We speak to an Olympic distance runner turned triathlete to hear more about juggling three sports in one

Rio Olympian Beth Potter committed to triathlon with a move to Leeds in 2017, but she raced back into athletics’ consciousness when she ran what was, at the time, the fastest women’s 5km in history (14:41) at Barrowford in April last year. 

Although her performance wasn’t ratified as an official world record, it served as a reminder that class is permanent, even when her participation – in athletics at least – was temporary.

An experienced and talented runner with PBs of 15:28.32 (5000m) and 32:03.45 (10,000m), Potter switched to triathlon with the goal of making it on to a global podium. 

“I just felt like it was so unachievable for me to get a global medal on the track in the 5000m or 10,000m,” she says. “It’s just so hard to compete [with the African athletes]. I want a global medal at the end of the day.

“Triathlon is still really hard because all the really good guys are Brits, so I’m working my way up to the top, but I just didn’t see it happening [on the track]. I just didn’t think I was good enough.”

The 30-year-old has created her own unique training set-up in Leeds. Jack Maitland, former head coach at Leeds Triathlon Centre, oversees her programme and, together with two-time Olympic triathlon champion Alistair Brownlee, he also helps out with her cycling. Andy Henderson, who has a talented group of athletes including Olympic 800m runner Alex Bell, looks after her running; Coz Tantrum, former coach to the Brownlee brothers, looks after her swimming; and Dane Mitchell is her gym coach.

The 2019 European triathlon champion made history at Gold Coast 2018 when she became the first Team Scotland athlete to compete across two sports – athletics and triathlon – in the same Games. She will represent Scotland in the triathlon at her third Commonwealth Games in Birmingham this summer. 

 “I know I’m in good shape, but I don’t know how I’ll stack up against the other girls,” she says. “I don’t want to put a mark on it because I don’t want to be disappointed or unrealistic, but I’ll be aiming for the podium.”

Typical training week

As a runner, Potter was coached by Mick Woods from 2012-2018 and averaged 80-85 miles per week while working full-time as a physics teacher. Now, she rarely exceeds 30 miles per week (running). “It’s about getting the quality in,” she says. “I ran the 14:41 5k mainly off swim and bike. My running was just complementing the huge aerobic engine that I had.”

Monday: easy aerobic day; (am) easy technique, aerobic swim with focus on recovery from the weekend; (pm) 1.5-2hr easy bike ride, followed immediately by a run (“a longer aerobic session just to get used to running straight off the bike”). Gym session in the evening: “At this time of year (spring) we’re lifting heavier weights, shorter reps and just introducing more plyometric stuff,” she explains.

Tuesday: (am) 90min VO2 session (pool) e.g., main set 1500m-2km worth of top end work, reps around 100-200m range, no more than 400m; easy spin (75-90min) in the middle of the day either on the turbo or outside; (evening) track session – only hard run session of the week currently – with a group based at Leeds Beckett University: “We do either 8km worth of effort on the track or we split it up with a bit of tempo, bit of track, bit of tempo, bit of track.”

Wednesday: aerobic day – long aerobic miles; (am) 5.5-6km swim (pool in winter, open water in summer); break, then 3-3.5hr of steady riding .

Thursday: key session day; (am) swim 1.5hr: “It’s a threshold day, so it’s a big block of thresholds in the pool broken into longer reps 300m/400m range off short recovery then straight out for an easy run 45-60min.”; (pm) VO2 session on the bike with something like 24min worth of effort and mixture of reps.

Friday: easy swim: “We call it ‘toys Friday’, we get all the toys out in the pool, a lot of upper body strength stuff, parachute, sponges, paddles and we have a 300m block broken into 50ms and 25ms for some really fast stuff.”; gym session and chill out rest of the day.

Saturday: (am) group ride with the Leeds cyclists, around 45min of effort within the ride but the whole ride is quite fast: “We brought it in at the start of the year and planned to do it for 2-3 months, but we’ve ended up keeping it in. It’s really helped with my riding this year. I’ve learned a lot … little habits that I’ve picked up that are good habits.”; (pm) 45min easy run.

Sunday: easy aerobic day like a Wednesday; (am) 2.5-3hr riding; (pm) 60min running.

Favourite session

“I still like track! I really enjoy my Saturday group ride with the cyclists, too, it’s a good atmosphere and a good community …. I like anything that’s either VO2 or threshold across all three, I enjoy that aspect of it.”

Least favourite session

“The only thing I struggle with is doing my Sunday run. All the runners go in the morning and I’m often on my own in the afternoon. I’m really tired on a Sunday afternoon and the thought of it, even though it’s just an hour, I just find it hard at the end of the week to drag myself out.”

As a young athlete, Potter – recently announced as a UK ambassador for Garmin – excelled in swimming and running. Given her starting point of relative inexperience, her greatest gains in triathlon, so far at least, have come on the bike where she opts for the support of Garmin’s Edge 1030 Plus model.

“I really like that you can download routes,” she says. “It was so useful to have satellite navigation on group rides over the winter so that when the cyclists split, I knew where the route was going.

“I often repeat the same sessions, too, so I’ve got a spreadsheet now and we like to compare sessions week on week, track it basically. I think that throughout the winter I’ve become stronger, and the Garmin data has proved that.” 

For runners considering a move to triathlon, Potter’s advice includes phasing it in gradually and choosing quality over quantity. “It’s also about enjoyment,” she adds. “Join a club, train with people that are better than you, and don’t get hung up on the times you used to run as a runner.”