Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Vet Chat. Today I am incredibly excited to have a brand new guest joining us, Sarah Evans. And Sarah is gonna be sharing her journey navigating being an RVN and also an athlete.
So really looking forward to this conversation. Let me introduce our guest today. Sarah has been a veterinary nurse since 2006 at Armag Veterinary Clinic, a first opinion and A&E practise.
She works a combination of day and night shifts as an ECC nurse and is currently working her way through the Vets Now ECC certificate. Sarah has been rafting since 2012 with the Red Rose rafting team, and they have been able to travel and represent our country in many fantastic places. They have just returned from the European Championships in the Czech Republic, where they came 3rd.
So hello Sarah, welcome to Bet chats. Thank you for inviting me. Oh no, thank you so much for fitting this in.
It sounds like you've got so much going on at the moment with your studies and two side by side careers. It doesn't do to get bored. Yeah.
So perhaps to start, could you just sort of explain to our listeners, how you came to have this kind of career where you're doing two totally separate things. Yeah, it was never, I never set out to do this. The nursing has always been the go to, even from school, college, the aim was always to be a nurse.
The rafting just came as a, a bit of a hobby. That went well and got a little bit more serious. Luckily I still class it as a hobby, still massively enjoy it after all this time.
Yeah, just try and build the both, both some careers together. Yeah, fantastic. And then now as well you're doing some studying as well at the same time for a certificate.
Yeah. Brilliant. Again, I don't like to get bored.
I have these great ideas and then slowly regret them afterwards. So you said you got into sort of rafting as a bit of a hobby. How did you get into like competitive rafting?
Originally I went as part of a fundraiser for the team that was then the British team. They were just holding an open and me and a group of friends went along, had a go at one. For some reason, and got the book and decided to keep on going.
So the British rafting he holds sort of like competitions throughout the year. So we'd just go along joining in them, and the more we went, the better we got, started to develop our skills. And then one year I have to keep on going, we actually got told it was a selection event, and that if we reached a particular level, and we could represent Great Britain ourselves, so we, we managed to do that, past the levels that we needed to, and from there we just continued training, continuing competitions and just trying to get better and earn our spot.
Fantastic. Congratulations. It's such an achievement.
How is, how would you say you're quite an organised person? Like, I would imagine you would have to be quite good at managing your time to be able to kind of balance those things. Yeah, I try and be organised.
I have notads everywhere. I have lists, tick sheets, everything like that. My, my end goal isn't always as organised as I'd like to be.
I have all these missions. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do this today.
I'm gonna do this today. It doesn't always happen that way, but yeah, I try and be as as organised as I can with both work with my team and, and with myself. Is it quite like regular training that you have with the rafting, or does it vary quite a lot, you know, week by week?
It varies a lot week to week, individually, we're all expected to keep our own fitness up, going to the gym, runs, anything just to try and keep fitness levels going. As a team, we try and get together. When we're not competing like once a month for a bit of fun and get some training, but leading up to a competition, it tries to be sort of every, every two weeks or so.
And does that tend to be like by you where you live, where you go training, or can that vary as well? Yeah, unfortunately where I live there's no water. That could be a problem.
Yeah, travelling is always necessary. My nearest area is about just short of 2 hours away down to Wales. Other than that we travel across to Nottingham, which is again.
2.5 to 3 hours. We do have canals by us, so if, if it comes to it, we'll jump on a canal and do some endurance training there.
But yeah, unfortunately, to get to get the team together is a bit of an effort. Yeah. OK, and you've just come back from the Czech Republic.
But yeah, yeah, how would you describe that? Was that a great experience? That was a really good experience.
The weather was fantastic, the travelling the country was beautiful, and just the competition out there was so good. The course was amazing, the rivers were fantastic. It was just such a, I think everything came together at that event.
Brilliant. How do you, mentally prepare for such a high stress competition like that, especially while you're also, I guess in practise as well, while you're in training. So partly this year, I dealt with it by ignoring it, just because I had so much other things going on, I tried to ignore the fact that I had a competition coming up and just dealt with what was in front of me at the time.
