The Truth About Life in the HYROX Elite 15 | Lucy Procter | Ep 69

0:00Lucy Proctor, welcome. Thank you. How's your morning been? Yeah, it's been good. I've been training. Yeah, nice little session. Yeah, nice brick session. What was that? Just some micro intervals on the bike for about an hour and 20 and then a 4k tempo run. Just a little session then. Yeah, just a small one, a bit scary. For the people that may not know who you are, obviously, High Rocks Elite 15 athlete, but would you be able to introduce yourself? Yeah, so I guess I've been in the Elite 15 for, it's going to be my third season. Hyrox is my main sport. My main sponsors are Puma and Red Bull. Yeah, other things I like doing, scuba diving.

0:45Also very interested in psychology at the moment. I'm recently diagnosed with autism and ADHD. So those are two things that I am really keen to like share more awareness about. um and i'm learning to manage myself as an athlete um so yeah we'll we'll get into that how old are you i'm 22 22 so still very very young basically just starting out your career even though you're almost like a i'd say that you're you're one of the ogs in high rocks now like three years a long time that's a big compliment but you know i mean like you've been around in elite 15 like there's i feel like because the standard's getting better and better you look at that elite 15 field now and there's probably only five girls would you say that have been there for three or more years yeah I mean it's ever changing like I think this season we're going to see it change even more as well and obviously now you've got this challenger division um there will be like more athletes I guess in that top field but yeah I mean there's not many that have been there I mean there are athletes that have been there a lot longer than I have but um yeah I mean it's crazy that this is now going to be my third elite season yeah um where did it all start did it start doing high rocks what did you do before that in terms of fitness how did you find your love for sport so I was just a runner before um before I did high rocks I sort of dabbled in like various gym classes really enjoy just like jumping into anything that was just like challenging I just liked pushing myself um and yeah before that I wasn't actually really sporty i guess like sports have always been there in my life um but i spent a period of time in my teens where i was quite overweight not interested in doing anything remotely active every excuse in the book to miss pe um and then yeah one day i just like i wanted to go for a run um and yeah i guess it kind of went from there i realized how bad i was and how unfit i was and i wanted to change that so yeah i did what was that first run like terrible do you remember any kind of like times or anything i think i must have taken like over 10 minutes to do a mile flat out and i was just like i thought i was gonna be sick i was just like i remember the taste of blood in my mouth keeled over thinking i just like this is terrible so what what made you go back i just didn't want to be bad at it anymore i think i was just i'd come last in my school's cross-country race um in my first year and i just found that so embarrassing and i just didn't want that to happen to me again um and so I guess I took it quite a long way I broke the record in my last year and I won um so yeah I suppose I did a bit of 180.

3:18That's really interesting because like you say you're almost like running from fear at the start to then winning what what drives you today is it the the fear of losing or the wanting to win? I think I'm trying to make it precisely not the fear of failure um because every time I get scared of like failing a session or a race I just don't even bother starting uh so if I can remove that fear and like teach myself that failure isn't really like a thing it's just either the session's going to go really really well or it's gonna just be a bit meh uh but you know as long as I give it a go and just get the session done or the race that's what matters um but yeah obviously I want to win but I just want to get the most out of myself yeah the famous quote you either win or you learn yeah exactly and uh yeah I feel like you can take a lot more learnings away from your failures in life um but yeah so how did harrots come around um someone just asked me if I knew what it was in the gym one day uh they said that you know you're a pretty good runner and you know you you're strong enough i think you'd probably enjoy this what year was this 20 22 um so yeah and i just had a little look and i was like yeah that looks fun that is challenging um you know i was i was good at running but i wasn't anything special like there were girls running way faster than me i think i finished just in the top 50 at nationals when i was about 18 um so you know not bad but i wasn't like breaking any records or winning anything um and yeah i did that first race in glasgow um so glasgow 2023 yeah open or pro open uh i was just like i was terrified was it solos yeah um and i think i ran a 106 high like just sub 107 but bearing in mind uh women's open at that point had 75 not 100 wobbles um so that's now i think they've adjusted these times and it was like a 108 something.

5:22Awful movement standards, no depth on the wall. Burpees, terrible, sled pull technique, non-existent. I still like look back at these videos and like have a laugh, also like remind myself that like that was a starting point. But I just, I loved it. And there was one thing that I did actually nair in that race and that was my pacing. All of my runs, just like immaculate. So yeah, I just, I wanted to come back and just like do better. I think I also qualified for worlds in that race. Um, and so that was kind of the goal from there. Yeah. And world champs that year was Manchester. Yeah. Okay. So did you go and race?

5:59I did. Yeah. And I was so excited. Did you put in a big block of training before that? Uh, I think I put in a big block of training for like what that meant to me at the time. Um, and I was actually convinced that I could win. Like I was, I wanted to go there and win and I had just no idea what the scale of competition was going to be like um and just like i yeah you know i i got it handed to me um but then was it it was world champs was pro right yeah exactly the same as it is now where it was pro weights was that your first pro race yeah yeah and i severely underestimated it it's so funny um i think i was first the skier first out the skier obviously that never happens anymore um first the sled push went to push the sled it didn't move yeah manchester i don't know why as well it always feels like a heavy course yeah i think so i've raced it i think only once since then and i think it was doubles with charlie um but yeah i mean even then we we felt like we could have got more out of ourselves yeah yeah no so uh where did you place in that did you place i think i came eighth eventually oh it's incredible so so for your age group which i assumed under 24s yeah um yeah there's there's only one it's under 24 16 to 24 is that right yeah yeah sorry i didn't know whether there was one was 16 to 20 no no i think it's just yeah i'm not sure if yeah i'm not sure if they were thinking about changing that or if it ever did or for doubles or something but i think it is just i mean it's definitely still just under 24 yeah so eighth in the world for your age group pretty good right yeah but i was just so frustrated i was like i wanted to win i thought i could win so what happened after that um i decided that i wanted to focus fully on pro i was like i'm never going to race an open again that's not true i did race another open um but i then decided to train really hard and look at opening my next season with a pro race um the following september and i think that was malo in sweden um and i went and did that i was again convinced that i could get like a sub 65 i was like i was really going for it and i was you know i was just ready to do that i'd written all my splits out on the plane over um and i was i was just convinced i was gonna go and execute that i ran an extra lap um and then i ended up I think coming home in about an hour and 13 something like that yeah so even if you'd not run an extra lap you still wouldn't have made the time that you you've gone out to do no what was training looking like back then I think quite all over the place I think my running volume was really low um really like really low um with respect to like what I was doing before what we're talking maybe 30k a week um bearing in mind that when I was just running I was doing like roughly 80 and that's probably similar to what I'm doing now.

8:56Lots of strength training. I think I was obviously convinced that I needed to get stronger, which is true for the stations. But as a result, my running just like really, really fell off. Yeah, no, interesting. So after that, what made you not just like give up because like you say, you set off a goal, you didn't achieve it. Like what made you keep going? I think the same thing as like the running. Originally, it was just like, I just didn't want to be bad. I was just on a mission to find like my ceiling and obviously I still haven't found it so three years later and then when was the breakthrough for you when did you feel like oh like I'm really really good at this and then when did you break into the 15?

