Blog
Final Elite Season - part 2 (2021)
5th Nov 2022
It was October 2020 - mid covid pandemic, we had to decide as a family whether I would carry on racing for 1 more year after everything I worked for in 2020 got cancelled!

A weekly freezing sea swim during lockdown 3!
That was two years ago – and the decision was obviously to give it one last shot. It was a massive gamble, and initially it didn’t look like it would pay off. We had it harder in the UK than most countries (I was regularly seeing my competitors training/racing abroad on social media while it wasn’t allowed here!) Meanwhile we went into lockdown 2, and worst of all - when the population’s mental health was reaching breaking point – lockdown 3.
It was a brutal winter from December 2020 – April 2021 when swimming pools, gyms, cafes and indoor meeting places were closed, even having friends and family in your own home was illegal and punishable by fine (unless you’re the prime minister of course, but that’s another story). Toddler playdates were restricted to freezing, rainy parks, and often miserable children while parents tried to keep warm with a thermos of tea! Dreaming of just being able to go to each other’s houses or a gym or messy play class like we used to.
The only way I could swim was to make a weekly trip to the sea… as the water temperature dropped to 7*C and air to below freezing. Sometimes I had to scrape ice off the car to drive there. Cold water is an even bigger challenge for me than most, as I suffer from poor temperature regulation. While I usually swam with a friend who was fine, I would get so cold I’d have to get her to remove my gloves and boots, and then try not to throw up as my extremities gradually defrosted. All this for 25 mins/week! (The longest I could tolerate) - but it was enough to retain the muscle memory. I had an elite exemption letter from British Triathlon allowing me to drive the 20 minutes to Weymouth - at that point we were not even supposed leave home except to the supermarket or essential medical appointments.
Once Europe came out of winter, the most stressful part was waiting to see how travel rules would unravel. Most of the Xterra Tour was confident to go ahead. The question was whether I could get to any of the races. Things had changed a lot in 6 months – overseas travel was now going to depend on testing and vaccination which weren’t available last year. (And of course the red / amber / green status of other countries, differing quarantine rules and airline rules, which were a minefield to navigate!) It became a race against time to get vaccinated before missing most of the season - and this was infuriatingly outside my control. At least there were some domestic MTB races I could do to get race practise, but I had to watch on with FOMO as the early season Xterra’s got underway.
Travel was also going to be a high-risk activity – how would we plan for that? The worst case scenario would be testing positive abroad, and potentially having to quarantine for 2 weeks unable to get home. That would be almost unviable both with work, but more importantly for my 3-year-old Torben! He would be inconsolable if I was away for that long, and how would Simon manage with work when he can’t take time off? There was also a minefield of different paperwork needed for each trip. Every flight I took denied boarding to several people who had forgotten an essential document or misunderstood the rules.
Fortunately, planning everything to the last detail is one of my forte’s. And although the risks can never be taken away, they can be minimised. I have outlined the lengths we went to below! But to cut to the highlight of this story, I FINALLY managed to get vaccinated and jump through every hoop in time for August, and my first race…
Xterra Portugal 2021.

2nd Place, Xterra Portugal
I can’t put into words the relief and the emotion that I had made it to Golega (travelling for the first time in this new era was pretty daunting). I had got to the start line, surpassed my expectations and finished on the podium… the feeling that FINALLY I had something to show for never giving up on the dream. If I was someone who cried in public I would probably have been in tears for the whole weekend (in a good way)! I felt validation at last that I had made the right decision and somehow justification of my purpose for the last 2 years!
I never thought I would stand on another elite podium in my life - the standard has gone up so much in the 3 years I’ve been away. But bloody hell – I will take it. It wasn’t my best race performance – again it was my first triathlon for almost a year, and I had terrible cramp which I put down to not recovering from the flight (or the 2h passport queue in Lisbon). But after every adversity thrown at me, I felt I earned it.
Once I got used to the covid travel routine (and extra cost of all the tests!!) I managed 5 more races/3 more trips in 2021. I improved with every race but the competition also got tougher! Here are the highlights -
1. Xterra European Championship – Germany. Short track and full distance. 12th Pro.
2. ETU European Championship – Italy. Duathlon and Triathlon. This was a particularly stressful / risky trip due to compulsory testing by the race organisers. The fact I had to drive a hire car which is one of my worst fears! And the need to be in-country for a whole week with the two races. But I was selected for GBR and that was the icing on the cake for my retirement goals, I had to be here! I finished 11th Pro in the Duathlon and 17th in Triathlon.
3. Xterra Greece – this was my first (in 2014) and now last ever race on the European Tour. Finishing 7th Pro finally put me in the top 100 World Rankings – last goal of retirement achieved.
4. ITU World Championship – Spain. I earned selection for GBR but decided not to travel. I felt I couldn’t achieve any more above what I had already, and couldn’t believe I had “got away” with 4 trips abroad and nothing going wrong! I didn’t want to risk any more.
The relief of making it to a country and back again without catching covid or forgetting some essential documentation is almost impossible to imagine in the pre-pandemic era. And also for me personally – now we have Torben I’ve had to do all the travel alone - as it is triple the risk, stress and cost to bring the family. Journeys are longer now we have moved to Dorset, so I can’t just get a lift to the airport like I used to. Instead I have to borrow mum’s car and stay in an airport hotel which adds an extra day to the trip. I guess what I’m saying is travel is way harder than it used to be, and even harder to do it alone. It was great that for my final race in Greece mum came along to support.

