Rebecca Adlington

There will have been many over the past year envious of Rebecca Adlington as she collected two Olympic gold medals, an OBE, the crown of Europe’s top swimmer of the year, and a third place in the BBC TV Sports Personality of the Year award, but when she explains just what she has to do to achieve her sporting goals, then it is evident the 20-year-old from Mansfield deserves every plaudit that has and will continue to come her way.

As always, it is the high profile achievements that get everyone talking, such as winning both 400 and 800 metres freestyle gold medals inside the Water Cube in Beijing last summer, the latter breaking a 19-year-old world record set by America’s Janet Evans when Adlington was just six months old.

But all the hard work takes place in training and in her meticulous lifestyle which few young women would wish to swap for all the world and, as the Nottinghamshire star explains, it is pretty much all year round.

“The last year has been very different because of the Olympics I was busy right up to Christmas with various media commitments and functions to attend,” she says. “Most years, though, I take two weeks off after the season’s main event, which this year will be the world championships in Rome in August. That’s it for the year in terms of time off.

“You’d be surprised how much fitness you lose as a swimmer in just a fortnight, although the period is crucial to prevent physical and mental burn-out. By my reckoning you need three weeks to make up for each week you take off, so it is a good month and a half of training after you return to the pool before fitness is regained. “Then it is a case of a series of 15-week cycles, leading up to Christmas and the short-course championships which most of the swimmers enter, even if I do not, then the Easter trials for whatever the major event of the summer is, and then finally the worlds this summer.”

The training changes little over all this period of time, and the hours required are demanding, to say the least. “I am up at 4.45 in the morning every weekday, ready to train normally in Nottingham between 6 and 8. I then return to the pool for a couple of hours between 5 and 7 in the evenings. I repeat this five days a week, train for half the day on Saturday, and have Sundays off to re-charge my battery.”

Under the watchful eye of her trainer, Bill Furniss, Rebecca will cover a staggering distance of 7000 metres, or 140 lengths, in one session, taking half an hour to warm up, and then a further 30 minutes to warm down. “The hour in the middle can be anything from 12 x 400 metres, to 24 x 200 metres, and sometimes we do kick or pulling sessions as well.”

This, essentially, is what Adlington does 11 times a week, 50 weeks a year. If it sounds boring and repetitive, she assures us it is anything but. “It’s no different from what most working adults do, which is go to the office and stay there from 9 to 5,” she argues. “Besides, it’s never quite the same. The sprinters in our squad will swap one or two sessions in the pool for the gym as they need more explosiveness. I train alongside 25 others, mainly in Nottingham but sometimes also in Loughborough and we all help to motivate each other. My fitness, endurance and speed are essential to my success at a major championship, and when I or others achieve something good and return to the squad, it motivates all of us to try our hardest. Bill (Furniss) also mixes up those 7000 metres a session by asking us to perform multi-strokes as there is no way you could cover that total distance using just freestyle, and it is good to work on different muscles.”

With all this effort, plus the early morning starts it is no surprise that Rebecca is in bed by 9.30 at night at the latest, and she also requires a nap on her return back home following the morning session. “Without that nap I’m terribly moody,” she admits. “Like a lot of sportsmen and women, I spent much of my time being really tired, and forever apologising to people when I yawn in front of them. I must come across as rude sometimes when I am just shattered.”

But this is not all. As if her 280 lengths per day in the pool is not enough, she also runs for 25 mins and completes a circuit in the gym twice a week. “The run’s at a reasonable pace because it’s with a male coach and a male swimmer,” Rebecca reveals. “It’s hard in the winter, especially when it’s cold and raining, and sometimes my asthma can play up as a result. In the gym it is never with weights. I tend to work on core exercises using my own body weight, concentrating on sit ups and stretching.”

With such a demanding schedule placed on her body Rebecca needs to stock up with food and liquid intake and, although she is disciplined when it comes to takeaways, she also insists that nearly everything is OK in moderation.

“I have three pieces of weetabix for some breakfast with sugar, and normally a yogurt as well,” she says. “For lunch I tend to drag it out over a couple of hours. It tends to be three ham or cheese sandwiches, then maybe a half hour wait before some fruit and more yogurt, then another delay before a cereal bar and popcorn. Dinner is quite late as I train until 7pm each night, and am not home before 7.45 pm. I am a big lover of pasta, as well as chicken, so dinner is often something like a lasagne or chicken breast with vegetables. I also have a couple of biscuits just before I put the light out. All day long I drink water, squash and energy drinks.”

It is some commitment for a girl still so young, but already so successful, and even in the week of competition she will only cut down her workload two eight sessions. Yet the rewards are there for all to see, and Rebecca Adlington is far from finished yet.

“So far I have won at the Olympics, but not at the world championships, and I haven’t even been to the Commonwealth Games before, which are next year in Delhi, and this is all before the London Olympics in 2012, so there is much to aim for.”

Is it all about the titles? “No, it’s all about the performances and the times. If I get those right the rest tend to follow, but it’s a mistake to aim for a gold medal and by doing so forgetting about the process to get you there.”

Her advice for any future Rebecca Adlingtons is something she cannot be accused of avoiding herself. “I’m afraid in all sports, and especially in swimming, you cannot replace hard work,” she concludes. “There are simply no short cuts, but the harder you work, the more successful you will become.”