9:40I think the breakthrough was winning my age group at Nice the following world championship and having not won in Manchester um I was like okay we're gonna take a year and next year I'm gonna do it and obviously my season didn't get off to the start that I was expecting or hoping for um but I think I'm not sure I then raced again or I raced I think I raced once more in Amsterdam and actually no I did then I raced December again and I was chipping away I think I went like a 70 and then like a 68 and I was really happy to break the 17 minute barrier um and but I knew that I had to keep getting faster and then I think I raced in Poland in around February and at that point that was my first ever pro overall win and it was still like a 66 high I think um but I think it was at that point where I was like okay looking around at like the rest of the world I think I'm in a good position to take the age group world champs win this year um and at that point i quit my job and i was aware i was doing some marketing um and yeah it was like marketing for a company but within like the fitness industry but my boss at the time basically they knew that i wanted to be a professional athlete and they could see that and how much time i pulled into my training and i would just be exhausted at the desk because i just like i wanted to train and they knew that uh and they said to me at the time if you really want to make it as a pro athlete you need to quit now like you need to go and pursue it right now because you know the time's ticking on and you have to put everything into it it's good that they said that right yeah i mean these guys had been quite high level rugby players i think um and they kind of they'd seen it and they they knew they knew what i didn't know uh so i did i took their advice and i quit and i was scared but obviously excited but i essentially had three months at that point uh until worlds and i was like okay i've got three months i'm gonna train like a professional athlete live like a professional athlete see what happens at worlds and if i think this lifestyle is good for me and i win then you know maybe i'll be able to carry on doing this uh and i did and i won that's it that's some story yeah what time did you get i think it was a 64 uh mid high something like that yeah so getting gradually quicker and quicker and quicker yeah nice was tough i think everyone complained about that it was you know it was hot and it was supposedly slow but obviously i didn't care we're racing each other for like to race yeah do you prefer racing over like time traveling yeah yeah i like i love racing um because then i think there's just less expectations you just turn like you know you turn up on the day with fitness and tactics and whatever mental game you've got and everyone else does the same and you know you're just it's just the best person on the day isn't it yeah no I love that and um yeah so when when did the call up to the elite 15 come in your inbox um so obviously then we go on to the following season um at this point it's like 2024 to 2025 season and I was still not there in terms of times and at this point it was still the average of your two fastest qualification um and I opened my season in Poznan I think with a 63 high took the over win and I was then I still needed one more time missed the first major by quite a long way missed the second one which was Hong Kong by like a whisker and I was so upset but I was like okay the next one I'm gonna get in and the next one was Vegas uh and December 2024 I ran a 61 I think 30 something in Marseille to take the win and qualify me for the elite 15 and I think I jumped from like I guess 20th or so in the rankings to like I think top 10 and so I knew I was likely going to be in um so then yeah debuted in Vegas in the start of 2025.

13:48What uh what did that feel like on that start line because it's completely different to any other race you've ever done i remember talking to you because you debuted in amsterdam yeah exactly earlier that year yeah i remember the day before the race talking to you and you telling me that it was just like i had nothing to lose because it was my first major um and i should just go out there and enjoy it and i mean i did and i was just happy to be there and like get myself in that race um and obviously i had one clear goal which was to qualify for worlds that race and i did it straight in yeah right off the bat i know and it was unexpected as well because like obviously i raced it quite tactically i came out the ski like last i think um and i just kind of worked my way through that race it was a tough one vegas was like obviously dusty and like dry conditions um but i just managed to like fight through it i mean i felt awful i think we all did um i'm not too sure why it felt so bad but yeah like there were multiple dnfs and things as well yeah i know it's i always want to say like oh it's maybe potentially obviously it's dry desert climate but uh it's a little bit higher as well it's not at sea level but it's like 500 meters it's not enough to like have an impact but like i felt like it did yeah i felt that and i think like we all did but obviously like you're just racing who's there on the day but i think if you can prepare yourself for like those situations uh and like at least even if you're not adapted to it if you know what it feels like and you can be less stressed when it does happen because obviously if you suddenly start running at altitude and you feel like you know you feel like the thin air it's either in I guess in my case it can make me panic uh and I think oh you know why do I feel so bad this is awful like I'm not fit or uh you know this feels bad I don't think I can do this and then that will in turn like deteriorate your race um so I feel like if you can prepare yourself for it maybe feeling not brilliant then even if everyone feels that way because you know some people might be altitude or heat adapted or whatever and some might not you can at least put yourself in a better position was vegas the first race in the red bull hat i think so yeah yeah it was yeah yeah yeah no i was just thinking back because i think it was was it just before december or january i i signed in january you signed in January, this was late January.

16:10Yeah, because then we went out to Salzburg to do the winter summit. Yeah, yeah, no, no, I just remember that. And then after Vegas, obviously you qualified for world champs. Do you then race again for world champs? Yeah, Glasgow. Yeah, race Glasgow because that was another major. Obviously didn't need to do last chance qualifier. No, I was so glad about that. Yeah, so that gives you like some time to train for world champs, right? uh yeah i've got a good block in um i think i went out to club of santa for maybe a month or so yeah um and that for sure helped chicago also ended up being fairly hot um but also i just focused so well there um so that was perfect and yeah i just i got to chicago kind of as ready as i could be um i feel like every time i build one of these massive races in the last i don't know maybe two weeks or so I have so many like mini breakdowns over like I'm not gonna be ready like everything feels awful I guess it's like the same thing as like marinoa for marathon runners but in our case I don't know what you'd really call it but anyway and I just have multiple days where I'm like I'm gonna quit I'm gonna pull out I can't do this and I feel like it's at that point where I've reached the most readiness that you're gonna get out of me yeah is that every race it depends I I think it's been like more frequent recently and I'm something I'm really trying to work on because obviously it's not exactly helpful when you're like leading up to a race and mentally trying to not check out every single training session.

17:43Have you spoke to any kind of like sports psychologist on this? Yeah, I have an amazing sports psych. Her name's Josie and yeah, we speak most weeks. Tom and I have recognized that the weeks I don't speak to her, things are much worse. So yeah, she's really helping me like get the most out of my brain and change my mindset around these things. and what are the kind of things that she discusses with you that uh that actually helps you so uh joe specializes in neurodivergent people which is great because obviously that's me um and yeah it's just really about working with my brain and how that can kind of like work especially on days where i'm more tired a lot of my symptoms will pop up a lot more um a lot more aggressively on those days um just things like anxiety around sessions that shouldn't really be there like even this morning that brick session was quite scary to me and it's just learning that again I am not gonna fail the session the only failure will be if I don't actually do the session um but these things can be a lot more scary than like on some days and others basically um and it's learning how on those days where they're a lot more scary and I can much more easily talk myself out of it or I'm having what I like to call a freeze day which is where I genuinely feel like frozen in place and can't start how I can like start a session on those days yeah are there any kind of like simple cues that she's giving you help other people because I know a lot of people struggle with that you know uh I feel like everything's kind of like a scale and they might have you know super mild symptoms they might not feel exactly the same way as how you feel towards the session but like they might feel you know sometimes I feel anxious for sessions and I you know i'm like i'm dreading it or like i'm nervous for it because you know my coach set me paces normally it's anything with kind of like pacing yeah yeah it's normally my session days uh whether it's at the track or whatever and i'm just like wake up a little bit tired a little bit fatigued and you're like oh am i going to be able to hit these paces because at the end of the day i want to do my coach proud i want to do you know i want to be able to go home and show him that i've done it um yeah yeah i get that exactly i feel exactly the same way i had the session yesterday in it was two times 20 minutes on the bike 190 watts and that's not far off my FTP and I was so scared um but I find that for me it helps for like when I know I've got one of these sessions coming up that I think because I can kind of predict the sessions that I might feel like this on or especially if I'm maybe tired today and I don't think that's going to improve by tomorrow then it's likely that tomorrow I might feel like that regards what the session is it could even be an easy run um like my mind will do things where it's like oh I don't feel like it's safe to go outside because like there are going to be too many people and I can't deal with the overstimulation from that and it will like that's so untrue like it's fine I can put my headphones in put a hat on and sunglasses and go and that's a good thing to do as well you feel like you can like hide behind this and the sunglasses but obviously it's really unhelpful when your brain's telling you that like it's not safe to go for a run when that's just like obviously a ridiculous figment of my mind do you think that's uh obviously being london-based it's a busy area like i'm not gonna lie going for an easy run like there's probably it's it's harder in london it definitely is than than where i'm from where like you go out on a run and you probably see a couple of cars and you know three other people out on the road walking the dog in the morning saying good morning to you like uh i feel like everyone's in a rush everyone's busy you know you you don't know who's about yeah there's different people all the time it's not like you're bumping into the same people every day whereas like where i'm from like it is hiya kevin yeah good morning yeah it's funny you say that because we're trying to move out of london for that reason it's just like it's not a good environment for me um and i think that's actually one of the biggest things that's like hurting my like training kind of success and consistency because when i go out of london to club of santa or even to my parents house uh and i just have like country lanes i can run on um or like a treadmill in the garage my life is so much easier and my sessions just get done and there's none of this like mental barrier so I think that as a tip is great as well find a safe space for training and I'm lucky that the gyms that I have to train in London are fairly easily accessible from home and also feel like a real safe space to me I feel like if you know that you are going to feel safe and that you're kind of uninterrupted and you know the gym and you know the people there and you can predict most of these things that will help the situation of being like nervous at doing a session um for me it's actually just getting there like i know that i have to get on the lones underground and for me that is like my i hate i hate the tube um it's just loud there's too many people the list goes on um but taking all these things out of the equation as much as possible removing that barrier to starting the session whether that's just like okay i am too anxious to go to the track today um you know i've got a time crunch and it's just going to be a lot more relaxing and uh simple for my brain to do an easy run then i'm lucky enough to like be able to just speak to reese and he can just be like okay that's fine do your easy run today i'll move the rest of your week around now like now it's easier for you to do mentally so i think for me like removing those barriers is really really helpful making sure the safe feel that the space feels safe again second thing um and I guess like planning as well like having these backup plans and Josie and I talk a lot of the time about these like what ifs so like if this then this so if I'm too tired to do this track session then I can do an easy run if I have a two hour time crunch and I don't think I'll be able to get my session done in that time then this part of the session can be cut off things like that does that like really stress you out as well because um i was in one of them situations again yesterday where i was really short on time and i had to get like sessions done and you know like say like a an hour or 45 minutes or whatever um and it's very very like time restricted yeah what goes through your head if you've got a restriction i get so stressed I think it's so stressed I had this uh I think it was yesterday as well and I actually had like three hours in which to do a two-hour session but yeah I even that like I felt a hangover of me but I actually I had it even worse day before I booked myself um like a single person gym um there's one right around the corner from my flat and I had a time crunch and I was really really tired and that was the best thing i could do but the problem with that is that you've booked yourself and it's expensive this slot for like an hour or 90 minutes and you literally have to get out like there is such a hard deadline and i knew that it was going to be like to the wire for doing this session and it just made me so anxious that i couldn't do anything um so you just didn't do the session i i did a few things and i got so anxious and overwhelmed i had to leave um and it's like at that point you might as well just like have not spent the money in the first place to go there I should have realized that I like in even thinking about spending that much to go to a gym around the corner possibly like I was just too tired to train full stop and I was trying to force something that I just should have rested um but I guess that's another thing that like I've been learning so much over the summer as well I would say that out of what's on my program I'm probably doing like 75 % of it week to week.

