JAde Rodriguez
Her express CV :
My 5 main results in Trail :
– 3rd at the World Junior Mountain Running Championship
– 5th at the European Junior Mountain Running Championship
– French U23 Mountain Running Champion, 2020
-French Junior Mountain Running Champion, 2019
– 9th scratch and 2nd hope at Trofeo Nasego, Italian championship, 2020
But also 35mn57s in the 10km road race (2020)
From biathlon to mountain running...
I am originally from Font Romeu in the Pyrenees, and no, contrary to what one might imagine, I have not been skiing competitively since my first steps! I started skiing in the fifth grade and it was in high school that I started to practice biathlon in a serious way. But frankly the pleasure was my main motivation, even if having the chance to meet Martin Fourcade regularly helps to find cross-country skiing very nice. At home, nobody did it, we were more into ski touring and even soccer for my father and my brother. That’s to say that my choice was not at all obvious. I didn’t necessarily grow up in a family where the spirit of competition was paramount, but the spirit of sharing through sport was! Our great pleasure during the vacations was (and still is) to go jogging together on the beach.
After the baccalaureate I had the chance to continue the sport in parallel of my studies since I made a licence APA (physical and adapted activity) which is a subsidiary of STAPS, that I complete today with a BTS Dietetics. I think it is a perfect complement to my initial training. Within the framework of specific care, the two specializations are perfectly linked. Being attentive to others, to their specific needs and knowing how to respond to them, that’s all I’m learning with this course and it’s absolutely fascinating. And of course it has an echo in my own life as an athlete on a daily basis. It’s a chance to be able to follow this training, when you consider competitive sports like me.
A logical continuation in an already very promising career!
When I think about it, I have always run, or almost, since in the summer, as part of my cross-country ski training, I would obviously put on my sneakers and even in the winter I was at the start of the UNSS cross-country races. The combination of “biathlon and mountain running” was therefore totally natural for me. And of course the results were not too long to come, my past record certainly explaining that. I enjoy myself so much on the short formats (between 12 and 20km), where speed is predominant, that I don’t see myself changing for the moment to consider longer distances. There are already so many great mountain races to do, that I’m not even sure I have enough of a running life to do them all. I run a little bit abroad but for the moment it’s just next to France, in Italy for example and this summer I’m going to go to the Spanish side for a round of the world cup of my discipline. I love the idea of being able to combine the discovery of a country or a region with racing.
I train 6 times a week with a full day off but I’m a fan of cross training as they say! In the winter I do cross-country skiing and ski touring and in the summer I do road cycling. I don’t run every day of course, not only to avoid injuries but also to preserve my mind. Besides, I don’t make my plans alone, I have been trained for a few years now by Antonio Gallego who trains several athletes of the French Mountain Running Team. As far as food is concerned, it’s not because I’m following a dietetic course that I count my calories like others do their steps. Here again, the notion of pleasure comes first, but also that of listening. I am convinced that our body knows very well how to express its needs and that before listening to others, we must learn to listen to ourselves. We quickly realize what goes well before a big training session or a competition. But it’s true that it’s not always as obvious as that, and besides I really advise not to hesitate to turn to a professional of nutrition and sports dietetics to set up a food protocol adapted to one’s own needs. I’m not preaching to the choir, am I? But it is really a subject that can make all the difference on D-day, so it is important not to neglect.
Integrating this team was obviously an honor for me but above all a real surprise. I was coming out of a long period of injury and the very idea that I was trusted, that I was given a chance, immediately convinced me that I wasn’t integrating just any team. Thierry Breuil and the whole team immediately reassured me by making me understand that an injury was part of a career like a pregnancy (Marie Dohin was recruited pregnant, never seen before!) The meeting in Lille, where I was finally able to meet in “real life” all the girls I didn’t know yet, convinced me that we were really going to spend some great years together. And let’s be perfectly honest, the idea of wearing the brand that always accompanied me when I was younger, because like many, I am a Decathlon customer as my parents were before me, I like it. So I don’t need to force myself to say all the good things about their products!
Article written by Cecile Bertin, Run Fit & Fun.