{"id":133609,"date":"2016-02-16T16:31:05","date_gmt":"2016-02-16T14:31:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/?p=133609"},"modified":"2016-02-16T16:32:05","modified_gmt":"2016-02-16T14:32:05","slug":"unbelievable-story-lost-45kg-and-became-national-champ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2016\/02\/16\/unbelievable-story-lost-45kg-and-became-national-champ\/","title":{"rendered":"Unbelievable Story: Lost 45kg and Became National Champ"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Five years ago Hayley was just an ordinary PhD student focusing on her studies, but she went through such a radical change, one could scarcely believe it. She is 45 kg leaner, became the British National Time Trial Champion, just finished the Tour of Qatar and is looking at the prospect of starting at the Rio 2016 Olympics. But where did it all begin?<\/strong><br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-controller-wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Few pics from champions night on Saturday \ud83d\ude0a <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/vb93KfZvca\">pic.twitter.com\/vb93KfZvca<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Hayley Simmonds (@hayleyrsimmonds) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hayleyrsimmonds\/status\/689089772682366976?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 18, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async data-src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<p>\u201cI was good at a few sports,\u201d she told the Sunday Times. \u201cBut I wanted to stand out at one of them. I\u2019m quite stubborn. If I start a book, I have to finish it, even if I don\u2019t like it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She tried netball and rounders at school, then switched to rowing at the age of 13. When she joined Cambridge, she had already represented England at the 2004 Home International Regatta and was hoping to compete in the famous University Boat Race against Oxford, but training and racing were on Saturdays \u2013 and so were chemistry lectures.<\/p>\n<p>Determined, she set her alarms earlier and earlier, turning up exhausted to lectures and going out onto the river in the evening. It paid off, they won the boat race and Simmonds no longer had motivation to keep up her gruelling schedule. Throwing herself into her finals, she stopped sport altogether, yet continued eating a high-carb training diet, and got out of shape.<\/p>\n<p>Her now fianc\u00e9e Mark Holt knew Simmonds craved competitive action and suggested she give cycling a go \u2013 something he had done professionally. He lent her his bike, she picked up a cheap jersey and shorts and set off on a journey to glory up the British time trial ranks.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-133611\" src=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2016\/02\/10333303_10100914609512370_2003780803757026756_o-600x946.jpg\" alt=\"\u201cI was good at a few sports,\u201d she told the Sunday Times. \u201cBut I wanted to stand out at one of them. I\u2019m quite stubborn. If I start a book, I have to finish it, even if I don\u2019t like it.\u201d\" width=\"600\" height=\"946\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI liked the simplicity of it,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s you, the bike and the clock. I finished second in a national time trial series and thought, \u2018I can do this. Maybe if I lose some more weight I can get better?\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She embarked on a high-protein diet, eating nuts, eggs and sometimes even steak for breakfast, cutting out things like cereal, pasta, and bread, and giving away the cakes she loves to bake!<\/p>\n<p>Sticking to this, training on the turbo twice a day, trying to squeeze in three-hour rides early on summer mornings, and repeating the mantra, \u2018lose an ounce, gain a second\u2019 led to her leaving her rivals for dead in the British National Time Trial Championships \u2013 just five years after first sitting on a bike.<\/p>\n<p>Over a technical 33km course she beat Liv-Plantur\u2019s Molly Weaver and Paralympic Champion Dame Sarah Storey by over a minute, earning a place in Team GB\u2019s World Championship Team.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2016\/02\/CLV0SgWXAAAYXNU.jpg-large.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-133612\" src=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2016\/02\/CLV0SgWXAAAYXNU.jpg-large-600x800.jpeg\" alt=\"\u201cI liked the simplicity of it,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s you, the bike and the clock. I finished second in a national time trial series and thought, \u2018I can do this. Maybe if I lose some more weight I can get better?\u2019.\u201d\" width=\"600\" height=\"800\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>After disappointing hugely in the time trial, Simmonds put herself in the map of the Women\u2019s Elite Road Race, taking a crucial stint on the front to aid teammate Lizzie Armitstead. As Armitstead crossed the finish line the World Champion, Simmonds, making her debut, was the only other British rider to follow. She finished 79<sup>th<\/sup> and it now doesn\u2019t seem so crazy to be talking about Rio 2016\u2019s time trial.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was proud of that performance,\u201d she said. \u201cI felt like I was starting to belong and I got good feedback. I think that the coaches were a bit surprised.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She added: \u201cI always knew making it to Rio would be a stretch, but if you\u2019d have said last January that I would win the British Championships and go to the World\u2019s people would have laughed at you. I\u2019ve got to carry on working hard to show that I deserve a spot in the team.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Simmonds completes her PhD thesis next month and will join her new team United Healthcare in the US in April, returning to the UK at the start of June to compete in the Women\u2019s Tour and British Nationals, hopefully gaining Olympic qualification in the process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Five years ago Hayley was just an ordinary PhD student focusing on her studies, but she went through such a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":133610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[328,329,334],"tags":[],"global-categories":[],"class_list":["post-133609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-outdoor-mountain","category-road-cycling","category-socialising-and-culture"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.3 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - 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