Inside Sport has found possibly Australia’s most active woman – it’s Belinda Halloran: professional triathlete.
Power of yoga. Image: Warren Clarke
Before Belinda and her husband Grant welcomed four-year-old Audrey and Drew (one) into the world, Halloran was one of Australia’s prominent triathletes, racing at the elite level for 11 years under her maiden name, Cheney. She finished 19 full and half-Ironman races between 2000-05, winning Ironman Malaysia in 2001 and 2005.Kids are cute and married life’s bliss, but Halloran is hell-bent on returning to triathlon’s elite stage again, too. “People say to me, ‘Belinda, are you still racing?’ But I love it. If I can fit training and competing around my family and around my husband’s work, then why not keep going?” Here’s how she does it
Super parents
“When I look at some of the greats of sport, many have had wonderful, balanced lives. Take the late Kerry McCann for example, who was a mother of three kids and a two-time Commonwealth Games medallist. She will always be my hero, and people like Andrew Gaze, who was a father as well as a fantastic basketball player.“Just like some of the rugby greats who held down full-time jobs – Nick Farr-Jones was a lawyer as well as an international rugby player – you can be a wonderful role model in your community by showing that you can be a parent and still compete on the sporting arena.”
Back to her best
“I had a break after the birth of my first child four years ago and then I returned to the sport and represented Australia in the World Long Distance Triathlon Championships and the World Duathlon … Now I’m making my second comeback. I’m 32 and hoping to return to my best form. In endurance triathlon they
say your early 30s are your best years. I have one child starting school next year and I’m hoping 2009 and the next few years beyond will be some of the best of my career.”
“If we’re doing a big building phase, we’ll ride up to 400km a week,”
Images: Warren Clarke
Runs on the board
“Triathletes tend to peak in the latter stages of their careers because of the years of training you need under your belt in order for your body to be able to handle the distances of a marathon and the long periods on the bike. Your body changes – women particularly tend to get leaner. The guys tend to peak mid-30s and are gone, but the previous Ironman Triathlon world champion, Natascha Badmann, was 38-39 and still won the world titles.”
Water work
“My training is swimming, cycling and running triathlon-specific, but I also incorporate yoga and a bit of circuit training in there as well. I probably train for about two or three hours a day. I train early morning, then I’ll do another session at night. During the day I’m with my daughters, but when one starts going to school and as they get older, it’ll allow me to do a bit more. I do my swimming training with a squad. We normally cover four-five kilometres, but I also do a lot of ocean swimming at the Balmoral Beach Club because most of the triathlons I do feature open water racing. I compete in ocean races every weekend, which are about 1200m-1500m long. I’m one of those nuts who swim in the ocean all year round. I just love it.”
On her bike
“I have some cycling partners who are either age group triathletes or just good amateur cyclists. If we’re doing a big building phase, we’ll ride up to 400km a week, but at the moment we’re probably at the 200km mark. That’s pretty conservative for long distance triathlon training, which is what I’m training for. To be competitive again will be a whole new ball game. It’ll really require a lot of hard work. “My cycling tends to be a fair bit along the northern beaches. For the first year of Drew’s life, I did probably 85 per cent of my cycling on an indoor trainer, purely because I was breastfeeding for ten and a half months and I couldn’t be away. I’m the only person who can feed her. I have a bike at home and I do a lot of spin cycling sessions as well.”
“My training is swimming, cycling and running triathlon-specific,” Image: Warren Clarke
In the long run
“I have a couple of running partners, too. We probably cover up to 100km a week and usually run around the shores of Mosman and Balmoral. I enjoy running through the national park, Bradley’s Head, Chowder Bay … I mix it up.“Again, I fit my training around my girls. I often have to train at night, but my sponsor Brooks has looked after me in that respect because they gave me glow-in-the-dark training gear. So now there’s no excuse. If you see this fluoro-looking freak running through the streets in the middle of the night, that’s me!”