25:18And the other 25 % is not necessarily key sessions. Like I will try to never cut out a key session. Um, but those are like maybe easy runs or like an easy bike or even like the last strength session of the week where I'm really exhausted. And I just feel like for some reason I shouldn't be doing it. Um, and I haven't, and I've really tried to listen to that over the summer. Cause I know that there will be points in the year where like i can't necessarily listen to that as much and i ran that half marathon pb a couple of weeks ago out of nowhere i had no idea so that was a big half yeah what time did you get uh an hour 20 53 seconds incredible incredible um but i had no idea that i could go that quick like really genuinely when i lined up that day i was like this could be anywhere from like an 80 to an hour and 40 and i don't i have no clue um but there was also no pressure on it and i do really well when there's no pressure um so i was like well i'm just gonna send it at this pace and just see how long i can hold on for yeah it is interesting sometimes i get into that mindset of uh with running running races especially because it's not my sport yeah yeah that's exactly it then even if you don't get the time that you want you just go ah well it's not my sport yeah whereas high rocks you have no excuse yeah you train for it specifically uh and that's it if someone beats sure on in that running race well they're a runner yeah i'm not a runner i'm a hyrox if you beat them you're like haha i'm a hyrox so you're a runner and i beat you whatever it is it's just there's no pressure so you kind of do find it a little bit more fun but like it's good that we can incorporate that within our training because like you say running is six percent of yeah exactly hyrox ratio you can have some runs in every now and again and yeah i love a running race i mean obviously it's back to my roots but as you said there's just no pressure it's like okay great this is where this like specific you know half marathon or 10k or whatever is you're racing there's something simple about it as well yeah exactly it's like okay this is where that stat is right now like okay i can run an 80 minute half marathon great like maybe that's probably my high rock space as well so it's a great indicator and for me i was actually also using it to try and find out what my true threshold is at the moment because obviously okay it's a bit more than an hour but i did start falling off a little bit after the hour mark um but my pace up to then was 345 per k so i was like okay great well that's gonna be my threshold for now on no new lt2 pace but uh as well with like a running race whether it's 10k half marathon there's so it's such a different mentality from a high rocks i feel from a high rocks you're kind of in the pain cave from the first kind of like as soon as you get to the ski or to the sled push especially like if it's not hit you by the ski sled push you're you're normally feeling yeah like burning it's tough it's a grind redlining whereas like a run that's like 10k or longer for the first 5k or the first half of the race yeah you're meant to feel good yeah and if you're not feeling good then you're probably not going to get your time yeah but you're meant to feel good and then obviously that last bit is a big push but it's kind of like a gradual yeah i really enjoyed that kind of like and you kind of just lock in but also like the community of it i feel like you don't unless you're obviously doing doubles but that's kind of different in a high rock space you're not talking to the people around you and yet like i was on this big half course and there was this group of guys behind me and i wasn't running with anyone and i was like i needed to find a group basically and i was like oh what time are you guys going for and it was hilarious because they were like oh like uh 78 and at this point i'm aiming for a 120 these guys are like with me and they're we've started at the same time and they're going for 78 and i'm thinking i've massively overkicked this and they did end up like pushing on from me um towards the end but um yeah like jumped in with them and like you just wouldn't do that in a in high rocks where everyone's like helping each other out and obviously everyone's just there to like get the best time out of themselves and i get that that's the point of high rocks too but especially when we compete at this level like you are racing people head to head for like qualifications and prize money etc so obviously you're not going to just talk to each other and help each other to run a fast time even though you're kind of i guess indirectly doing that in a competitive race um and i just really like that about like the make half as well it was just a lot of fun going back to your training you mentioned that you normally do probably around 75 percent in this like period of your life um would you not say your whoever's programming your training should then reduce the following week to kind of like match that or do you like having if you if you're feeling really really good you can do extra and and what's the kind of hours looking like um so i guess like i'll start with hours at the moment and looking like around 20 a week um and is that 20 that you're doing so say for example 20 you're doing you're doing 75 it might be 25 programmed yeah roughly i would say i'm i'm i'm i'm actually doing 20 um and some weeks i'm doing that like more like close to 100 of my program um i guess like these things adapt around like how tired i my cycle as well um and i guess if i'm close to a race but then that would be tapered by my coach anyway um but yeah i don't mind having like more set than i can do because obviously if i complete the whole week and it's perfect excellent obviously i think if like i completed a full week and then the next week i was so exhausted that i maybe only did 50 percent then we would probably look at reducing that overall because you can't just yo-yo between perfect and like pretty rubbish um so i guess finding that medium of like it's okay as long as i've done all of the key sessions most of what's around it and then let's have a look at what hasn't been done this week and like why um and can that be done next week yeah no i just find it really really interesting and say for example you're training 20 hours that's a lot that's a lot of hours training is it split up into two sessions a day three sessions a day like what we're talking depends where i am if i'm a club of santa i'll split it up as much as i can um but obviously that's not really possible here so generally two sessions a day um i try and front load my day quite a lot um and get most of the work done in the morning um and then hopefully the afternoon would just be like kind of an hour maybe an hour and a half um depending on what the day is maybe easy aerobic maybe strength maybe a combination but whatever the most mentally tough thing to do is i will always do it first and generally that's running yeah that's a good tactic to be fair um i don't know about you but uh i really struggle switching off until all my sessions are boxed off in a day yeah so if i've got a session and like say for example today i've got a session that i've got to do later on i'm not switching off until i'm not relaxing until that session is done like all that's on my mind is how i'm going to attack that session when am i going to fit it in and but again that's our job i feel like whoever if you have a passion for another job like that's exactly how you feel about that yeah i'm exactly the same like as soon as i've finished my first session it's like right like where are my food timings where am i going for my second session what's it going to be how am i going to fit it in what time am i going to be done by what am i having for dinner like there are just all of these things that i'm just constantly trying to like micromanage until i just like have ticked them all off and switch off do you plan ahead a lot um i do and i don't obviously like the training plan is like kind of there and i guess that sets the framework of my week is that planned like week on week um yeah so i usually get like the full week ahead on like a sunday um sometimes i'll have like two weeks ahead and obviously if i have anything specific in the calendar that's like for example this weekend we've got a wedding um i will try and let my coach know as soon as possible when i get those things in the calendar even if it's months in advance so we can be like okay this week needs to be fairly front-loaded the weekend needs to be fairly easy um and i'm gonna have like this amount of time to do this session yeah um so then it helps me as well because i feel like i for example on saturday we've got this wedding we'll probably have like three hours to train in the morning but that will be the only time I've got so I need to get as much done as possible in those three hours and I think that's going to look like my long run and then as much of an easy bike session as I can do before I run out of time basically um but at least I know that I'm not compromising anything in my week because I know that Sunday is my active recovery and that would just be like an easy hour if I think it's rowing on my program um but then the other five days this week all the hard work and key sessions will be done well so a typical week looking like a training because like you said you mentioned the hours there uh i know that you've had kind of like multiple coaches in the in the past now you're being coached by two people yeah anthony pericini yeah and reese bartley for your kind of like endurance so for kind of like high rock specific technique work strength and stuff like that it's Anthony and then Reese is your endurance yeah um huge fan of them both I know they know them stuff but uh what's a typical week looking like yeah so it's changed quite a lot recently and we're still trying to figure out how this kind of looks to fit all these things together it's very early on um so I'm definitely doing a lot more I guess endurance stuff than I used to although my running volume stayed the same um but there's actually less intensity there um I'd say there's more intensity on the bike but it's a lot more intentional so like this morning with that brick session I wouldn't like I would not program that for myself I wouldn't know I wouldn't know to program that for myself and I wouldn't know like what yeah I wouldn't I wouldn't think to program that for what it's achieving um but obviously now I see that program from given from Reese I know what that's doing but I just wouldn't necessarily give it to myself um I think in terms of strength that's actually reduced quite a lot kind of as my high rocks career develops I guess what I now realize is that the way the sport's going most of us are actually strong enough to do the stations like they're not that heavy uh okay the sleds are heavy but once you know what that feels like it's actually more technique and efficiency um you know six kilo will once you get to 100 unbroken apart from improving your cycle rate like you can only do 100 reps so quickly um and i feel like once you've kind of reached the cap for all of these things or at least like there or thereabouts there's such minimal gains to be made in your stations that like the people that are doing really well in the sport at the moment are the ones running really quickly um and obviously if you're running 10 seconds quicker than all your competitors you're making up like nearly two minutes in the whole race and that's really the gap that I'm trying to close at the moment um so yeah just being much more intentional about my aerobic work and developing my running um I guess those are like my goals at the moment which is crazy because I used to be people would say I was one of the strongest runners in the field and I would say that's just like not true anymore so trying to get back there yeah the level has gotten to end I was going to ask you about that like what's your opinion on uh the girls that are coming in especially on the girl side they these incredible runners coming in and you know doing really well in the top level like how how do you feel about that is it kind of like change your thoughts around training yeah i think so i think like the main thing is a rising tide lifts all boats so with people coming in that are faster everyone will just get faster which is good for me because that means i get faster um but it's also like scary because it means a i have to race these girls and they're really fast b it's harder for me to finish higher in the field because obviously there are people that can just come in and start running 57s and i'm like not even sub 59 yet for a pb hopefully soon um but also it does just make you change and develop your training like obviously i've brought reese onto my team um to help with the endurance side so that i can hopefully compete with these girls that are running these really fast times.

