My killer session – Hayley Yelling

At the 2004 European Cross Country Championships in Heringsdorf, Germany, Hayley Yelling triumphed against tough competition from Polish athlete Justyna Bak and fellow countrywoman Jo Pavey to claim the biggest race win of her life at the age of 30.

Yelling managed to fight off the best in Europe despite juggling a 90-mile training week with a demanding teaching job, which saw her fitting grueling cross country and track sessions around parents’ evenings and lesson planning.

Her life now as a mother of two-year-old twin boys couldn’t be more different to her heady days of competing in multiple European and World championships on the track and country. As a coach with Yelling Performance, the company she set up with her brother Martin, and also working as a maths tutor, Yelling keeps herself fit by pushing her children in a double buggy along Bournemouth promenade for anything between 6 and 14 miles.

It represents a marked change from her nine years at the top level of athletics training under coach Conrad Milton at Windsor Slough Eton & Hounslow AC.

Fitting double training days around long days in the classroom, the diminutive sister-in-law of Liz Yelling swore by a number of sessions to confirm her training was on track for major track or road races. One key killer session was 5 x (5x200m) with 30 seconds recovery and three minutes between sets leading up to a 5000m race, and 20x400m with one minute recovery for 10,000m preparation.

“The 200m session really got my heart rate up, and with only 30 seconds recovery, it worked on my speed endurance, while I knew I was fit when I …

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