Life Without Limits, A (14 page)

Three weeks later, I flew out to Switzerland for the Age Group World Championships. Easy had lent me his iPod and told me to listen to a song by Eminem. The flight out was very early in the morning. I remember taking a cab from Clapham to Gatwick in my GB tracksuit with the song playing in my ears: ‘You only get one shot, do not miss your chance . . . this opportunity comes once in a lifetime. Yo.’

Never a truer word spoken.

But there was still an experimental feel to my preparations. The start time for the 25-to-29 age group was 12 noon, which is unusual. All my previous races had started at the crack of dawn. It meant I didn’t know what to eat or when. And, of course, I had borrowed a wetsuit. This one fitted, although I tore it slightly in my rush to put it on. Muppet. There was a small hole in the arm the size of a penny piece. Enough to let water in and to throw me off mentally.

My swim wasn’t great. After 1.5km of splashing in Lake Geneva, I was well behind the lead girls. But once aboard Calvin, I started passing a lot of people. You can’t be sure who is in your age group, though, because of the different start times. Each athlete has their age group inked on their calf, so you have one eye on the road and one on the back of people’s legs. I felt really strong, and I think I took the lead on the bike. My policy was simple: overtake everyone I possibly could. It’s not a complicated battle plan, but it’s one that has served me pretty well ever since. My run felt strong, too, even though I had done next to no running in training.

I crossed the finish line in a state of excitement. I felt I’d done well, but I still didn’t know how well. Georgie and Tim had come to watch and were beaming from ear to ear.

‘How did I do? How did I do?’ I gabbled at Tim.

‘You won!’

‘What? My age group?’

‘Yes. But you might win overall, as well!’

I fell to the ground and burst into tears. This was beyond my wildest dreams. I had hoped to sneak onto the podium for my age group, maybe, but to win my age group was another thing altogether. As for being the fastest woman in the entire field in a race that had the words ‘World Championships’ in its title – this was ridiculous! It hadn’t even occurred to me. I felt as if there had been some sort of mistake, as if this were an accident. Surely someone would come along and say, ‘Actually, you haven’t really won. Sorry. As you were.’

But, no. Moments later, I was confirmed as the winner of the 25-to-29 category – by seven minutes. And when every last athlete had finished, it was confirmed that I was the fastest woman – by four minutes. In an Olympic-distance race, those are huge margins. I’d not just won, I’d smashed the field!

There was something very definitely unusual about all of this now, about my body, that hapless collection of skin and bones I’d spent so much of my life despairing of. It appears it had all the while been harbouring a world champion. Now, at the age of twenty-nine, that world champion had finally stepped out.

Almost immediately the thought occurred to me that I should consider turning pro. I still enjoyed my work at Defra – I was considered something of an authority on post-conflict reconstruction, and I helped shape Defra’s policy priorities as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review. So I was still operating at quite a high level, but I wasn’t altogether content. Most of all, the sabbatical had not quashed my doubts regarding rhetoric and action. If anything, it had deepened them. What I was doing was so far removed from my work on CWASH. I was becoming increasingly despondent at how little difference I was making on the ground. It was all talk.

So I was already craving a fresh direction in my professional life. And the feeling that it was the end of an era was heightened when Prem and I were forced to go our separate ways. The week before Christmas he disappeared from his usual spot outside the office. Naturally, I took the matter to the highest level, and I watched, horrified, the CCTV footage of some bastard cutting the chain and making off with him. I was devastated to lose such a dear friend after all we’d been through.

All in all, I became very receptive to the idea of becoming a professional triathlete. Tim Weeks agreed that this was the way forward, but he was very busy and had a lot of things happening in his personal life. He confessed he had taken me as far as he could at that particular time. So he suggested I seek out a man by the name of Brett Sutton. He had coached Tim Don, who had won the elite World Championships in Lausanne the day after I’d won the age-group race, and, through Tim Don’s manager, Tim Weeks put me in touch with him. I had never heard of Brett Sutton, but Tim explained to me who he was.

