Inspirational People

I love an inspiring story, especially when you're cold, tired and feel like training is going nowhere. Triathletes inspire me the most, along with ultra runners. These people push themselves to the max, for hours at a time, and make you believe the unbelievable. Them pushing their limits make you feel like you can push yours.

One especially inspiring person for me is Olympic champion Alistair Brownlee. He won the Olympic gold in triathlon after having had a torn Achilles tendon earlier in the year. Instead of giving up and sitting around waiting for the injury to heal he decided to take matters into his own hands. He started using the public pool for his rehab water running but as it was very crowded he built his own pool in his front garden, to stay in shape while injured. Before the Olympics he only got 6 weeks 'proper' training but still fought his way to an Olympic gold.

If Alistair Brownlee can manage an Olympic gold with a less than ideal preparations then surely the rest of us can manage to reach out more moderate goals?! Don't give up or give in but fight your way back - even if it means you have to take a detour!

Swim or Sink?!

Well, I'm not that quite rubbish a swimmer - I've been swimming breaststrokes since I was 5 - but front crawl is an altogether different story.... I never learned as a kid, attending 'swimming school' in the north of Sweden in the middle of May meant many cold and miserable memories and not much inspiration to learn more than the bare essential. As I've been running and cycling more over the last year I've started to dream about completing a triathlon so last September I enrolled at a swim course at the Central YMCA in London to rectify my non-existant front crawl. Poor coach Martin had to drill me over 8 weeks - and not only in front crawl! At the end of the course I had not only learned how to front crawl but also improved my backstroke and started with butterfly....the man is, in short, a miracle worker! My front crawl still wasn't great, especially not when left to my own device. Over Christmas I gave myself a break as my confidence was taking a bit of a beating in the pool just because I didn't feel like a I was making enough progress.