37:12Um, and obviously it's exciting cause I get to learn new things, do new types of training, uh, and hopefully get faster. Um, but also, I guess the other thing that I keep trying to remember is that I've got like loads of time. Um, I'm 22 and I'm really far off my peak. Um, and yeah, I guess when I look at my trajectory, that's what's the most exciting thing. Um, rather than where I am right now and like what might or might not happen this season I mean like any year's time I'll be 23 great and I've still got like multiple more years to go until I reach probably hopefully my peak so I guess it's just like longevity at the moment and seeing what I can do at this stage um but it's just about making sure that when I get to like my later 20s where hopefully I'll be peaking a bit more that that's kind of I'm ready to do then and not trying to force it now and that's really exciting you mentioned that you was working on your running what is your running looking like in particular are you doing one speed session a week two speed sessions three speed sessions um so i think it's three at the moment three one is like a brick session so that's like this morning so it's actually only like a 4k tempo within yeah an easy well it's yeah it's a tempo run so it's got warm up and cool down either side off the bike which was a semi hard session uh but the actual like hard volume was just 4k straight tempo um one of them's like a true threshold session so i think this week that is three by 10 minutes um off two um and then i think the final one which we've actually shifted to monday because of the weekend's events um is more of like a specific running into stations at threshold type thing interesting so you're you're hitting kind of like all bases there uh do you spend much time running like faster than your high rock space um i do strides on all my easy runs um what would that look like like so say you do an easy run i don't know how long you do but would you do it before or after how many strides how long um it would either be after or somewhere in the run probably um so i also sometimes do strides before my threshold efforts um as part of my warm-up um but for my easy runs it will just be say I've done a 12k easy run it will probably just be six 100 or so meter strides at the end they might be like in the middle of the run um and I have also in the past done it where you do like one stride at the top of each kilometer in the middle of the run um and I quite enjoy that as well so yeah I guess that's like my kind of turnover above race pace I suspect that some of my sessions will move on and progress to efforts that are above race pace um i did a bit of a run of like fartlek sessions into world champs and i found that really really helpful um the progression there was kind of i think we started at two minutes on and four minutes off and the two minutes was i think roughly 15 seconds faster per k than race pace and the off was like easy but not like a shuffle just like a comfortable easy pace the pace i would go like a float sorry more like a float like a i wouldn't call it a float i would say like it's it's the pace that i would go out for an easy run out okay so it's about five minutes per day yeah um but the on was like 3 30 and i think that got quicker as well um so yeah and then we progressed it so it was like two minutes and 15 on and four off and then two minutes and 30 on and four off um and i think the eventually i reached three on four off um and I would do that like six to eight times um but I found that really really helpful um I'm just not doing that sort of work at the moment but I have no doubt that it will probably come back at some point in some form no that's really interesting I don't see many people kind of doing that um that kind of fartlek stuff um maybe kind of like in the longer runs and stuff like that would you class that as like your long run day how long would you actually do that for as well what the fartlek session yeah that was just like a session so but like say for example you're doing two minute intervals with four minutes rest or whatever it is how many how many lots of two minutes would you do so six to eight six to eight yeah and then i'd have like a walk outside and that was working out to like 14 to 16k total i think as a run yeah um but i wouldn't call that as an easy run that was just like a session day you still have a long run in your week uh i do yeah not i don't think every week but i think most weeks now i think reese is programming that um fairly regularly um so yeah it was 18 last week um and yeah that tends to be one of my weekend sessions yeah there seems to be uh some controversy around a long run within a high rocks do we need it do we not we need it do we not uh i still do a long run yeah i think most people do um i can see the argument for why we don't need it yeah um but i guess it's just like person to person whether that's helpful for you and whether it works for you i guess a lot of us have had the long run in our training for like years so I guess if it's not broken why fix it for me as well like it's kind of fun like it's a nice way to finish the week yeah you know on a Sunday or whatever whenever day you do it I do it on a Sunday and uh getting out with a couple of people and you know adding in a couple of fast efforts in there like I kind of love it it's really kind of yeah it's cool yeah it's a nice social I uh was at my dad's house last weekend and I don't often get to go out and run on like nice countryside trails my stepmom gave me this route um and it was like mostly trails some of which was just straight through a field and I loved it it was great um I don't get to see it very often and I had a great time yeah how often do you do stuff like that where you'll say for example go for your easy runs and do it on trails or do it on different terrain and stuff like that obviously living in London I don't know if you can do it that much but uh like do you prefer doing kind of stuff like that because I know a lot of people including myself really if I'm scared to do a trail run because i just don't want it to obviously it's different loads on different joints and different muscles and you can never really kind of like track it well you can track it but it's not as trackable yeah it's just an easy run no i mean i love it to bits but i also i'm scared of hurting myself i did a trail race back in the like the end of last year uh and i i did great i won um i broke the course record but i but i got injured so it wasn't really worth a squeeze um but yeah it was a it was tom's family's local race um and it's i have done it the last couple of years it's great fun um but yeah i uh i hurt my achilles and i ended up with achilles tendonitis for like a month i'm not sure if this was like a pre-existing thing that i then flared up by doing the trail race or if i did just aggravate that tendon so much because it was so undulating and it was 10 miles long um and it's really just like it is really underlating but I loved the race um I don't think it was worth getting injured obviously because I then spent like a good month rehabbing that and then another probably two months getting back to fitness probably more actually but in terms of training I would probably go and do runs like in nature as much as I possibly can um I am always trying to get out of London like I said we're trying to move out um but it doesn't necessarily have to be on a trail even if I can run on roads in the countryside great the air is so much fresher and it's just nicer it's peaceful I actually would do these runs with no headphones in just so that I could just like listen to the birds and not like sirens and cars so yeah I enjoy it I think obviously going out on really rocky trails that have a risk of like hurting you probably would do it much less um but I mean I love it so it's just kind of a trade-off there are there any other kind of things that you're incorporating in and around training so it might not be training in particular it might be other like things you might be giving away secrets here do you know what I'm I'm so bad at doing like all the extra one percents like I'm really I'm trying to kind of find these things to get into it more the one thing that tom has been really trying to get me to do is breath work um and i find that really really helpful for managing like especially my anxiety um and days where maybe just the thoughts in my head around things that are like completely unrelated to training but they're just loud um just doing some breathing or if i'm trying to go to sleep and i've got racing thoughts um doing that too putting on a headspace um and doing some breath work is like really helpful for me so that's something that I'm really trying to do more and Tom makes me do and I'm really appreciative of that um so yeah I find that helpful especially for like those racing thoughts do you do anything like a sauna ice bath cold plunges like uh any of that stuff I know you know people are doing hyperbaric chambers they're doing altitude they're doing everything like is there any event kind of like one percenters I don't do any of these things like actively at the moment there's a lot of them that I'm kind of like either trying to get into thinking about getting into or know that I should but like don't have the facility or don't have the time um so yeah I guess like these are all things that I if I really want to like reach like the next next level I need to start doing because you know someone will be doing them but there's nothing that you're doing now but I'm not no I'm not really doing anything now that's good though because it's again it's another thing that you can level up with yeah exactly yeah do you sleep much yeah i like again that's another thing we've really noticed the second my sleep goes in the bin everything like my anxiety is worse my adhd and autism symptoms are worse my hunger levels are so out of control um that my diet ends up like the quality reduces and then i feel worse so it's just like this whole vicious cycle um and i honestly think it's the most underrated like recovery tool um how many hours of sleep are you getting uh i'm trying to get eight last night i got eight and a half which is great i was still tired so you know it's uh but i really find that if i see like less than eight or even less than seven hours i everything just starts going on this downward spiral so i think yeah nailing sleep is like the most basic thing that you can do yeah i completely agree um now that's that's really really interesting what's uh what's on the horizon next obviously we're starting um a new high rock season yeah it's uh you know it's coming in quickly i um this summer's gone so quickly and i was really hoping to like kind of have a nice off season and feel really ready to go like soon and like the truth is i'm not i don't really feel ready to go i know i'm fit and that's really clear like i'm training really well obviously i keep trying to convince myself that you can fluke an 80 minute half marathon you can't I did actually do that um and you know it's it's clear that there is fitness there but um I just like mentally around racing it's it's been a long summer of like after my diagnosis trying to manage these things trying to learn how to work with myself trying to adapt my training um trying to get into a consistent routine with these things and there's just been a lot of moving parts that have been fairly disruptive to like the grand plan of everything going really smoothly that I had.

