So I thought that the best way to introduce myself would be to give a glimpse of what I get up to when I’m not training. So below, you’ll see a description of what I get up to on the average day (and yes, I mean day – not week day; the 6am start can be a bit painful at the weekend in winter but sometimes you just have to crack on)

6am: Wake up. I get up at 6am most days. I get a “lie-in” (term used loosely) on some weekend days until 6.30am. I think the latest that I have gotten up in the last few years was 7.30am when I had a dinner out and didn’t get in until early morning. Not by choice, always. I tend to have energy straight away as soon as I wake up, which is great for early mornings but awful when it gets to summer, the sun is up at 4am and my brain decides that it is time to wake up

6.30am: Breakfast. I always have breakfast. This isn’t to say that I always feel like breakfast, but it definitely makes a difference when you do that when I tried having a later breakfast (there was a time when I’d only have a piece of fruit and then a porridge pot at 10am once at work; however, this ended up with me feeling a bit lacking energy first thing). Choice of breakfast is whatever I feel like. I think its really bad to got have what you want, as when you don’t fancy breakfast, eating a bowl of cereal for example when you don’t feel like it can feel extremely hard to eat. Plus you don’t feel like enjoying lunch later. Current favourite choice is pitta bread with avocado and parma ham, plus an apple.

7am: Off to the stables. I have 2 horses. Every morning I got to the stables, rain, frost or sunshine, and clean out their stables. I have 2 stables to muck out, which is excellent exercise, particularly for keeping your middle and arms toned. I also have to “turn them out” – i.e. out them in their fields. I once wore a pedometer and it is over a mile to one of the fields and back, plus the ground is gently undulating so great for working on the legs.

8am-ish (just after): To work. I’m really lucky as my commute to work takes between 15-30 minutes only, depending on traffic. I work for children and young people with Special Needs. Its a really fun job as I love working with families plus I have a really lovely team. We recently had a “bake off!” (ssshhhh!!!…..don’t let any of the other swimmers know about my diet!) where everyone bought a homemade cake or baked good.

4.30pm: Time to “go home”. I say go home, but what I really mean is leave work. I go straight down the stables if there aren’t any shopping or chores that need doing. With 2 competition horses, it takes up a lot of time. I can’t think off the top of my head of any other sport where you have to get your partner fit as well as yourself. I appreciate team sports rely on a partnership, but at least you tend to be able to trust you team to look after themselves. If my horses ever were seen running around the field practising their jumping or dressage, I would be very excited. It also depends if I have any other horses to help bring in and put to bed, or ride. It’s unlikely that I’d leave the stables much before 7pm, but you never know.

7pm: Supper. Time to start winding down. I might have chores to do before dinner or paperwork (thrilling stuff!)

8pm: Chilling out time. I help organise training for a local riding club (WBRC) so there are often lots of email to answer and spreadsheets to fill in. I am also developing my own website for coaching riders and training horses, plus looking up competition schedules and doing accounts.

10-10.30pm: Bed. Although the typical 26 year old is in bed much later, I’ll make sure I get to bed early enough to get enough sleep (7-8 hours) or I will be a cross between the living dead and a proper grouch the next day. Quite unfair to inflict that on the world.

So that’s my day in a nutshell. Its amazing what you can get done in a day (such as including training for a 1 mile open water swim!) so I hope that you feel inspired to go out and fill your time, staying busy. Remember to make time to see friends and family, which is one of my favourite bits of my week.

PS found a buddy to do some training with: the man who fits my horses’s saddles wanted to do the Henley swim last year, and after we got chatting, we are going to meet up to practise our swimming together! Never thought that would be the demographic that I’d help inspire but the more the merrier.

Have fun x