Fill out, fill out this paperwork, send in that entry form, and then at work do all that, but normally it's, we deal with it as a team, really. And we found it better not to hyper focus on it. As soon as we start sort of like really looking at it and like, this is what we're going to do, this is how this is going to go, that's when we tend to make more mistakes, I feel.
As a team, I think we've always worked better if we go in. Laughing, joking, serious we want to win, but not, not sort of focusing on it too much if that makes sense. Helps take away, yeah, yeah, sometimes it's really easy whether it.
In competition artwork to put so much pressure on ourselves that it's not sustainable. So we try and make a balance for it. Brilliant.
And what are some of like the physical and mental challenges that you face in your competitive rafting? Would you talk to us a little bit about them? Yeah, physically is, feels more the main one for myself, just because we're putting that much effort in through being at the gym, through the actual physicality of rafting, injuries can occur quite easily, but then obviously work.
It's quite a manual job as well with all the lifting and stretching and odd positions, . So we do have to be careful to, to manage the two. Work wouldn't be too impressed if I injured myself that I couldn't work.
So it's always a managing of everything. Yeah, brilliant. And so looking at your kind of veterinary nursing background, do you think growing up and becoming a vet nurse that has an impact on some of the challenges that you had rafting as well, like did that kind of impact your approach to how you deal with the challenges that you face rafting?
I think possibly. Obviously, we deal with so many different situations, you have to be ready to deal with the, the nice side, the sad side, the disappointments at work, and obviously in in competition, you have to deal with the exact same things. So just trying to, sometimes if a race hasn't gone so well, rather than focusing on that didn't work, try and focus on the what did go right, what happened, what we did right as a team.
What you did as an individual, what you can improve on next time, which I feel is the same as a debrief sort of after a CPR episode, dealing with exactly what you've done, what we did well as a team, and what you can improve on next time. Brilliant, sounds good. And is the size of your rafting team quite similar to the size of your team when you're in practise?
The core team, yeah, I think we work with sort of 66 people at a time in the rafting and again at work, although there's 50 odd people, you're usually working with a course at 6 or 7, and sort of in your immediate surroundings. So yeah, I think it works quite well and the dynamics work similar as well. Yeah.
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If you'd like to get involved again this year, or if you'd like to join us for the day next time, please click the link in the description below to find out more. So how do you fit training in? So if you've, what does like a sort of typical day look like for you?
OK, so today, for instance, finishing work at 8:30 this morning, I find it much easier to go straight to the gym from there, spend an hour or so there, then come home and do what I need to do. But basically it all depends on what shifts I'm on. I'm not the best at motivating myself to go to the gym.
If we want to go rafting tomorrow, I will be there. But getting myself to the gym isn't always the easiest. So yeah, I find it better myself to, if I can go straight from work while I'm still moving, and go that way.
So yeah, I usually try and fit in an hour or so after work. Not every day, just to try and keep it fresh, keep myself motivated. I think if I did it every single day, it, so it's again, it's all, it's all a balancing act.
Yeah, absolutely, and your workplace quite supportive with the, with the training as well? Does it not work too much so they're OK with it? Yeah, yeah, again, I save up all my holidays so competition time isn't a big issue and work are amazing at trying to help me fit it in that way, so I don't have to worry about getting cover and everything like that.
But my training as such. I try not to let it impact work at all. It's all out of work time, although I will lift it slightly too heavy dog just to try and get some extra weight training in, but I feel the The, the carrying at work, the, the manoeuvring that we do all helps some flexibility, and for, for rapping as well.
So I try and take everything as an opportunity to, improve both sides. Yeah, brilliant. Oh no, it sounds great and honestly I, I just find anybody who can do a night shift and then go to the gym for a few hours, just amazing, and very inspirational.
Do you sort of see yourself as a bit of a role model for people who want to have sort of a dual career alongside the veterinary, role? I haven't thought of it that way, but I guess I'm more sort of a stand by people like Laura Muir who are so competitive in their field, and then they're doing an amazing job, that there's definitely space for it, and I think having the sort of separateness of two completely different things definitely helps in day to day life, keeping you centred, . Taking you out of that work situation, and helping you deal with other things, I definitely feel it is a good thing.