I was granted an audience – or a week’s trial, to be precise. I had to make my way to Leysin, a mountain resort in Switzerland, not far from Lausanne. This was where Brett Sutton could be found. If I could convince him I had what it took, then the chances were I had what it took. It sounded like a rite of passage, a mission to test my worthiness. And that’s exactly what it was.

8

The Wizard of Oz

In order to reach Leysin, you have to take the train from Geneva to Aigle. It’s a grim, serious-looking chuffer, usually plastered with graffiti, but it is the views of the mountains and the lake that make it so special.

When I took the train that first time, though, the scenery was lost on me. Night had fallen, and I was completely oblivious to everything but my reflection in the train window. Fair enough. I knew this week was not about admiring the view. The focus was going to be on me, on my body, on my mind. Dispassionate self-analysis was the order of the week, so all that beauty in the darkness beyond the window could wait for another day.

At Aigle you change and take the chocolate-and-cream trolley train that hauls you up the 1,000-metre climb to Leysin. The carriage rattled as the ratchet pulled us higher, and I confronted my nervousness. At the end of the line I would finally meet Brett Sutton. I felt like Dorothy at the end of the Yellow Brick Road..

Meeting Brett Sutton was a big deal for a triathlete. It turns out he has trained some of the best in the world, and he is one of the most colourful characters in the sport. He revels in his reputation as the ‘dinosaur’ of triathlon, the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Tim Weeks had told me all about him. Eccentric, a certain way with words, very blunt. ‘Don’t be offended by him,’ said Tim. ‘Don’t be offended by him.’

Why did he keep saying that? Either Tim must have thought me a sensitive flower, or this guy must be ferocious. If I wanted to turn pro, if I wanted to walk away from my job, my friends, my life as I knew it, this was the creature I had to convince, and soon I would be at his lair.

I had been ill the week before, and the week before that it had been Christmas and New Year. I wasn’t in the best shape for this. Those mince pies and beverages weighed heavily on my mind and on my waistline. Would I be able to do myself justice?

And yet I had this chance to be accepted into Brett Sutton’s team. Tim had filled me in on this as well. Team TBB was a new professional triathlon squad, founded by Singapore-based Dutch entrepreneur Alex Bok, who owns a chain of bike stores in Asia. Brett Sutton had been installed as its head coach, and with him came some of the best triathletes in the world.

When the train reached its destination I yanked open the door and tried as best I could to prance across the station platform like a thoroughbred. But lugging my 20kg bike across the snow was making it difficult. And anyway, when I looked around I couldn’t see a T Rex anywhere.

There was an unremarkable-looking guy heading my way, though. If in my mind’s eye I had carried an image of the archetypal sports coach, this man was the antithesis of it. He couldn’t have been more than five-six – shorter than me, at any rate – and he wore a hideous pair of shapeless, blue tracksuit bottoms, held together at various points by elastic and tucked into a pair of Ugg boots. He had a paunch and thinning hair. He must have been getting on for fifty.

I was already taken aback by the sight of him, but I was really thrown when he offered me his hand and in a broad Australian accent confirmed that he was, indeed, Brett Sutton. Really thrown, but also strangely encouraged. I could handle this guy, surely. He was friendly, and one thing that struck me immediately upon meeting him were his large, soft blue eyes, which seemed to radiate kindness. I immediately forgot about trying to look the thoroughbred. ‘Oh,’ I kept thinking to myself. ‘Oh. Right. So . . . this is Brett Sutton.’ He seemed warm and welcoming. Maybe he was just misunderstood.

But there was another matter on my mind. Eight years earlier, back in Australia, he had pleaded guilty to charges of indecent relations in the late 1980s with one of the teenage swimmers he was coaching. This was a big concern for reasons of morality and safety. The crime had happened a long time ago, but I needed to give the issue serious thought. I would ask the advice of the other athletes; I would watch him carefully and challenge him on the subject, and I would make up my own mind.

