After the birth of her son Finn a year ago, Becky made a very impressive return to competing for Spencer in Slovenia. Combining motherhood with work means that she is no longer able to train with Spencer, so for the time being she is an enthusiastic out of town member. “I absolutely love being part of the team when I race and seeing how you’re all getting on with races.” Becky’s pool time has been limited recently, but she has concentrated on quality work and technique – lots of drill work which she describes as being like yoga – and also credits some tactical racing to her success in lake Bled, where she finished 9th in the 5k and 12th in the 3k.
Becky is told that she learnt to swim as a toddler on holiday when her older sister decided it would be fun to push Becky into the pool without arm bands when their parents were not looking. She did the perfect Nirvana baby impression under the water, although was unable to surface. She started racing when the family moved to the US and was competing in an open air, long course pool at the age of 5 – needing a helping hand to get up onto the gigantic blocks. She started out as a breaststroker but by her early teens had moved to backstroke and even recalls a sadistic year of loving 400IM and 200m fly before, following several shoulder injuries, she moved to long distance freestyle. Hours and hours of plodding in the pool not sprinting to protect my shoulders means that she feels she has lost her fast twitch muscle fibre, and she dreads sprint sets in the pool – give her long pull sets any day.
She swam at school and university, but then had a complete break from the water for almost 10 years. After a number of knee injuries from marathon running, she decided to give triathlon a go and that is where her love for open water swimming began, despite not being keen on cold water (she treasures her extensive collection of wetsuits). Becky completed her first 10km open water race two years ago and remembers squeezing into a wetsuit when 7 months pregnant to race the swim leg of a triathlon relay, coming out of the water first to a round of applause from the cyclists waiting in transition. She is, however, terrified of the sea and puts her success in Lake Bled down to her fear that she was being chased by a big fish.
Becky joined Spencer in the lead up to the European Masters in London, which seemed the perfect reason to give pool racing a go again and knowing that that would require more structured and varied swim training. Triathlon is still her first love, and she races two or three times a year. Luckily she is married to the most understanding man in the world who loves to bring Finn to watch her race – and search out the bacon sandwiches.