and TH will be running (participating in all of the races) at the Bournemouth Marathon Festival in October, to help start a preschool there. Talbot Heath was awarded a trophy last year for the biggest number of entries by a school: 232 members of the TH community ran for this cause. Amongst them was TH’s very own cross-country star, Martha Pawson who finished 11th in the South West cross country in Truro this year and represented Dorset at the English Schools in Norwich. Following in Liz Yellings’ footsteps of the 2006 Commonwealth Games marathon is Melissa Courtney, a former TH pupil, who will be representing Wales in the next Commonwealth Games.

Thanks go to Liz Yellings for her inspirational assembly and best of luck to the TH community who are running in next month’s assembly.