Orkney midwife Taylah Spence hopes to deliver Scottish Commonwealth Games success a matter of days after getting married this summer.
The 23-year-old was a late call up to the 4x100m team for last month’s Diamond League meeting in Birmingham.
And Spence marked her Scotland debut by helping set a new national record (44.75) – inside the Games standard.
“Yes, it is a bit close you could say,” she admits when she contemplates a wedding amid possible Games selection.
Scotland will announce its athletics squad at the end of June and it would mean “everything” for Spence to be on the list heading back to the same Alexander Stadium track where she made her breakthrough.
But, with the wedding to boyfriend Jack scheduled for 30 July, two days after the Games begin, it would also mean a honeymoon in Birmingham.
“Everything is going ahead as scheduled,” Spence tells BBC Scotland. “It is something that we have planned for the last few years. It is obviously a big part of my life and I can’t wait to get married.
“We have had a peek at the timetable and the athletics does start the week after the wedding, so there is definitely time to fit it all in. We have got no honeymoon booked as such, but it would be good to be in Birmingham for that.”
Spence, who won the Scottish 200m title last year, believes that, if selected, she will take it all in her stride given she has to juggle her athletics commitments with her day job – as a full-time midwife at Balfour Hospital in Kirkwall.
“One minute, I can be in the hospital delivering babies – then, an hour later, I could be out here training on the track,” she explains “So it is physically and mentally tiring, but it is very rewarding and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Her professional training meant that, having been “thrown into the deep end” for her Scotland debut as the team chased the Games standard at the Diamond League, “my calm manner, remaining focused, got the job done for the girls”.
Spence has to overcome the various geographical and financial hurdles that come with living in a remote location and trying to pursue an athletics career.
Her progress continues to be overseen by her Aberdeen-based coach, Eoghan MacNamara, with whom she began working when she was a student in the Granite City a few years ago.
“We communicate regularly with phone calls, messages and we have had the odd session over Facetime for doing blocks and technical sessions,” she explains. “So yes, it is a challenge, but it is obviously working. We are still seeing the faster times that we want to and we are still progressing well.
“Training on your own, you have got to have a good mental attitude for that, that is for sure, because you are just running against the stopwatch and nobody else around you. You have got to be determined and you have got to have goals that you want to achieve and I certainly do and that is what pushes me on.”
