Petrified... and loving it
It was New Year’s Day in Edinburgh and Ella Webley, mother of three, stood on the edge of the Edinburgh Commonwealth pool, facing the start of her first triathlon.
“I was petrified, white as a sheet and I couldn’t stomach a thing,”she recalls.“I was shaking so much that I couldn’t zip up my tri-suit.”
The triathlon was a “super sprint”, just 400 metres swim, 16.5km cycle and 5.5km run.
But it seemed like an Ironman event to the Perthshire woman who was deeply regretting that she had signed up for the race.
Webley, then 34, got through it all and was hooked. The triathlon became a landmark in a journey from a life of inactivity to full-scale fitness that started just five years ago and has gone through several stages, from running a sub-four hour marathon and a 100km to the super sprint, half-Ironman and, most recently, the Starman night triathlon in the Cairngorms.
As an enormous and growing body of research conclusively proves, Webley has embarked on a journey that will deliver immeasurable benefits.
Now 38, she says her decision to get herself fit was transformational for her health, family and work.“I started running five years ago. Before that, I did nothing. It just never crossed my mind,” she recalls.
“I had to take swimming lessons and my cycling was so bad that I almost had to put on stabilisers. I also wondered how on earth I could fit in the training.”
In fact Webley now trains several times a week, squeezing it in between her work and family. “The health benefits are endless,”she enthuses. “I’m a lot healthier and fitter than I have ever been.
“When I sat my gym instructor course I found I was fitter than those half my age. I’m a lot more knowledgeable about nutrition too, although I keep it all in perspective.
If I never ate anything but foods classed as‘healthy’, I would be very miserable.
“I sleep better after a work-out too – proper deep sleep, not waking up every hour. Before our youngest – and exercise came along I would be awake until three or four in the morning. That never happens now – in fact, I’m more likely to get up at four and go for a run uphill.
“And my whole lifestyle has done a complete 180 degrees. The example it gives to my kids is the best part.”
In fact the couple’s daughter, 15-year-old Lucie, often comes to the pool for swim sessions while Oliver likes to challenge his mum in running races.
It doesn’t hurt either that Webley’s husband Joe took up triathlons at the same time, both having been inspired by watching the Aberfeldy middle-distance event.
“We were hooked,”she remembers.“We said‘if they can do it, why can’t we?’”
And they could but, as she knows all too well, it can take fortitude to get through a triathlon. The swim conditions at Preston Pans were so wild for the inaugural Edinburgh 70.3 that 40 people were hauled from the water and even the rescue kayaks were capsizing.
But not only did Webley get back to shore without help, she did so ahead of her husband who has competed at the world 70.3 championships.
That’s one for the scrap book –“the one and only time I will ever beat him,” she mourns.