Mythbusting Lead LUU

So Lead LUU is upon us, and I thought I’d write a few little bits and bobs about what it’s really like to run to be an Exec Officer.

• You’ll make such good friends with your competitors. By the end of the race, I really didn’t care who won. I knew all of the other candidates well enough to know that any of them would have been amazing at the role, and I’d have been truly happy to have lost to any of them.
• You’ll be sick of free food. A free breakfast is provided in the Rep Room most mornings, accompanied last year by a bowl of Ketchup? Although I was massively thankful for free sausages and bread, by the end I never wanted to look at carbs again (only for about a week, though).
• You’ll appreciate your friends way more. When I was running, my friends didn’t complain once about my lack of washing up or about having to help me stick faces onto condoms that I then gave out. They stuck with me throughout it all, and I couldn’t be more thankful to any of them.
• You realise you don’t really care who wins, because you know you’ll stay friends regardless. This might not be the case for everyone, but I knew that I’d made such good other friends with the candidates that I’d have been happy to work with anyone. I even woke up crying after winning because I wouldn’t be able to spend as much time with anyone anymore. I still see loads of the people I ran with to catch up because you realise you have more in common than just putting up posters.
• You learn a lot about yourself. Running in Lead LUU really showed me just how resilient I can be, and how to become a better person. You really have to present the best version of yourself to the many, many people you meet across the 2 weeks, and by the end of it I had morphed into this better person. I was exhausted, but it was so worth it.

I hope this clears up some of the myths about running in Lead LUU, and makes you more positive about the experience. The campaigning period was a really tough time, but it was equally as rewarding, and the positives definitely outweighed the negatives. Good luck to those of you that are running, I hope you have as wonderful a time as I did!