Dani Christmas
A former top-level runner, the Surrey rider and coach juggles a full diary of work and racing
Y ou race and work full-time – that can’t be easy?
It’s a pretty full-on life. I’m working with Cycling UK on their behaviour change project, and outside of my job I’m heavily involved in community projects [as an athletics coach] – another 10 hours on top of my 40-hour working week. It’s about finding that level of balance, trying to listen to my body even more than normal.
What led to your taking cycling more seriously? You were an internationallevel middle-distance runner – why the switch to cycling?
I was recovering from an Achilles injury, training really hard in the pool, and it coincided with my last year at university – I went into my last exam completely cooked. I picked up a virus and didn’t really recover for 18 months. That helped me learn my lesson in terms of balancing physical and emotional stress, and shaped a lot of what I’ve done since. I bought a bike to help the rehab process.
Having been through such a rubbish period in my life, my support network, in terms of coaching support [in athletics], broke down around me. I knew that to take a step forward, to be world-class on the senior stage, I didn’t have the support I would need. At the end of the day, you have to really believe, if you’re going to dedicate your whole life to it. My intention then was to become a track rider.
You went from a twominute event in running to multi-hour bike races – how?
I’m still an explosive type of athlete on the bike, which takes people by surprise sometimes. But yeah, I didn’t do a five-hour ride for the first three years, and I’m still not one for just riding for hours.
What was the hardest part about making the switch?
Learning to ride in the bunch while training on my own. It’s all very well being able to hit all the power numbers, but if you can’t move efficiently through a bunch, it’s going to be very difficult to achieve results.
Has your running experience helped you
guard against overtraining?
Yes, definitely, and it’s especially relevant in the middle of a global pandemic! The American track and field coach Brad Stulberg emphasises the simple formula: stress plus rest
equals growth. We need to provide the appropriate physical stress of training but also remember that other stresses such as mental and emotional stress take their toll on the body.