Heather Fell, Olympic modern pentathlete silver medalist, writes about her life 'on and off' the track.

I must have maintained my fitness better than I thought over the holidays as last Sunday's cross country race wasn't as painful as I had expected.

I was proud to represent Devon in the South West inter-counties at Bicton Park and pleasantly surprised at my respectable result, especially as I'm still carrying a few extra pounds from Christmas and had just completed a hard week of training.

The vocal support for all the Devon runners was quite noticeable and it certainly helps when you are in pain crawling up the hills, however I was a little concerned when receiving words of encouragement on my warm down, I do hope I look a little faster when I am racing!

For most people last week was the end of the Christmas break and time to return to work; although I hadn't stopped training I also returned to the routine. It was a pleasure to be back training with the girls in Bath and felt like the beginning of term at school with at least the first couple of days spent catching up on all the gossip from the last two weeks. This is obviously the start of a very important year so I am very grateful that my training is (on the whole) so enjoyable. I am feeling a little apprehensive yet very excited about the season ahead.

I made the most of my afternoon off last week and went to visit my old pony Camy. I've been meaning to see her for years and after a fortnight at home with our current animals it reminded me how much she means to me — unfortunately I obviously don't mean as much to her, she didn't recognise me. Even so it was great to see that she is giving some other children great amounts of fun and teaching them plenty along the way.