ALISON’S KEY SESSIONS

THE SWIM

I’m a bit of a groundhog when it comes to swim sets, but if I’m short on time and want to do a quick blast a good 2km total set is: • 400m easy warm-up • 4 x 100m hard • 300m pull • 3 x 100m hard • 200m easy swim • 2 x 100m hard • 100m pull • 100m max

THE BIKE

I do this great summer bike hill reps session on Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh. It’s a winding hill just over 1km long with varying gradients and the start of a 5km loop around the perimeter of the hill. The hill lasts about 4-5mins and the loop is about 12mins in total. I do six laps working super hard on the hill and cruising the rest of the lap for recovery. It’s a great workout to do before work.

THE RUN

While some don’t advocate treadmill running, I find it a great tool to do quality interval work at a specific pace and without the worry of weather conditions.

I usually do an hour of intervals on a Tuesday morning – anything from 400m reps up to 800m reps. It’s hard to motivate yourself to get out of bed knowing the session ahead but it’s a great feeling once it’s done.

The added benefit of a treadmill session is that you’re at the gym already and I’ll then follow my run session with 45mins of gym work, which is essential for developing a strong core to maintain good form at the backend of a race. After all that I’m happy to get into work for a seat!