7.50am

I GET straight out of bed when the alarm sounds and then have my breakfast. At the moment I’m currently following a strange diet because I’ve an allergy to latex (from swimming hats).

I’m following a Paleolithic diet, which means I can only eat foods that cavemen would have eaten! So far it’s working very well, but it means that for breakfast I have sardines and a whole grapefruit.

8.25am

Today is a training day and it takes half-an-hour to get to the outdoor swimming pool in the traffic.

9am

I’m in France, and I am doing my swimming training with other triathletes.

The session begins with a 1,500-metre warm-up. The coaches then have us do 12 x 50 metres as we pick up the pace. That’s followed by three kilometres of race pace work before our warm-down. On the poolside I drink watered-down orange juice.

11am

We drive back home.

Midday

I make myself a tuna steak on the barbecue and do oven-roasted leeks, tomatoes and red cabbage with a little olive oil and lemon.

1.45pm

My housemate and I leave on the bikes to cycle to where we’re meeting the others for afternoon training.

2pm

We ride for nearly four hours with the group. I take about a litre-and-a-half of water during the training. I also snack on dates and dried apricots.

6pm

We do a mix of running that includes 100 metre fast running to work on technique before returning to jogging pace.

7.30pm

Back at my apartment I barbecue a lean horse steak. The meat really isn’t as horrendous as it sounds because these horses are bred specifically for food. I also have a salad, which I make with lettuce, peppers, red onion, cucumber, spinach, lemon juice, salt and pepper.

On days when I have a very hard session I will eat a little white rice; I can’t have brown because of the grain. Today’s workout was more aerobic than weight-bearing, and so isn’t considered a hard session.

8pm

I have more water with my meal. I am very tired and my housemate and I chat and relax.

10.30pm

I am in bed.

Emma Davis, the first Irish triathlete to qualify and compete at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, is busy training to qualify for the 2012 Olympic Games

– Nancy Previs

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