48:43Um, so yeah, I need to start my season and that's kind of like what's on the horizon. Um, and I need to like schedule some races. Um, I want to race London. I won't be racing Hamburg. Um, mainly for the reason that a, I think it's quite early in the season, the season's long. Um, and I don't want to burn out towards the end of the year, which I think you see a fair bit um and has definitely happened to me before I'm keen to avoid that um but also from what happened to me last year in Hamburg it hasn't got the best memories and I don't really want to have to go through uh what is genuinely like a bit of PTSD because I still have flashbacks from like that incident um and yeah I just don't want to put myself through that I don't think it's worth it so I want to be ready for London and I want to line up on the elite start line there um obviously to do that I'm gonna need some points would we be okay just touching on what happened back in Hamburg just for people that don't know um so I raced the race um I was at the end of my cycle and I think I was like right about to get my period um and my body was just like not in a position to push I was I felt really really sluggish really inflamed um I just I think I knew in the back of my mind that it was a bad idea to race and I kept saying I'm not racing I'm not racing and everyone was like oh what are you talking about you'll be fine and obviously I just lined up and ignored the voices and just was like oh it must just be nerves it's my season opener whatever I felt so bad during that race and I don't know how I pushed through but I did and I still came seventh um and then after that race very very soon after I finished I got this like crampy pain kind of here um and I thought it was just that like you know I'd exerted myself I was maybe hungry or something just had a stitch I don't know went for a cool down with a friend and it just like the pain got worse and I ended up basically in the elite lounge on this like sofa just flat like kind of like not quite screaming in pain but really just like I need help here ambulance came to get me took me to hospital um the pain just got like it was a crazy level I felt like I was going to explode literally um was given all kinds of painkillers nothing was helping um and I just basically spent nights screaming this hospital in Hamburg down um we still don't know exactly what happened um the kind of main theory is that it was a twisted intestine uh or maybe blocked but um yeah something was really bad and it was i think i probably the worst night of my life it was just so painful um and then just like that it just stopped um so yeah weird did it stop like the diatha um it stopped at some point in the night my memory my memory's a bit blurry um but yeah just at some point i remember a nurse asking me if i needed more painkillers and at this point i was like screaming so obviously um and she gave me like another dose of the painkillers um and it just stopped i don't know if it was a different thing that they gave me or they were trying something new um but i was having a ct scan as well at the time um and then after that ct scan it just kind of like stopped and just didn't come back really weird wow wow i'm not surprised you don't want to go back yeah so i don't want to go back um so london will be yeah london uh and will that be the opener no i have i've got a race um obviously new qualification system right so what does that leave you you've got a competing five races and it's the five times that make up your ranking yeah so i've i've currently got five results but hamburg's coming off last year obviously soon and i also had a win in paris last october which is coming off so i need two races because my other points the from results from last season are like under 100 and that's just not going to cut so where are you currently ranked at the moment i think i'm 12th although that might have changed after the last couple weekends because i haven't been checking that closely but last time i checked i was 12th but um i will definitely be out of the top 15 once i lose um the results from hamburg and paris so i need two races before london um so i'm gonna have to like pull my finger out and line up soon yeah um i think like i'm pretty much ready to go i think you're ready as well i'm definitely fit um and i might not be like the finished product but like you really just can't be at this point in the year um so the main thing is just like getting my mental game in check so that i can actually go and execute um but you know you don't need to be the finished product you just need to be ready to race and uh tactically have a good day of course we've just seen it we've literally just seen it in the men's field with graham halliday yeah i know uh you know he's openly admitted he's not feeling the fittest he's ever felt it's just things uh are lining up for him and he's had two great races he's going to race again this weekend hopefully wins um and then that'll you know i think that'll get him close to yeah being back in the elite 15 which i'm really happy with he's a great guy um hopefully like you say you can do do the same yeah i think so i think you know it's just about yeah just accepting where i am right now and knowing that's not like my ceiling um and like you said you've got years in this exactly um take your time if you need a little bit longer you need a little bit longer yeah but i love a tactical race and i think i am yeah talk to us about that about because i know uh you don't set off the fastest no um you you like to ski well stay quite reserved up until like the sled push yeah i think you know the ski is not my strongest station and it never will be um you know ultimately i'm not getting any taller or any heavier so i'm gonna get neither of those benefits um but you know you can improve technique and efficiency and fitness as well but i think in terms of fitness when i develop my running fitness with like that will come as well i might be able to take a couple of seconds off but ultimately you know five seconds on the ski is not really going to win you the race is it's just the gains elsewhere that i need to make um that are going to be more beneficial um so yeah i guess i like to stay in kind of the not really the front pack anymore because what's your mindset going into it are you okay with completely okay with that now yeah fine like i i can accept that if i'm last out of the ski that's fine like it's just not my strongest station i don't i love that i genuinely love that because like i i do struggle with that and i think that's a downfall like then i suffer later on in the race because of that yeah and i think i kind of learned my lesson with that um and i just i just know that i'll get them and i'm like see you at the burpees which is um yeah it's probably one of my best stations i saw you worked for you how many burpees you dropped a fast split yeah 216 yeah 216 but have you seen uh what's his called uh jack driscoll you've seen him so he's been doing i think he got a 148 wow in a race and still came out with like a i think a 56 or something like that he said that he went a little bit too fast yeah then on his next race like the week later he raced again uh it went a little bit more reserved and i think he's still got it in like a 201 or something like that or 159 but that was like chilled i'm like how are you doing that how are you doing that mate i think my fastest yeah i think my fastest relay split ever for the burpees is like 212 yeah so that's probably like that's quick yeah but i think you know i obviously can't go that fast in the race but i think closer to 230 is definitely possible um but it is just that fine line of like you know you can't just start recovering there and i think some people kind of inadvertently do um so and obviously at this point now with how the standard is there's just no room to recover anywhere yeah like there just isn't so what what do you do what's your tactic let's talk about station by station so ski stay nice and relaxed yeah just like get through don't lose too much time on on the lead but just you know make sure my heart rate is still at like kind of like threshold-ish definitely not in the red and then you're going into the next one and then the station how's how's the um step push for you yeah so i try and like close the app on some people that are maybe like stronger you're a strong side pusher aren't you yeah i i mean i'm yeah i have my days but i uh yeah i would say there is where I kind of start tactically racing and like looking to the side, picking people out going, okay, she's only a few meters ahead of me.

