“It’s hectic, but I love it.”

Ask Kennedy Taylor how she’s feeling about the busy exclamation mark which is about to signal the end of her summer and you get more than words.

Kennedy, a talented track and triathlon athlete, will bring the curtain down on her 2022/23 season with the New Zealand secondary schools triathlon championships and the South Island secondary schools athletics championships over the space of just four days this week.

It helps that the former is being held in Wanaka, and the latter in Invercargill, but it helps even more that Kennedy, a Leadership Year member of SBS Bank Academy Southland, is relishing the challenge.

“I’ve been balancing tonnes of different sports since I was young. It’s hectic, but I love it.”

And there you have it. Focused, pragmatic and a sense of excitement which has been fuelled by a five-week holiday in the United States over the summer.

For a dedicated trainer and competitor, a family vacation during the busiest part of the year might seem like a juxtaposition, but Kennedy has no regrets.

“It was unreal. It was pretty awesome seeing family and we got to go on a wee trip to New York, Washington and Florida, so that was pretty cool,” she says.

“I brought over my running shoes, but I didn’t end up running very much, maybe just like twice a week. It was snowing so a couple of times I’d try to go out and it would be knee deep snow, which was pretty fun. It was hard not being able to train, but I told myself that it was really important to spend time with family and just took that time to reset.”

Athletics coach Lance Smith previously worked with Kennedy’s older brothers Josh and Jaxon and has seen Kennedy develop a ‘’champion’s mindset” to go with her undisputed talent.

“She is a delight to coach and is an inspiration and looked up to by younger members of the squad.”

Kennedy signed off her final Southland secondary schools athletics championships at Surrey Park earlier this month by beating long-standing provincial records in the senior steeplechase and 3000m events.

The New Zealand triathlon schools title will be contested on Thursday (March 30) at Glendhu Bay, on the same course Kennedy took out the under 19 girls event at Challenge Wanaka earlier this year, albeit over a slightly shorter distance.

The next day she’ll be lacing up her spikes at Surrey Park for the South Island schools athletics meet from March 31 to April 2. Then it’s time to have a break, followed by a winter of cross-country and her final season playing halfback for the Southland Girls’ High first XV.

This year’s ultimate goal is to return to the United States in 2024 on a university scholarship, an increasingly well-trodden path for Southland’s best young athletes.

Article added: Thursday 30 March 2023