A Day in the Life – In Athlete Lockdown with rower Becky Wilde

Name: Becky Wilde

Studying: Sport and Social Science at Bath University

Sport: Rowing

And: Member of the Talented Athlete Advisory Group (TAAG)

7.00am – Alarm goes off. I’m trying to stick to some sort of normality, so I’m still waking up early ish each day. I don’t function well without a routine! The dogs keep me company at breakfast and I’ll read the news. I like to keep up to date with what’s going on in the world, although as it is so depressing at the moment I’m keeping that to once a day.

8.00am – I’ll head into our garden shed for first session. Dad converted it into a home gym a few years ago (little did he know how useful this would turn out to be!) and I am spending a LOT of time in there at the moment. We still have a programme to follow as we would normally, and first session is on the erg (rowing machine). It is usually a UT2 session (steady state training), anything between 12 and 18KM. If it is sunny I’ll move the erg outside. This is meant to be the best time of the year for a rower: the long, hard winter months are finally over, the sun is shining and regatta season is starting. I can’t replicate the water at home, but being able to erg in the sunshine and get a tan has helped me cope a little!

9.30am – second breakfast! The family have all gone a bit crazy with newspaper puzzles and crosswords at the moment and the kitchen table is littered with them. My brother and sister are probably still in bed at this point so I’ll entertain myself with these whilst I eat.

11.00am – back into the shed for second session. Some days this is S&C, others it’s a hard erg. Dad has borrowed some weights so I can do most exercises like normal. I just have to be careful not to drop any weights and break the floorboards! Radio 1 often keeps me company… they can be long and lonely sessions on your own.

The ergs vary in length, but they are all pretty savage. The splits don’t lie and we’re sending our scores into our Slack group. It’s keeping us on our toes and makes sure we aren’t slacking. I’ve had no complaints from the neighbours about the noise yet, so hopefully they can put up with it for a few more weeks!

1.00pm – lunchtime. Can’t say it’s anything exciting! I’ll then head back to the shed or garden for a short trunk session. Lockdown has given me lots of time to focus on prehab and strengthen areas of weakness and I have been trying lots of new exercises. Currently my headstands are still a work in progress, but small improvements have been made!

2.30pm – I’ll have a snack and eventually drag myself off to do uni work. I am in final year and only have one assignment left. It proved a nice distraction at first but now I’m a bit bored and keep getting drawn to the food cupboards…

5.00pm – If I’ve got enough work done I’ll start doing something different. I don’t really have an excuse not to be productive at the moment, so there is a lot of lifestyle admin I am trying to get done.

If the sun is shining I am trying to spend as much time outside as possible, I would have struggled a lot more if this had happened during the winter months! With sporty (PE teaching) parents our garden is littered with sports equipment. Badminton and table tennis are the current tournaments and we recently got a darts board. I have limited coordination, aim and patience so I am frequently occupying the bottom spot of the leader boards… Endurance sports are definitely more my thing!

6.00pm – Some nights I do a Zoom Pilates class. It’s been nice to try some different exercises and it’s given me a lot to work on. My Mum often does them with me and is actually better than me at a lot of things, which is embarrassing. But we’re both super competitive and it’s motivating me to get better.

7.00pm – Supper time! Mum and Dad are both teachers and their jobs are stressful at the best of times, let alone with the current situation. We’re making sure this is the one time each day all 5 of us sit down together and have a laugh! The cooking is alternated each night and I am definitely turning out to be the least inventive chef…. any suggestions would be more than welcome!

8.00pm – Killing Eve and Gangs of London are the current favourites on TV, or we have a family quiz night with our grandparents over FaceTime. It’s my favourite night of the week and as usual in this household it is intensely competitive! We are each quizmasters for one round each and my knowledge of the most quirky of topics has been an added bonus of this lockdown period!

10.00pm – I am still training at a similar intensity to normal so I try and ensure I get to bed early. I love reading and there is nothing better than escaping reality for a bit!