Netball Super League | The diary of Mikki Austin

Mikki Austin in action at the Season Opener

Mikki Austin is a Vitality Netball Superleague winner and current Director of Netball / player at Surrey Storm.

Like everybody else over the last few weeks, and for the next few, Mikki has had to make adjustments to her life.

With an incredibly busy schedule in normal circumstances, we will be following Mikki’s schedule over the coming weeks to see how she stays sharp, on top of her coaching duties and what life is like now.

MIKKI AUSTIN’S DIARY

Things I’m finding helpful:

– Planning out my day ahead of time and visually writing a schedule to help keep me engaged and sticking to task. Also included in this daily schedule is how much food I intake. The biggest struggle of being at home constantly is not shovelling food in through boredom rather than if I’m actually hungry or need fuel. Visually planning in my meal times and how many snacks I’m having throughout the day.

– Setting up and closing a ‘Work Area’ each day to split where I ‘work’ and where I get some downtime.

– Sticking to my training programme where possible and having this clearly scheduled out on a weekly basis so I know which sessions I must complete on which day

– Self Care – taking a moment each day to be grateful for the ability to work from home, a roof over my head to work In and food in the cupboards to resist – overwhelmingly right now, grateful for my health.

– Also understanding that having moments of being unproductive right now is absolutely ok!

Monday:

Office work and emails (working closely with our marketing team and Tom Bonnett to think of innovative ways to keep our fanbase engaged/ players)

Managers catch up with Surrey Sports Park

Catch up with Surrey Storm Captain/Vice Captain via Skype

Check-in with each court unit: today is defenders!

Surrey Storm Sock Shootout round 1 completed

Training sessions I must complete today: Speed 1, Body Weight 1 and a 30 min walk/cycle if safe to do so outside.

Tuesday:

5k run to start the day to get my one and only outing in the fresh air.

Office work and emails

Catch up with Surrey Storm Coaching Team via Skype

Check-in with each court unit: today is Midcourt

My check-in with Niamh Cooper was a real eyeopener, a doctor working on the front line and genuinely an absolute HERO – to all NHS and key workers, THANK YOU!!

Check-in with family members, Nan and sister who at the moment fall into the high-risk category

Check-in with my mum and dad, mum works in a pharmacy so is also high risk and working very long hours right now.

Bonus workout session in the evening completed in the underground car park:

Wednesday:

30 min walk outside + a food shop trip to the supermarket to get the essentials for the week which was an experience, to say the least! (my quarantine chocolate stash was running low – I’m not on my own in eating everything in sight right now, am I?)

Office work and Emails

Check-in with units: today is shooters

Training sessions: Bodyweight 2 which consists of 2 different variations of squats, a press and a pull and lots of hamstring work

Group skype with all of Surrey Storm – the highlight of the week so far!

Thursday:

My mood has been lifted by our team catch up last night – Gosh I miss that lot!

Up and out for my 30 min walk/cycle early Thursday morning as lots and lots of video meetings today.

Meetings all afternoon via skype and then an evening session pencilled in.

All week I’ve also been working on creating a Surrey Storm Virtual Pub Quiz for our players and stuff (and their wider households) – which we will be doing on Friday night via a video chat and Google Sheets, Theme: ALL THINGS FILM! – I will let you know how it goes.

Make sure you come back next Friday to see what Mikki has been up to this coming week.