In this episode I chat with Lena Tice, current Hockey player for the Irish ladies team about to head off to the Tokyo Olympics. Lena has over a 100 caps for Ireland already across cricket and hockey combined and is the second youngest international cricket player ever male or female. We chat about what it was like for Lena going through secondary school in St Gerards, Bray while playing international sport at the same time.

We then get around to chatting about how Lena was preparing for her Leaving Cert while on tour with the Hockey team in New Zealand and leaving all her Chemistry notes on the North Island ! Lena definitely had a unique experience preparing for her Leaving Cert and she shares some well earned tips about balancing extra curriculars.

We then talk about going to UCD and continuing with her Irish Hockey career. It's great to get an insight into how top level athletes prepare for big matches ( or even Olympics !) and Lena details the different parts that make up her prep. From dealing with high pressure games such as the Olympic qualifier or the 2018 World Cup final to how she analyses her day to day training, it's great to see what areas are key to focus on.

What's really revealing is that Lena knows what she's elite at and is willing to not get lost in the weeds of improving every part of her game and then losing sight of the bigger picture. I thought this was one of the key learnings from the whole conversation as the same in a funny way applies to everything, most especially the Leaving Cert !

Overall I really enjoyed this podcast again. Lena clearly has a knack for storytelling and probably should be the one hosting the podcast based on ease of chatting to her ! There's so many great takeaways from one of Ireland's future Olympians and I hope you all find it interesting.