Beyond training: A day in the life of a professional triathlete

Ever wondered how a professional triathlete spends their days? Taylor Reid gives insight into daily life as a pro beyond training.

As a professional triathlete, a lot happens on a daily basis beyond training. We do much more than just eat, sleep and train. For me, a day usually consists of three workouts, or about four to six hours of actual training. But my “work day” is actually eight to 10 hours long. I plan my day around my swim workouts, since these are fixed.

Morning

I wake up and have breakfast. While I’m doing that I check my e-mails and social media to see if anything has come up over night that I need to address right away. Then it’s off to the first workout (usually a swim or a run). When I am home in Ontario the pool is about 20 minutes away, so not a bad drive.

The first thing I do when I get home from swimming is eat some food. Then it is back on the computer to work on a sponsorship proposal, write a blog post or look for a new possible sponsor I can contact. In the early and late part of the year, a lot of my time is spent going back and forth with sponsors and ironing out contracts. This can be a drawn-out process, and the athlete must find the right balance of not asking for too much but also not selling out. Some of the top pros will have agents to do this work. But I enjoy this part of my job on my own.

Afternoon

I then get ready for my mid-day workout. After eating lunch I usually see if I can come up with a good social media post. Most good ideas come to me while I am in a workout or just spontaneously, but I need to put some time aside to make it look good, to check that everything is spelled correctly and to make sure it is appealing to my audience. With contractual obligations revolving around my social media, I also need to make sure I cover all the necessary bases. Next, I spend a little more time working on sponsorship proposals, sponsor phone calls or writing articles. If I’m lucky, I may sneak in a little nap. If I miss that nap, coffee is my savior.

Evening

Then I’m off to do my last workout of the day. My evenings are usually spent doing some foam-rolling. If I have a video on the go that I’m making, I’ll work on that or anything else that has not been completed. I also like to keep the some time in the evening to socialize with family and friends. 

Sometimes I get the opportunity to give back to the community by giving a talk, running a workout or volunteering at a race. I love doing stuff like that as it’s a nice change of pace. It is very important to me that I give back to the people who support me and that I support the next generation of the sport.