How I get fit done
Zoe Harrison, 24, is representing England in the Women’s Rugby World Cup this month. Here’s how she trains for victory
My mum was a horse rider and my dad and brother played rugby, so I’ve been around sport all my life. As a young child, I’d do anything to be like my brother, so when he started playing rugby, we’d play together in the park. I was only five. Even now, when people ask me why I kick a certain way, I always say, ‘It’s what my brother did.’ He was smacking the ball 20m at the age of six, so I was doing the same.
In my school days, I’d play football or rugby seven days a week. But I always enjoyed rugby more. Aged 13, I joined a girls’ rugby team before starting the AASE girls’ rugby programme (an Advanced Apprenticeship in Sporting Excellence) at 16. The training was intense; I’d have rugby training twice a day and two or three gym sessions per week – usually weightlifting. But this was, and remains, the only schedule I stick to (I’m too superstitious to follow a routine – because what if it was a match day in the World Cup and I couldn’t follow it?) During these years, I learned the importance of sleep and good nutrition for recovery – meaning the pizza habit and 1am bedtimes had to go.
From there, I joined Saracens Women, based in north London. Now that I was a senior player, the programme was even more intense. I play fly-half, so it’s my job to lead my teammates around the pitch. My first senior game was daunting. I was 18, telling players as old as 35 what to do, and the opposing team had players much bigger than me running full pelt in my direction. Sure, I lifted weights, but I was nowhere near their size. To this day, the hardest thing about rugby is the contact. I won’t shy away from it, but it’s hard to get yourself psyched up for someone who weighs 16st running straight at you. You’ve just got to do it.
Training is physically challenging – Itrain for six hours every day except Sunday, as part of the World Cup camp. That