My final elite race - Xterra Greece 2021
Here is my overseas travel routine!
Aim: to minimise risk of being stuck abroad in quarantine for 2 weeks and unable to travel home.
Strategies:
1. Spend minimum time in country possible. For Portugal I was able to take the test to fly home on the evening I arrived so I could be as confident as possible I would not get stuck in the country. The Championship trips – Germany and Italy – involved 2 races each so it wasn’t possible to fly in and out within 3 days with all the registration and pre-race requirements. Not to mention practising the course and getting over the fatigue of travel!
2. Take work laptop everywhere! (Just in case of being stuck and having to work remotely)
3. Use self-testing covid tests. It hadn’t occurred to me in advance but in an emergency one could get someone else to take the test and not get stranded.
4. Wear medical grade masks for all travel, also at home for 2 weeks before travel, to minimise risk of infection.
5. Work from home unless absolutely necessary. Most of the time this was government advice anyway, but didn’t always go down well with my previous employer. However, I wasn’t prepared to risk 2 years of investment on catching covid at work! Especially with the lengths we went to at home - sleeping in different bedrooms, eating all our meals outdoors, reading Torben bedtime stories through a mask… (and yes - wondering what the hell am I doing, and will this all be worth it?) But I knew I had to do everything I could, in order to have no regrets.
6. Pay for back row seats on plane (anyone who knows me knows I resent paying for extras like choosing a seat!) But decided it was worth it to halve the number of ‘close contacts’ sitting within 5m (or whatever the rule was) and eliminate anyone from the row behind coughing on me. In fact the best bit about covid travel was that flights were rarely busy, and usually I had a back row to myself.
7. Double and triple check all documents needed. And keep checking as the rules change by the day! Usually I needed – NHS covid pass (proof of vaccination) / Covid test (proof of negative test within 48h of travel) / Passenger locator form for each country visited. For elite racing - doctors certificate declaring I’m covid free (literally pointless) / 12-lead ECG to declare fit-to-race (again – pointless and I had to travel all the way to Southampton to get this test!). On return to UK, a proof of ‘day 2’ test was also needed which had to be posted off to the laboratory.
8. Don’t forget all the usual docs as well! - Passport / flight tickets / car hire docs or train tickets / airport hotel and parking bookings... The logistics for the race itself barely register on the scale of overall stress for the trip!

Crazy amount of documents needed to travel in covid times
The funny thing is with all that to worry about, I never even stressed about the race itself. That was the easy bit (and after all, the fun bit and reason I am even there!) By getting to the start line I had already kind of won. Having the energy / mindset to perform under these conditions was a bonus – and I’ll never know where I got this from looking back!
I remember when all my GBR kit arrived and I felt nervous about wearing it. What if I never make it to the race? I feel like a bit of a fraud. But then my sport psychologist (and wow was he needed this year – thanks Andy) said you’ve earned it. Regardless of whether you get to race or not, you have earned the kit, so bloody wear it!
I wish I could have carried on racing elite forever, but sadly retirement is inevitable for everyone… I am grateful that I was still doing this as a 41-year-old mum, not to mention alongside an almost-full-time job as I was fully self-funded. At least I got to retire sort-of on my own terms, it was just a year later than planned!
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