Power of yoga
“I try to do three sessions in the yoga studio a week. There’s two things about yoga which are fantastic. One’s the core strength it gives you – it strengthens and lengthens your muscles, but also there’s the mental side of it in regards to the meditation. “I’ve been working with my trainer Duncan Peak doing a specific yoga called Power Yoga. It’s all about using your own bodyweight to build strength. It almost replaces the need for weights or any strength work because we’re doing a lot of exercises and poses which require you to have enormous amounts of strength in your core and in your legs and arms in order to hold the positions. The power yoga is fantastic for athletes. The Waratahs do the same type of yoga I do. It’s been adapted to suit elite athletes.“Before my break I did 12 years of ‘conventional training’, but this time I’m incorporating things which are a little bit different. I’m doing the Power Yoga, I’m including Pilates and doing a lot more ocean swimming and just getting a bit more balance so that I can enjoy a long career. In elite sport the burnout rate is so high, you’ve got to try and mix it up a bit to avoid burnout, both mentally and physically.”
Feel the vibe
“Fitvibe is really exciting. I did Fitvibe with the Rancan sisters, Adele and Lisa, who have appeared on Channel Ten and who own a studio in Sydney. They have the only Fitvibe machine – a super-expensive machine – around. It vibrates and makes your muscles contract and works them at a rate which you can’t possibly do on your own. You’re doing the exercises on what’s called a vibration plate. When I first started doing it I thought ‘this is ridiculous’, but I actually found it very effective. It was fantastic in the lead–up to racing, but now that I’m back into competing, I probably won’t use it as much. For the average person in the street it’s fantastic because it’s very time-effective. You can do a small amount of work, say 30-45 minutes, and the vibration makes you work ten times harder than you normally would. It forces you to do quality, not quantity.”
Belinda Halloran. Image: Warren Clarke
Along came … everyone
“When other people come into your life, you have to start dividing your time. The plus side to that is the quality of life you gain by having a balanced approach, by meeting someone, getting married, and then by taking the next step and having children. It’s made me train more effectively. I used to not be relaxed about my time, but now I’m a lot more focussed on making every session count. “The only downside to it is you don’t have the recovery time. A lot of athletes train at 100 per cent. You’ll train in the morning, then you’ll go back to bed. You’ll try and recover. But when you’ve got two children and running a household and holding down a job you don’t have the opportunity to recover.”
Less the merrier
“I do train less than I used to, but I do quality when I can and just make those quality sessions the best I can and cut out a lot of what I call ‘rubbish kays’. I’ve done 12 years’ solid training, so I’m probably not doing the kilometres on the road I used to, but I’m still working just as hard on the sessions that count. “Triathlon is a sport which attracts a certain type of person. It’s the ‘obsessive compulsive, more is better’ way of thinking. There’s still that thought that doing more kilometres is better. I’ve only really been forced into this other way of thinking because I don’t have the time and now I’ve realised it’s working. Maybe the secret might get out there.”
Losing weights
“Gym work isn’t really a priority. I did a lot of it just after the births because there was no way I could get back on the bike and start training until my body had mended. You do gym work for a lot of specific things in regard to maintenance and rehabilitation, but once you’re back into the flow of racing, the weights almost get cancelled out completely.“Many athletes, Emma Snowsill for example, are doing Pilates instead of weights because it’s more about lengthening the muscle and not building bulk. We make sure we don’t carry any excess when we’re trying to run.”
My Mosman
“I was elected to Mosman Council in September last year. People who know me weren’t surprised I ran for council because I was the president of my student council at school for years. I was always involved in student protests and things like that. So, as my husband says, I’ve been a trouble-maker for years. And now it’s just putting me in a controlled enviroment!“There’s lots of meetings, lots of listening to people about things they’re happy and not happy with. It’s all about being in touch with the community. I’ve fallen in love with the area and the people are wonderful. So I thought, ‘If I have the time – I don’t really have the time – who needs sleep?’ I feel really privileged to be elected and who knows, it may be the beginning of a different career?”
– James Smith