Non Stanford: Dreams, Dales, Disaster and Delight

Anyone wandering along a slippery, empty path in Hyde Park, neighbouring the chilly looking Serpentine water last Wednesday morning was in for quite a surprise! Any expectation of a quiet stroll while the rest of the capital’s population was nursing a hangover or 8 million following the previous nights’ activities was punctured rather quickly. Yet while the silence may well have been punctured, the sense of intrigue and inspiration was inflated. Not only was there an extremely successful 10km race around the boundaries of the park, but there was also a brave, barking mad bunch of swimmers, many of whom were donning little more than a pair of skimpy speedos, surveying the Serpentine before diving in for a dip in the 5 degree water! All that was missing was some form of cycle race and it would have felt alarmingly similar, albeit a little colder, to another very wet day nearly four months ago in September.

That particular day was Saturday 14^th September. The final of the Women’s Triathlon World Series. In Hyde Park. The competitors had to swim 1500 metres in the serpentine, get out and cycle 40km around the park, before forcing their exhausted legs through a further 10km of running. The undoubted star of the event was Britain’s Non Stanford. Despite clocking up a 15-second penalty for not placing her wet suit inside her box in transition after the swim, she charged away from the rest of the field on the run to win the gold medal in front of a drenched, but jubilant home crowd.

Non Stanford Celebrates winning the ITU Triathlon Final in London in September (Photo: bbc.co.uk)

The Welsh born athlete, who celebrates her 25^th birthday today, was still coming to terms with it a few weeks later. “It has been an absolute dream season,” she explains. “It’s quite surreal. All my friends and family were there. That made it all the more special. It was nice to do it for them.”

While the Brownlee brothers garner understandable, and deserved, attention as the darlings of triathlon, the achievements of Britain’s female triathletes have perhaps been overlooked in recent years. It is easy to forget that Chrissie Wellington won four ironman world championships in Hawaii between 2007 and 2011, while Brit Leanda Cave made it 5 years in 6 for British women in 2012.

Given this neglect, it is perhaps understandable that the name Non Stanford does not immediately register. It was, after all, only just over two years ago Non left her job working at the University sports department at Birmingham having graduated the previous summer. Now she’s the best female triathlete in the world. It has been an extraordinary transition. Indeed, the only other triathlete who has gone from Under 23 World Champion to World Champion in successive years is Alistair Brownlee. The speed of this success has come as a surprise to the Welsh born athlete herself.

“I never dreamed of it. I never thought I would be able to emulate Alistair in that respect. After winning the Under 23 title I hoped that a few years down the line I might be able to lose the under 23 part of that title, but it was beyond my expectations for it to happen the following year”, Stanford admits.

“In saying that, it’s not an overnight success. I’ve been training hard for a number of years and even before I took up triathlon, I was running for a long time and from a pretty early age”.

Sport has always played a key part in Stanford’s life. “My mother was one of the British gymnastics coaches so I was automatically dragged along after school and every weekend. I would be playing with my barbies in the corner at the start, and then when I was old enough I gave it a try,” she explains.

It didn’t seem to run in the genes. “I wasn’t very good at it! Much to my mother’s dismay!”

That is perhaps no surprise to those who know her well. “I’m incredibly clumsy. All my teammates call me a disaster. I seem to always be finding new ways to fall over in the middle of a run session, or fall off my bike; so gymnastics and I were not great partners”. After trying a mixture of tennis, ballet and swimming, she settled on running, but only took up triathlon as a sport when she was 19, during her second year at university.

“I had gone to university as a runner. I was on a running scholarship but had spent the last two years injured and the only way I could find to keep fit was cross training. But I was getting really bored of being injured the whole time, so that’s where I needed a new challenge and a bit of a change in direction. Triathlon filled that gap”.

Non runs away from the rest of the field. (Photo: Getty Images)

In that respect, her time spent at university provided an important opportunity for reflection. Coping with the inevitable injuries sustained from intensive training is arguably the single toughest aspect of being a professional athlete. The time spent marooned on the physio’s couch is enough to sink the very best. Non admits that what could have been a very difficult period was made much easier by the distractions presented by further education.

“Having some down time really gave me the chance to develop as a person and also realise that triathlon was what I really wanted to do. I also experienced the party side of things, and had a really sociable time. That was great because ultimately it made me realise that I did want to pursue a career in sport and I got that partying out of my system. It worked out really well for me.”

Yet that is only the start of the story. She spent a year training in Birmingham upon graduating, whilst simultaneously holding down two jobs. One of these was at the university’s sports department, whose scholarship programme had supported her so well during the previous years, and the other at the local bike shop who still sponsor her now. To reach the next stage though, a plunge needed to be taken, and it was it was Kelly Holmes, her long term mentor, who provided the necessary shove which has been so instrumental to her progression.

