Each month, Olympian and Team GB athlete, Tom Bosworth writes exclusively for Sevenoaks Sport & Wellbeing about his road to Tokyo 2021.
“I decided to take what would have been the usual end of season break, in September. In a normal year, we’d have competed right up to the beginning of September and then finish up with a few weeks of rest.
I hoped to see my family but local lockdowns started to kick in, meaning I had to miss out on their visit. Me and Harry managed to have a couple of nice weekends away and spend some time together, but Harry being a primary school special needs teacher meant he was back in work from the start. So it was a pretty quiet break for me, but it was more a mental refresher before winter training begins. I also tried to master some latte art work, follow me on Instagram if you want to see my failings as I try to make my coffee’s look pretty! It’s going to take a while!
So training begun in the final week of last month and it’s clear, I’m a long way from where I was in March. Thankfully I won’t be racing until the new year at the earliest.
If you’ve followed me throughout this Covid year, you’d have known I was in my best form back in March, winning races and setting back to back British Records. Having caught Covid in April it’s taken me a long time to recover and I lost all motivation. Hence the rest period and now I’m refreshed and excited to train my little legs off all over again. My main focus is of course next summer’s Olympic Games, training will start here in the cold of the UK before a warm weather training camp before Christmas, if Covid allows.
Winter training is pretty full on, with lots of miles, and lots of work in the gym to make sure I’m strong enough to deal with those miles. Clean eating and lots of sleeping. Sounds great it’s just shame about the half marathon a day I need to cover.
Thanks to Covid I’m pretty well set up so if the gyms close again I have a range of weights and equipment at home that can keep me on top of keeping strong. The winter I can see being a challenge with restrictions in place, but we’ve got to go all out, as I imagine the world will be in a much more positive place by next summer’s Olympics.
It was quite a frustrating week one to winter training, before even putting my trainers on, I’d hurt my hip with swelling in the joint meaning moving was pretty impossible, and movement is pretty key for exercise! Some physio and anti inflammatories sorted it out so the slow grind can start. Most mornings look like 45 minutes of core work followed by one hour to 90 minutes of race walking. Soon I’ll be back to double day training, meaning I’ll have to head out for another 30-50 minutes in the evening. I’m excited for it all, because I know that as each week goes by, I’ll be a step closer to the fitness I had earlier in the year.
A few things will have to change since the lockdown summer, and that means the white wine I was able to enjoy in our garden will come to an end and soon I’ll be sleeping back in the altitude tent. Yes that’s a tent over my pillow, a generator in another room pumping air into it at an equivalent level to what you would expect at 2000m+. It’s not quite the same as mountain air, but being an athlete is all about leaving no stone unturned.
For now it’s lots of walking (and lots of walking with Jess my Labrador) before hopefully heading to warmer climates.
If you want to get in contact with me you can reach out on social media @TomBosworth, or via my website www.tombosworth.com.
I hope you have a safe and relatively normal autumn as we battle through this Covid-19 winter together, I can’t wait to update you next month on hopefully some normal training and a few more day-to-day goings on as I rebuild towards Tokyo!”
