Beyond training

Beyond training: A day in the life of a professional triathlete.

I thought I would give a little insight into what a Professional Triathlete does on a daily basis, beyond their training. There is a lot more to a professional triathlete’s day than training, eating and sleeping. A usual day of mine consists of three workouts, or about 4-6 hours of actual training, but in reality my workday is 8-10 hours long. The day mainly revolves around swim times, since these are fixed. All the other workouts and things I have to do are built around that.

 I wake up and have breakfast. While I am doing that I check my e-mails and social media to see if anything has come up over night that I need to address right away. Then it is off to the first workout (usually a swim or a run). When I am home in Ontario the pool is about 20 minutes away, so not a bad drive.

The first thing I do when I return from the swim is eat some food. Then it is back on the computer to work on a sponsorship proposal, write a blog post or look for a possible sponsor I can contact. In the early and late part of the year a lot of my time is spent going back and forth with sponsors and ironing out contracts. This can be a drawn-out process, and the athlete must find the right balance of not asking for too much but also not selling out. Some of the top pro’s will have agents to do this work. But I enjoy this part of the sport.

Then it is off for the mid-day workout. After eating lunch I usually see if I can come up with a good social media post. Most of them come to me while I am in a workout or just spontaneously, but I need to put some time aside to make it look good, to check that everything is spelt correctly and to make sure it is appealing to my audience. With contractual obligations revolving around my social media I also need to make sure I cover all the bases in that respect. Next, I spend a little more time working on sponsorship proposals, sponsor phone calls or writing articles. If I am lucky I may sneak in a little nap. If I miss that nap then coffee is my savior.

Then I am off to do my last workout of the day. My evenings are usually spent doing some foam-rolling. If I have a video on the go I will usually work on that or anything that has not been completed. I also like to keep the evening a little more free to socialize with family and friends.

Sometimes I get the opportunity to give back to the community by giving a talk, running a workout or volunteering at a race. These are very enjoyable and a nice change of pace. It is very important to me that I give back to the people who support me and that I help nurture the next generation of the sport.