You find that it helps you like completely switch off after work if you just like focused on the rafting or you the training then and it just kind of helps you to leave all the stresses in the way, particularly when you're in the raft, you, you have to focus on what you're doing. So yeah, there's no phones, there's no, no work asking you to cover an extra shift. It is just you, the river, your teammates, and that finish sign or or that slalom gets, it's, it's nice to just focus on that.
Yeah, brilliant. And if we've got any listeners tuning in who are thinking, oh, you know, they really would quite like to have a sort of separate career to just their time and practise, maybe particularly in sports, would you have any advice for them based on your experience? Just go for it, find something you enjoy.
And then let it lead from there. I must admit we, rather than considering ourselves a competitive team, we just always thought of ourselves as a bunch of friends. We go out, meet up, we meet up as out of rafting as much as in rafting, yeah, find something you enjoy, go with it, and you'll never know where else take you.
Brilliant, that that sounds great. And what about sort of looking at like any sort of challenges or setbacks that you've had, whether that's in practise or it could be, you know, with the rafting, how do you sort of stay motivated and stay positive because you know, just from this conversation you seem like a very positive person, which is lovely, but I guess it could be quite a challenge at times. Yeah, sometimes it is.
I find it easy to monitor it myself think, right, that's what I did wrong. I need to do that better next time. Sometimes it's more of a struggle trying to support the people around you, try and make them see we might have lost that rest, we might have lost that patient, but this is what we did right.
This is what we achieved as a team. We all worked together, and we all We all did what we needed to do and I, I find that harder to try and help buy everyone out, but I think it works, it helps me doing that as well. Just trying to keep everyone together.
Yeah, no, that's great advice. And what have been like you sort of career highlights so far, I think every day sometimes, just that case that goes really well, watching my students, become nurses in their own right, seeing that case that you didn't think was gonna go home really rally and do amazingly, . Obviously, personally career-wise I've done so like different courses throughout the years I've really worked towards and I'm so pleased when I've finished those, give it a couple of years, decide I'm bored again, so I do another course, regret it, pass it, but yeah, just trying to keep on moving forward.
I love working with that new vets coming through, finding out the new techniques, new ways of doing things, and learning, learning all the time. Yeah. Brilliant.
And what would you sort of say your goals are for the future? Obviously you sound like you've had such an incredible career, you know, to date, but is there more that you'd love to achieve? I think it's tough one because I love what I do so much.
I love being on the ECC side. I know people's careers tend to want to go higher, be head nurse, be management. I just love dealing with what's coming in front of me and working with all the nurses, the vets.
Maybe one day I'll go further, but at the minute, I, I just enjoy the ECC work and seeing that it's going to take me. And you feel like you've got a nice balance between work and rafting as well. I do, and I must admit I feel compared to some colleagues when I see how much they struggle sometimes, I feel it just gives me that, that nice balance to life.
Yeah, brilliant. And do you think that is, as we sort of said before, just having that separation from the two, and do you think that really help? I think it does and it stops me, so, if I've had a particularly difficult case at work, it's so easy to kind of keep thinking back on it.
What could I do? What could I do different? But sometimes, like I said just go try and get it out of my head and then come back to it fresh, I think it definitely helps me.
Keep the sanitary. And have you got any more European championships lined up? Not yet.
They won't start off until next year again, but we've got, internal national competitions, one due for December, and then, we'll wait for the calendar coming through for next year. Well, ah well, best of luck for December, and will the training start soon for that? Yeah, I think we're having our own internal selections, next week because there's a few too many of us for the raft this time.
So again, we all have to work hard for that. And then yeah, hopefully December and yeah, continue into next year. Fantastic.
Oh, well, Sarah, thank you so much. I really enjoyed our conversation today. Is there any final advice or anything else that you'd like to share with our listeners?
I don't think so. I think just to echo what I said before, if you find something out of work that you enjoy, whether it's Sports, craft, social work, anything like that, just go for it and enjoy yourself. Brilliant, I think that's a wonderful place to end, Sarah.
Thank you again so much for joining me and best of luck for the future with both.