It was a Saturday night, and my first glimpse of Brett’s ‘method’ was when he dumped me outside the apartment of two of his athletes, Sam Renouf and Lizzy Hessing. There was no question of helping me to settle in or find any food. ‘It’s my day off tomorrow,’ he said by way of farewell, ‘so you won’t see me. Sam’s taking you to meet Andrew Johns and Stephen Bayliss at eight tomorrow morning. You’re going for a run. I’ll see you at the pool on Monday at seven.’

Sam and Lizzy, who were a couple, welcomed me every bit as warmly as their supposed monster of a coach. So far, so normal. The next morning AJ and Stephen were just as friendly, and we went for a jog with the snow falling round us. And it was very much a jog. I was itching to go faster. I could tell AJ and Stephen were paying me attention, and through them I started to feel Brett’s eyes on me.

Back at the apartment, we were supposed to ‘rest’ for the best part of an entire day. This, it turned out, was going to be the aspect of the week I found the hardest – and it would be the part of being a pro I found hardest. I couldn’t do it. It dawned on me that I never just sit down and do nothing. I’d never watched an episode of
24
, but Sam and Lizzy watched them one after the other. That was all they seemed to do – train and watch
24
. I sat down dutifully on the sofa with them, but I couldn’t last much more than one episode. I did my Sudoku puzzles, I went wandering in the village. I did anything other than rest. I had a lot to learn.

The week began in earnest at seven the next morning. All of Brett’s athletes were at the pool. I was struck by how regimented everything was – everyone was punctual throughout the week and there was precious little socialising. But I was also surprised that, rather than one big training session, Brett was overseeing many of them simultaneously. Each athlete had his or her own programme, specifically tailored. One of Brett’s mantras is that no two athletes are the same.

The first observation he made about my swimming was that I was too weak in the upper body and over-reliant on my legs. How could I hold my own in the carnage that is the open-water swim of a triathlon when my upper body was doing little more than steer me in the right direction? I spent the rest of the session swimming with paddles and a pull-buoy. By the end, the accuracy of his initial assessment was all too plain. I’d just had my first brush with Brett being right about something.

It wouldn’t be the last. He also told me, there and then, that he knew I had had an eating disorder. The man is bold and unreconstructed, but, even if it took me a while to trust him unreservedly, he does know his stuff. And he knows he knows it. ‘I’m so right it’s scary,’ is one of his favourite sayings. Even on those occasions when he’s not right, it’s still scary, and you learn to accept it. He may not be all that much to look at, but he has a will of iron, which he requires you to submit to if you want to be coached by him.

That makes it sound as if you have to be passive, or, better still, weak. No, you can’t afford to be either of those. My first instincts as a fiercely independent woman were to rebel against him, which I would find myself doing a few times in the months ahead. Then the penny dropped that a triathlete has enough on his or her plate just enduring the physical and mental hardships of training and competing in their discipline. To be able to maximise their performance Brett believed it was essential for his athletes to cede to him all responsibility for strategic decision-making – in other words, to do exactly what he said without question. He often used an officer/ private analogy. He freely admitted that his aim was to brainwash his athletes, because we didn’t know what was good for us and he did. All the same, if you’re used to being your own boss, it takes a lot of strength to place your trust in someone so unreservedly. In many ways, that was the scariest part of what I was about to undertake.

It was on the Wednesday of that trial week in Switzerland that the idea of turning pro became a genuine prospect. Like the racehorse trainer he had once been, Brett had cast his eye over me in the pool, on the treadmill and on the bike. He tells me he had made his mind up about me that first morning at the pool, but it was after a bike session on that Wednesday that he sat me down to have a proper talk.

Brett had sent me and a couple of the other girls off on a set of hill repeats, cycling up and down an inclined road. Each repeat took about seven minutes, and we were told to do it for an hour. Brett doesn’t always attend bike sessions, and you learn to dread the sight of his white Citroën Berlingo when it does pull up at the side of the road. In fact, it’s not long before you jump out of your skin whenever you see any Berlingo. There are too many of them in Switzerland!