Tyler Smith gives us an insight into what a typical week looks like at Leeds University :

A typical week in university I’m usually training from 28- 32 hours. During the weekdays we swim every morning and then have our hard track and cycling sessions in the afternoon. On Wednesday afternoons most people are free from Uni so there is always a good group to go for a long ride with. The weekends are always great because you can get in some big volume without having to shuffle around the schedule for lectures and labs. Luckily there are some good run routes in the city that I can go on in between lectures, and we have a gym on campus that’s easy to access as well. In general it’s been pretty easy to balance university and training. Taking sports science I enjoy the lectures, and sometimes they help me take my mind off the next hard training session. Most of my social group and friends are the people I train with, so I never feel like I’m missing much of a social life even if I’m in bed by 9:00 on a Friday night. The most important thing with training is to get enough rest and recovery so you can train longer and harder, so it’s not really too eventful of a life otherwise. I really enjoy what I’m able to do, and I think Leeds is a great place to be able to balance student athlete commitments.

My next race will be a European cup in Szekesfehervar, Hungary on the 25th of August, before the World University Championships in Sweden the next week, and then hopefully World U23 Championships in Gold Coast later in September.