57:15If I can just leave the station with her, then I'll be like in a good place. So yeah, that's kind of my tactic there. Um, and then I just use the runs to like pick people off that are maybe better at the, um, better at the stations and less strong on the runs. That's kind of what I did in, um, in Stockholm. Um, so yeah. And then same on the, on the pole, that was kind of my plan and then didn't really go to plan in Stockholm. I felt the sled pool was really heavy for me um i'm not sure if that was like my sled lack of training lack of like technique i don't know um but that wasn't wasn't my best um so keep hold of the roll um i tend to drop it when i get a bit more tired just to give me a little like that one second to shake out my arms um so i'd say like it depends basically um but yeah i've been doing a lot of work on sleds over the summer as well so hopefully that comes off um if you if you could would you try and keep hold the rope or drop it because uh in in the men's field there's like quite a lot of people keep hold quite a lot of people drop it and there's some really fast times that drop it yeah i don't think it makes much difference i think it's just i guess what works best for you i don't i think it's one of these things a bit like the step in the lunges where you know you can argue either way that it saves time or not but really i think it's just personal preference um so yeah then i guess the burpees is where i make my move um and i guess wherever i come out of the burpees are you pushing them hard yeah yeah yeah i anthony watched my race in london and all i can remember is him shouting to me when i came out the sled pull run burpee run and i have that in my head every time i come out the run off the sled pull um and that's kind of the bit of the race where I really just dig in um and kind of isolate that as its own like small thing inside the race just run burpee and then run to the rower that's interesting because I have the same similar tactic on the doubles but I never really thought about the singles but again the row is technically a little bit of a rest yeah I mean you get to sit down so exactly um and then yeah when I get to the row I'm just like I generally just kind of look at other people's screens and see like what, what kind of the average is and try and just stay there.

59:21Um, I'm, I'm decent at the row, especially compared to the ski. Um, so yeah, there I can kind of hold my own. I'm obviously not going to be pulling as hard as people that are like almost a foot taller than me. Um, but I can kind of stay there at thereabouts. I'm usually holding about a two minute per 500, um, which is considerably quicker than my ski. So, um, yeah, I just try and stay, stay with it there. And then the back half of the race is just really where I move through um I'm not the best that the farmers carry but I can go unbroken um and just again take stock like I like I just like racing and you just got to watch people around you see what they're doing and just respond um and that's what I enjoy and it's the same with the lunges as well and then by the time he gets the wobbles 10 at a time uh just count to 10 10 times hold on and get over the line is that your mindset yeah so if you just 10 10 10 10 10 you know what sometimes i don't even look at the counter i just look at the target to make sure that i'm hitting the middle because obviously we've got quite a small center or uh i guess like target that we can hit to get the rep in how often do you drop never never when was the so you've not dropped in the last how many races i uh i went and broken in i think i went and broken in london oh no i did i dropped in the elite race in warsaw uh but then i did the pro the following day and i didn't drop um so so like when when you are struggling and you you have kind of like dropped or you you're struggling and you don't drop like what are you thinking about if i drop i would have definitely looked at the target of the person next to me each side to see how far off they are so like melbourne for example i probably could have gone unbroken but i dropped because i knew that i had like i think a 15 rep buffer to the next person behind me um and obviously this is risky because you never know there could be someone like the way down the field that's just like gone unbroken however if they've come into the station more than like i'd say 20 seconds behind you and you've gone unbroken to that point they're probably not going to get you unless they've got a mad cycle rate but even then it's like it would be tough to make up that gap so i would say if i'm really really struggling and I know I need to break I will have a look at the people either side of me or like the targets that I can see figure out how much time I've got left and basically if I drop that ball I will just like let the person behind me do five reps and then I just pick it up to make sure I'm still like at least ahead with maybe like a five rep buffer um so that's what I did in Melbourne that's what I dropped and I knew I was going to take third but I was like you've got doubles tomorrow like you're going to take third just take five seconds and then soak in the fact that you're about to get your first podium um but yeah apart from that when I'm struggling I just don't even look at the counter just keep throwing the ball count to 10 then count to 10 again keep doing it I love that and then within training is there anything specifically you did to get to unbroken wall balls um honestly no just I guess I trained with a nine a fair bit I now I also train with the 12 sometimes, which is tough.

1:02:27Come on. I mean, yeah, it's, I got hit in the face a few times when I started. And when I started with the 12, I couldn't string together more than one rep. I had to do like a cluster and then drop it and then just literally clean it from the floor and throw. But, you know, I'm stringing reps together now, so that's good. But yeah, I just train with like a heavier wool ball. I find EMOM is quite useful for that. So I'll do like 15 at nine kilos every minute for 10 minutes. um but apart from that just like whenever i've got big simulation style workouts in training just do 100 or maybe even 120 at the end i got to the point where i could quite consistently do 120 unbroken and i feel like if you can do that 100 becomes more a piece of cake um i also like to remind myself i think it starts to get really tough when you reach like the 70 rep mark um and once they get 70 reps obviously that's 30 to go and you can do 30 reps in a minute and i just ask myself like can you keep going for a minute like you know it's just it's one minute you can do that you've already done probably 58 other minutes so yeah no I love that that's uh that's really cool let's move on to uh your diagnosis yeah you mentioned obviously that you've been recently diagnosed with autism and ADHD yeah I've I feel like getting diagnosed with one is a lot more common than being diagnosed with them both would you just be able to explain like it all like how it even came about as well like how even like that you know you you went for the test or whatever oh we knew we knew um I think it's it's kind of been more and more obvious I guess since like I left school age um obviously when you're at school you're kind of put in a box quite easily um and it allows you a bit less freedom to kind of figure out who you actually are and once I was allowed outside that box to kind of discover myself more and what I enjoy doing what makes me tick how my brain works then it's like okay here are some things that potentially are more obvious and especially with training and when I get more tired and things become more like my freeze days and I am really anxious um feel like I can't leave the house feel like having a meltdown because random things don't feel safe it's like that's those the things that we started to pick up on and the anxiety i think when you get diagnosed a lot of the time these things can be comorbid with anxiety and depression and unfortunately i was also diagnosed with both of those things in my diagnosis which was a bit of a shock to the system so four things yeah wow which was like a shock i did not anticipate being diagnosed with more than just adhd and awesome those two i were fairly was fairly sure of um but to also be diagnosed with anxiety and depression comorbid was like I didn't really like bargain for that but it's also like I guess coming to terms with it as well is difficult but again you have to like learn how you can manage these things um and you know it can be really really difficult and there can be days where like there was a weekend recently where I just didn't train for a whole weekend I spent the whole weekend crying like and there was nothing I could do I had to just let it happen and try my best to pick myself up when I felt ready.

1:05:38Um, and a lot of the time when I have those days, um, and it's, it's not that frequent. Um, it's, it's getting better. There have been times where it becomes frequent and that is when I start trying to speak to Josie more, um, and really just doing everything I can to remove any factors that might make it worse. But I will basically get to the point where I go, you need to get yourself out of this. And I will set a really early alarm the next morning and the second I wake up I will put myself either outside on a run or on the bike because the thing is with like all my diagnoses I lack dopamine and obviously exercise for me is the easiest and a brilliant way for me to get dopamine and the second I start having these days where I'm like really really anxious and really upset and I feel like I can't train again it's a downward spiral because I can't provide myself with the dopamine that I would usually get from training so I'm essentially medicating myself with that um and I think yeah I guess I originally thought I might just be autistic and the ADHD was like not something that was really on my radar for a while until I did more research um I guess when you're at school and when you're younger ADHD can often be labeled as like hyperactive disruptive uh and I was just none of those things I was really really good student at school um I was never disruptive I would get like do really really well in all my exams um and yeah like none of these things were obvious at all and I think a lot of people like myself included were quite surprised at like that diagnosis or the prospect that that might be a thing that I have but the one thing that has definitely been more obvious as we look back after my diagnosis was that through my whole life I've kind of had these like burnout cycles where obviously with being neurodivergent you can hyper focus on things quite easily you can have like special interests and things that you essentially a bit like my running decide that you're just going to suddenly pour like all of your time and energy into and I've done that for multiple things I've done that for exams and academic things I've done that for sport and I've given it absolutely everything I have to the point where I just can't do it anymore.

