Sloane Square Magazine

October 2012

ARTICLE REPRODUCED BELOW:

Swim, cycle, run… win

A Chelsea physiotherapist will be representing Great Britain at the grand final of the ITU World Triathlon Series in New Zealand in October.

Laura Fidler, who works at Central Health Physiotherapy’s outpatient clinic at the Royal Hospital Chelsea’s Margaret Thatcher Infirmary, only started running about three and a half years ago and completed her first triathlon a year ago.

“I basically started running just to try and stay in shape and lose a bit of weight,” says Laura. “I wasn’t anticipating doing anything more than that, really.”

A friend of hers, who is a middle-distance coach, encouraged her and suggested she should enter a race to motivate herself. Laura ran her first 10k in under 45 minutes.

“I didn’t know anything about what a respectable 10k time was, so when I crossed the finish line and told my friends what I’d done, they were like ‘er… that’s pretty good’,” she says. “And then that’s when I decided to take it a bit more seriously.”

“It’s interesting to realise how much you can do if you want to do it. It’s just a case of kind of getting your head down and working hard, basically.”

Laura was going to concentrate on running, but one of her friends, who was in the process of turning professional as a triathlete, convinced her to take up the sport. She was already cycling to work, but the swimming aspect proved more of a problem.

“I could barely swim,” says Laura. “So I was like ‘oh no no no, I can’t do triathlon, I can’t swim’… And he basically entered me for a sprint distance triathlon, because he knows I’m a competitive person, so I think he knew that if he challenged me, I would probably rise to the challenge.

“I really enjoyed it. My swim time was fairly shocking but in terms of my running and cycling, I was finishing in fairly respectable times again. So I think from then it was kind of like, ok, maybe I could do something, if I worked at it maybe I could acheive better things.”

Laura certainly works hard, training for up to 15 hours a week around her full-time job. “I think that’s been the hardest thing, in terms of trying to keep a healthy sort of life balance,” she says. “My boyfriend’s an absolute saint.”

Laura also runs a triathlon club, Premier Tri, which she set up with another athlete, Jon Munroe, in May 2011.

She says she would have laughed if someone had said to her three years ago that she would be representing Great Britain. She’s competing at Olympic distance – 1500m swimming, 40k cycling and 10k running – in the age group section of the Barfoot & Thompson World Triathlon Grand Final in Auckland on October 22.

She feels pretty nervous, but well-prepared.

“It’s my first world championships, so I’m certainly not anticipating going out there and blowing the field apart, but I’d like to finish in a respectable place,” she says.

She says fining out she would be representing Great Britain was overwhelming.

“I think there were some tears… I still don’t really believe it, in some respects. I don’t think I will believe it until I’m there on the day, in my kit, ready to go.”

Show your support for Laura following her on Twitter: @LFids_Tri. Send her a message of encouragement or get in touch to make a donation at www.premiertri.co.uk.

SLOANE SQUARE MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2012