An exclusive interview with Heptathlete Katarina Johnson Thompson
- Darryl Gibney
- Jul 18, 2017
- 4 min read
The GB team for the IAAF World Championships in London has just been announced this afternoon, and chief amongst the team is the formidable Heptathlete Katarina Johnson Thompson. She will perform in the High Jump and Heptathlon and fresh from performing a personal best at the Gotzi-Hypo meeting in May, she is on fire and ready for her place on the podium this time.
I got the chance to catch up with her ahead of Championship season beginning thanks to BRITA UK. On a sleepy Saturday in London's Finsbury Park she put me and a team of much fitter sports-nuts through our paces with the help of Rabble. Katarina has put together a special training manual for Brita UK, Switch 7 - focusing on seven disciplines of power, strength, stamina and hydration. Brita recently launched their new Fill & Go bottle which includes a filter in every bottle helping you hydrate more efficiently during your workout.
Recent research revealing that 68% of UK gym-goers feel their current routine doesn’t challenge them and are looking to switch it up. Most of us only attempt to switch up our fitness regime's every three months whereas the body adapts to new workouts every two weeks, so bringing variety and choice into your workout is paramount.
Katharina knows this more than anyone being a professional athlete, so i asked her what motivates her to workout most....
We're here today for BRITA UK, what was the inspiration today for putting together the plan for the fitness tips?
I'm a Heptathlete and its nice to show the elements to my life, its my sport and my event so we teamed up to create this 7 point plan which was based around Strength, Power, Endurance, Speed and Agility and i think it went really well to have those elements today
Do you use all the different exercises we've done today, like the hill runs and the resistance training?
Yes is use all these different elements in different ways, and it was nice to adapt it so it wasn't just heptathlon related. I definitely do the hill runs - they're a key element of my training. I actually took the day off today to be here but usually i do hill-runs every Saturday so thats why today i was just sort of stuck on the hill
I was wondering, because you literally just did that back to back, didn't you today?
Yeah, it was ok, i just did a little work out there to help. I always find that exercises like that are easier when its with other people, like chasing other people so i tried to help out that way. All the elements are bits i use in training because i have a lot of events so i have to be good at all of them.
So when you're training do you always have other people around you? Today we all did it as a team. Would you always have other people to compete against or do you prefer to train by yourself?
Yes, I've got training partners and i find it so much more helpful and its a lot easier and i also feel like you don't slack off as much when there's people around you. If someone just went on a jog and they started to feel tired, they'd stop, whereas with a group of people or a friend its a lot easier to get through it.
You've also moved to France for training this year, have you found that a big change?
Yes my life's completely different in every respect! I live in France now. My training's different, I train a lot more. My group are really different; I have a bigger group now and I train with them a lot. The weather is a lot different as well!
How are you getting used to the language?
The language is the most difficult thing for me, I find everything else seems to slide and fit in but the language it tough.
Do you find that getting out of your comfort zone like that and moving away from what you'd been doing for a couple of years has really helped you?
I feel like its helped me as a person, progressing in, just, life! I feel like in Liverpool i was just at home and i was used to my lifestyle but now i have to challenge myself. So you know, I've learned a lot about myself in different things i can so i'm happy that i've done it!
One of our readers wanted to know most was how you overcome disappointment like when you set yourself goals and challenges and obviously there's a lot of pressure on you as an athlete. How do you deal with that pressure?
Yes, its very difficult. In life you have this certain mindset of how life's going to be and sometimes that changes and its out of your control. So just basically going along with life being, 'well that wasn't meant for me, what can i do and whats within my control that i can change?'.
And thats really completely changed my life and i've tried to adapt and think 'well i think this went wrong because of this, this and this - i can change these things so lets see if it goes right now'
So its all about figuring out what you can control and not worrying about the stuff you can't? Thats an amazing tip for our readers!
So whats next for you now?
Its competition season now! i've done all the hard work so hopefully, fingers crossed the things i've changed work (laughing).
Whens your first competition?
Next week! Not my first Heptathlon, thats at the end of the month. So just little events up to the then.
Well, well done, we're all right behind you!
After this interview, Katarina went on to score a personal best of 6691 points at the Gotzi-Hypo meeting in Austria. But due to the highly competitive athletes performing she just missed out on her spot on the podium. but as she says she only worries about what she can control now and I for one think she's not even near to peaking in her ability to break records.
Special thanks to Brita UK for organising our chat with Katarina.
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