“She gave me a bit of an ultimatum. She said to me that if I really wanted to take this seriously then I had to move up to Leeds to work under Malcolm Brown, and go full time. So I bit the bullet, handed in my notice at work and moved up to Leeds.”

It was a watershed moment, and despite feeling the pain of being further away from her family, she has thrived under the coaching of Brown. With a pool of athletes based up in the Dales which includes the Olympic gold and bronze medallists, as well as Tom Bishop and her boyfriend David McNamee (who is also a triathlete), she has no shortage of training partners to test herself against.

It is an environment she clearly enjoys. “It’s very easy to get out into the Dales from where I’m based.” Non lives just outside Leeds city centre. “I think it’s one of the reasons the athletes up here are so successful; we have everything on our doorstep. It’s not a hardship to go out and cycle in the countryside because it is so beautiful,” she adds, which is just as well given the intensive training schedule she undertakes.

On a typical day she is in the pool by 7am; a start she describes as ‘fairly leisurely’! That perhaps in itself speaks volumes about how much understated hard work goes in, but also the depths to which she feels comfortable, and is enjoying the set up.

“I tend to get up at 6.15. After an hour and a half of swimming, we’ll go for a longish run (about 70 minutes) followed by a 3-4 hour bike ride. We’ll then be in the gym for some strength and conditioning in the evening. Every day is quite different though. We usually swim, bike and run every day though. In the winter it amounts to 30-35 hours of training a week.”

She clearly loves the training. She took a two-week break from it all at the start of October to have some rest and recuperation to travel around Italy, yet one of the first things she mentions when I speak to her is how much she is looking forward to getting back on the bike in the Dales!

I wonder how she finds the energy for it. “I think you do get used to it. You are tired a lot of the time, especially during the winter when the training volume is so high. But you get into a routine and you get used to always being hungry.” It’s a good job she loves cooking then. “I’m certainly no masterchef, but I love making homemade burgers and chips! My chocolate orange cake has been quite popular too lately!”

And what does she make of the Brownlee brothers? I ask her which one of them has the better sense of humour. “Oh god!” she gasps, searching for a diplomatic response. “Jonny’s very good at the one liners. Alistair has generally got a very good sense of humour though, whereas Jonny can be quite serious most of the time.”

“They are true legends of our sport though. We’re very fortunate we can learn what it takes from them.” That learning process stretches beyond the pool, track or muddy hills of training too. Non’s success this summer has inevitably led to a raft of media and sponsor interest, something she acknowledges is a great compliment, but is understandably keen to ensure it does not distract her focus.

“My team around me have tried to keep everything normal and quiet. That’s where having experience in dealing with Alistair and Jonny has really helped. At the end of the day, I’m training with a whole range of athletes too, some of whom are just students, so that gives you a good perspective on life.”

It is easy to forget she almost didn’t make it to the start line in London at all, having crashed out of the mixed relays, which she was competing in with the Brownlees, in Hamburg less than two months before, fracturing her elbow in the process.

Non takes the baton from Alistair Brownlee at the start of her calamitous leg in Hamburg (Photo: mirror.co.uk)

Hearing the stick Alistair Brownlee gave Jonny for losing his sprint finish in London in September, Non counts herself fortunate she ended up in hospital straight after the race and didn’t have to face the inevitable abuse that came her way from the Olympic Champion! “I’m sure he called me a lot of things. Thankfully I didn’t have to hear them!”

Yet the race against time to get fit for the finals in London meant the fun and games stopped for a while, especially when the fracture took a week to diagnose. “It was a stressful few weeks after that. But there was never really a point where I thought, even when I was lying in hospital, I wouldn’t make it. I never gave myself that option really,” she explains in her unflinchingly positive manner. “They decided not to cast it so I was very fortunate in that respect. But I did have to sit on a turbo for quite a while. We were up in the mountains, so I was sat on a balcony on my turbo while everyone else was out cycling.”

Yet that hard work would pay dividends a few weeks later, and her ability in wet conditions meant she thrived as many of her fair weather rivals failed to cope with the slippery roads of the capital. Still only in her mid-twenties one cannot help but feel this is only just the beginning for Non.

“The main aim for 2014 is representing Wales in the Commonwealths. I’d love to win up in Glasgow. I’d also love to try to defend my World Championship title, but I don’t know how plausible that is with the Commonwealths at this stage.” Beyond that, she has her eyes set on the Rio Olympics in 2016, especially with London 2012 having come too soon for her, but has no plans to compete in an Ironman anytime soon.

“It seems like a very long day out to me,” she jokes. “I definitely haven’t got my head around it. You never know what might change further down the line, so we’ll see, but I don’t even want to think about it at the moment.”

For a moment I forget that this is a World Champion speaking. In an age when celebrity defines so many sports and their stars, that speaks volumes.