1:07:51Um, and I've had like, we looked back at, obviously you have to look back through your whole childhood and lots of experiences in your diagnosis. And we realized that there was a period of time when I was at school where it basically gets like Thursday or Friday every school week. And I would just like refuse to go to school. Like my mom would just not be able to get me in. Um, and it was because I genuinely was just so burnt out and basically having a freeze day that I just didn't think I could go in and face it um and at the time like obviously we didn't consider that could be any of these things um but now it makes a lot of sense so kind of all or nothing to the point of burnout yeah basically and that's another thing that I have to learn to manage and I have to learn to listen to my body and what it's telling me and what I've been working really hard on like since my diagnosis especially and I think one of the the most helpful things Josie told me was that like as much as my brain would have me believe I'm not lazy like I'm the opposite I think as professional athletes we're all very much the opposite of lazy um but if my brain is telling me you are too tired and too exhausted to go and do this session then that is true and I have to listen to it like I as much as I maybe am really fixated on the idea of doing that session and my autism will scream at me because that was what was planned and that was the routine and that is what I was doing I have to listen to the fact that I am too tired and I'm not going to get the most out of myself it's probably going to be a rubbish quality session anyway because I won't be able to focus or give any power to it because I'm tired I'm just accepting that I need to just park that one and try again tomorrow basically um and that has actually like been really really really helpful yeah it's so clever how your body works yeah but your body knows what to do i think someone's just we're struggling to and it's probably external situations as well like subconsciously uh you opening your instagram and seeing someone training or someone when it's meant to be your rest day or do you know you're not feeling like training and before even opening instagram you probably thought in my head i might take a rest day here and you wasn't that fussed about it yeah but then you open instagram or you you see someone else training and then you're like oh fuck it either i've got to go train or i'm going to sit here uh and feel shit about it exactly it's like great this person's run a half marathon this person's raced to high rocks today this person's just told me that they've had the best session of their block and i'm here doing nothing and i feel awful about it and there have been times where i just take myself off instagram because i'm actually like i actually just don't want to see it or hear it today um so yeah i'm interested to know since having the diagnosis and obviously having a couple of months for it to settle in are you happier now that you've kind of like found out from beforehand?

1:10:46I think so. I think I'm finding like real joy and a lot of power in being able to understand myself more and work with myself. Because for so many years, I just was convinced that I would just go through periods of being really lazy. And it would be like, right Lucy, you just need to like pull your socks up and get on with it now and like face it. And like I convinced myself that there was something wrong with me or like I was broken in a way or just like I had really done too much training and burnt myself out even though I didn't realize that like autistic or ADHD burnout is its own thing aside from just like normal burnout um and I would just be really nasty to myself for these things I would just be like you know there's something wrong here you just need to try harder you know um and like I don't need to just try harder I just need to work with myself better and I think being able to take control of that obviously it's a work in progress and it's going to take quite a long time to get to the point where I find this like so-called balance that I'm continually searching for um but I do feel happier because now I'm in control and I think even if I was not diagnosed I would still have autism and ADHD and I would still be affected by it so just because I'm aware of it I think at first I was worried that maybe if I got the diagnosis like oh now I can play into it because subconsciously my mind will do that and it's like no you're literally still the same person you're just now like you now just have a label for it yeah I love that you mentioned that because I feel like a lot of people would be scared to to go and get diagnosed because of that because then they may potentially use it as an excuse but sometimes it's definitely not an excuse and And like you say, like you said that you're scared of that, but it's simply not the case.

1:12:35You're just more in control, which is, it's so positive to hear because, uh, I feel like there's not enough awareness around that. Yeah, I think so. I think like we had a real decision to make because I went through my diagnosis, like the process right before worlds. And I knew that I was going to get the results two weeks before worlds. And we had a choice to make whether I have a nervous wait for those results until after worlds, or they just tell me. um and we were kind of in two minds and whether that would be helpful or not and I chose to receive the results so I knew about my diagnosis before worlds I decided that I wouldn't tell anyone apart from obviously my close family um and like my coach um until afterwards but I obviously there was a debate over whether it would give me an excuse if worlds didn't go well um but then I was just like well if it doesn't go well and I didn't have a diagnosis then I could have the excuse of oh I was too nervous about the diagnosis so like what does it matter anyway um but I I think that as long as I'm aware and self-aware enough to make sure that I'm not just using it as an excuse the whole time and I am actually doing what I said I was going to do and work with it and speak to Josie and do the things that I'm like learning how to do that's a more powerful position to be in than just like oh you know I'm so ADHD more like the the victim mentality and I know that's a very touchy subject on the subject that we're on but like the you could easily go down that route where you're like ah I can't do anything because yeah and I do sometimes like some days I'm like oh you know it's so unfair why has this happened to me like why do I have to learn to work with my brain like this why is my brain like this like why can't I just be normal and do normal things and think normally towards uh like my training but I've been asked multiple times if you could just be neurotypical would you and the answer is no there's advantages as well right yeah exactly would you be able just to kind of like explain because you're more more well versed in this than me what advantages do you think having either autism ADHD kind of like gives you um I mean I think a obviously I've always had it like whether I've been diagnosed recently or not and you've been pretty successful in what you've done so I think it's definitely helped.

1:14:50Yeah. Thank you. Um, but yeah, you know, I've always had it. So it's part of me and I wouldn't want to like remove that part of me. Cause it's like, you know, it's who I am. It's my personality, but also in terms of performance, it's the hyper focus. Like I just, there is no way I don't think that I would be able to have the mindset I do of like, I'm going to do this until I'm like literally the best at it. I just don't think I'd be able to do that if I wasn't neurodivergent. Cause I wouldn't be bothered, but it's just like this kind of obsession level of wanting to like be addicted to this progress and obviously it is the detriment of you could take it to the point where you burn yourself out so that's what you have to be really really aware of but i feel like once you learn how to use like the powers of the adhd and the autism uh it's the most beneficial thing ever it's just like learning how to find that line which is really difficult to see yeah not only that you can probably block out all the distractions as well am i right yeah i think so i think especially when i take myself somewhere like club of santa um like i'm just really okay with just being a bit antisocial and doing nothing apart from training for however many weeks i'm there for um and like i just enjoy that there's some people that struggle with that and they'd want the social aspect they'd want um maybe some a break maybe to do other hobbies whatever like and you can just really like say hyper focus on one thing and then they say that the best athletes in the world are exactly that they hyper focus on whatever their sport is and then everything else in their life they're probably regarded as super lazy because yeah that's me but whether it's just being a little bit messy with you know around the house or whether it's just you know sleeping as much as possible uh whether it's it can come across as like you you're pretty lazy with everything else or not being on time or whatever it is like all them kind of things and you know it might not be you that um i know that relates to me a little bit um definitely but um i think that allows you to like you say you're so obsessed with one thing that everything else the priority is a little bit lower yeah and that can be a good thing that's definitely me you can tell what i've been training hard because the flats are mess um that's exactly it what about when you have when you have like a prescribed rest day i'm not talking about rest day where you're not feeling it like a prescribed rest day oh god if you do do but like when you do it like you're worrying but then you kind of what i just end up like tidying and stuff and like actually like doing all the stuff that so my adhd becomes like rife when i have that so it'll be like i'll suddenly want to go and do something completely random that i literally would never want to do so it's like i want to go to a theme park today it's like but lucy like that's a really crowded place your autumn doesn't enjoy that think about all the things that could happen there that you might not like like i'm really a metaphobic and And so if I saw someone like, and I don't like, don't get me wrong.

1:17:40I enjoy going to a theme park. We did that at the start of the summer. I loved it. But it's all the things that are just like, I'm really metaphobic. I don't like, I can't deal with like the site or like hearing someone be sick. And it's like, what if someone came off like a roller coaster and was ill? Like, what if you had to see that? What if like, there is a, like a really long queue that you have to stand in? What if there are like too many people? What if it's too loud? What if you get exhausted? What about your run for that day? And obviously if it's a rest day. but my brain will do all these things where it's like right i want to just go and do this completely random thing that like ordinarily i would hate and that seems like the most appealing thing for me to do today it is crazy how the mind works um i'm what rest days force you to do um because uh i'm exactly the same like you know it's the worst day of the week a rest day yeah but then equally i'll have days where i'm like yep today there's you know three plus hours of training on the program and i would really love a rest day it's like great but it's always like again you've always got to remind yourself this you always wish you was doing something that you're not doing yeah i get that we travel a lot i'll be over in you know somewhere where it's club or santa whether it's la whatever i'll be like i really wish i was at home and then when i'm at home i'm like i want to go away and then you always want what you can't have really all what you're not doing but um uh nah it's super interesting what advice would you give for female high rocks athletes specifically kind of like regarding I know you mentioned before about like uh their cycle things like that maybe potentially like training like fueling all that kind of stuff because I think it's so important and more important for women than it is for men especially like say for example I've heard women shouldn't train fasted yeah I mean and things like that like is there is there anything that's specific to female athletes that you'd advise?

1:19:30Yeah. I mean, I think like, obviously it'll be really personal, sorry, personal person to person with like how your cycle is. I think the number one thing is if you've lost your period, get it back. Um, that's like, that's the number one thing. If you don't have a period, you are not healthy. Something is wrong. Um, and I lost mine for a long time and to put it blankly, I didn't care. Um, there were a lot, there were like less things to worry about. I wasn't worrying about my fertility at the time. I, you know, didn't have to buy tampons deal with that every month uh deal with like fluctuations in hormones it was just like a flat line and i could basically like feel the same every day but that's not how a woman's body is supposed to function that's not normal and when i realized that i obviously like got my cycle back um so you know how did you even go about that um i just i didn't ever actually reduce my exercise which obviously is one of the easiest ways you can do it and a lot of people do um and was probably one of the causes in the first place of me losing my cycle but I think it was genuinely just my diet like I had such a high protein and low fat and low carb diet um and we need carbs obviously to perform but we also need healthy fats and actually just like fixing that and making sure that I was well fueled enough to do the training that I was doing especially because there'd been such an uptick in my training from like when I lost my cycle through to like when I realized that I really needed to get it back and I just completely lost sight of like how much I needed to be feeling for that and I was definitely eating like nowhere near enough so that was like the main thing that helped me get it back um so I would say that's the number one thing make sure you have a cycle secondary to that obviously everyone's cycle will be different some people like have pretty much no symptoms and it's really really easy for them um like month to month uh they might like obviously it's you know slightly inconvenient and unpleasant to have to deal with bleeding but they might not have any cramps they might not have really like much pms but other people like unfortunately me um i have pmdd as well which i think is also there's increasing research there's not much at the moment but there is more and more research being done that there is a strong connection between adhd and pmdd what is pmdd um so it's basically um I can't remember what the first D is for, but it's premenstrual and it's something disorder.

1:21:57But it's basically PMS, but really like extreme. So yeah, everything is basically just like even worse. And I never used to have this before I lost my cycle, which is interesting, but I do now. So for a while we thought it was just like, oh, you know, everything needs to rebalance, but you can't actually really balance your hormones. It's not really a thing. Um, so yeah, it's just kind of, again, another thing that's just how I am. Um, and it's potentially that like I did have it and I didn't realize it because I wasn't an athlete at the time. So I wasn't as in tune with my body as I am now. And I maybe didn't realize some of the symptoms that I do now have quite severely.

1:22:37Um, like my heart rate in my training will be just like really, really high. uh sometimes sometimes it's not but sometimes my heart rate has a massive jump before like or in my training um before my period um i definitely feel it i feel so fatigued so tired so hungry uh all of these things just like ramp up um question when you feel so hungry do you listen to your body yeah and do you eat more yeah the worst thing you can do is not listen to that because it just gets progressively worse and worse and worse okay um so i just listen to it um because also if you are feeling tired and hungry in a session as it is and then you're also under fueled and you have all of these other things going on like the inflammation that I also have to deal with um and my like my HRV drops my resting heart rate goes up all of these things imagine having all those things and then you're also choosing to under fuel yourself like you you're really just making it even worse um and obviously I don't want to lose my cycle again so that's important um but yeah it's basically all the symptoms like this before i get my period are just like worse than i guess normal pms um and it is now like a medically diagnosed thing which is great as well um because it's being recognized but there is more and more research being done for the fact that that is linked to adhd you have a much higher chance of having PMDD if you have ADHD.

1:24:04Um, so yeah, this is another thing that I'm trying to find like a solution for. I don't know if there is like a long-term solution. There are various medications and things that you can take that supposedly might help it. Um, but these are all like specialist things. Um, and so I'm finding some specialists to speak to and seeing what I can do to like hopefully manage this. Cause this is essentially what's happened to me a few races. and I know it's not just me there are other like elite athletes in high rocks and obviously beyond that are experiencing this as well um but we can't pick when our race dates are so unfortunately for me like Hamburg last year obviously I was about to get my period what happened happened there may or may not be a connection there but I felt awful in the race regardless London in March I think I was like on day one of my period and I'd had really really bad PMDD before that started race day was then and I DNF'd I just I've actually never felt so bad in my life in a race and it was my home race um and then a week later I raced the pro wave in London because obviously it was over two weekends and I got PB and that was my first sub 60 and it's just like shows how volatile this can be um so yeah like it's frustrating and you have to learn to manage it um but again like it's just learning to listen to my body and obviously like if I'm feeling really rubbish and tired and inflamed um and maybe I've pushed a session too hard the day before to just listen and maybe like cut my volume down or not do that hard session but also just accepting that I might not hit my pace is and it's just the training stimulus that matters I guess like I for a while was just really trying to force my threshold pace in my luteal phase for example um and it's just not always gonna happen like I sometimes am 20 seconds per k slower at the same heart rate as I would be like normally um and it's learning that as long as I'm doing the session at the right heart rate at the right intensity like if I'm trying to hit my normal race pace when I feel like that I'm not going to get very far so I need to just accept that for that session whatever pace I'm going to hit is just going to be my threshold for the day and that's fine so going off heart rate super important yeah and kind of like sticking to that when you're not really feeling it and it might be that time of the month yeah I think so it's just learning to like work with it and except that I mean the first time I had a really bad PMDD episode I basically just didn't do any training for nearly a week because I was like well everything feels awful so nothing's worth it and it's like that's not really a great way to look at it because also movement can help you and obviously the dopamine is really really important and necessary for me so finding something that I can do even if it's like going for a swim even if I feel so bad that the only thing I can do is just go and swim next to the pool for an hour great like that's better than doing nothing yeah no thank you for that i really appreciate that uh who is lucy outside of high rocks because obviously being an athlete everyone asks you about high rocks but nobody asks you really about what else you do yeah this is something i'm trying to like find out more because obviously i'm sure you'll you'll agree that it's obviously really easy to just wrap yourself up in the sport and the whole ecosystem and literally do nothing apart from what exists in this bubble what would you do if hyrox disappeared become a scuba diving instructor boom i think genuinely um it's my favorite hobby outside of hyrox it's just such a shame that it's this like obviously quite inaccessible here so catch me retiring to some like small islands when i stop doing this um no i'm joking but yeah i spent a week scuba diving at the start of the summer um i then did another qualification uh when i got home from that holiday which was really fun um and like I love doing these courses and I just love being underwater it's really meditative um and yeah I just like seeing what's there so yeah um I think that's that's what I'd do amazing and then anything else you're kind of working on um obviously like say you want to build uh the awareness uh and stuff regarding kind of like ADHD autism stuff like that um is there any passion projects that you have um Tom and I've been working on some coaching um so we just launched our first program um but we're gonna kind of launch more um in december around like hyrox london and kind of the month following that so yeah really like aiming there to help people learn to listen to their body um and kind of do a similar thing that i'm having to do and learn how to adapt your sessions day to day for you and like what you can do on that day so that'll be like super personalized like almost like one-to-one online coaching not necessarily so we launched a program that's 12 weeks um recently but the kind of point of the program was that basically for each session there is such a massive range and everyone can get the same stimulus but adapted to their level so we basically programmed it in mind with can tom do it and tom can tom's dad do it um so yeah basically we wanted to like be able to access this range of people and for everyone to be able to follow the same program which is kind of modeled off of like my training um but on their own level and to find that for themselves yeah super interesting thank you for today lucy thank you i wish you best of luck in your upcoming races yeah you too hopefully see you in london i'll probably see you before that to be fair yeah um but uh yeah london is december yeah what date third fourth third fourth yeah it's quite early on and then yeah and then it's Christmas.

1:29:50Yep. I believe it's already getting up to that time of year. I know, don't say that. It's crazy, isn't it? It's too soon. It's crazy. But yeah, thank you for today. Yeah, thank you so much.