Ashleigh Pittaway has given me a jarring sense of perspective.

For one thing, Ashleigh has she been competing internationally alongside preparation for A-Levels – the most taxing exams she will, thanks to coronavirus, probably never get to sit.

I well remember that period of my life, albeit 20 years behind me now. It was hard. I can’t imagine the attrition on body and soul of trying to maintain a competitive sliding career alongside education.

“I like showing parts of my daily training to show that we as athletes still have to be active every day”

Forget about academics though: it’s the sense of athletic perspective that I keep banging my head on. Fear not, I don’t spend my time comparing my fitness levels with elite athletes – road to emotional ruin if ever I saw one – but there’s something both contrasting and simultaneously relatable about the situation we all find ourselves in at the moment. Something that’s sharpened that athletic perspective and shoved it conspicuously to stage-centre.  

Like anyone else trying to stay in shape during the coronavirus pandemic, I can’t get to a gym. Fine. I’ve got an old bench, a barbell and a set of dumbells. In fact I’ve dug out a skipping rope too, which is new territory for me. So you could say I’m exceeding my pre-lockdown fitness regime: no gym, no problem.

But while I can squat, lift, press and curl – and now skip – I’m a 42 year old writer. Ashleigh Pittaway is a former Youth Olympic Champion, bronze medallist at last year’s World Junior Championships, and a 2022 Beijing hopeful. I squat 55kg, right? Ashleigh squats double that.

I think you see what I mean about perspective: the home gym isn’t going to cut it.

Nevertheless, lockdown means lockdown, and just like your local gym, Ashleigh Pittaway’s highly specialised training facility is also closed.

“It isn’t the same training at home vs. in a high performance gym,” Ashleigh concedes. “But we have a great team of strength and conditioning coaches who have figured out a program. Our training mainly consists of bodyweight exercises, core and upper body, yoga, drills or hill sprints.”

If you’ve been anywhere near social media lately (and let’s face it, now more than ever you have) your smart phone is probably straining under a raft of new media, from images to videos, all alluding to the theme of a nation with too much time on its hands and not enough activity to fill them. Gardening, painting, staring at the walls – apparently this is how some people are whiling their days away. Deciding which 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle to complete next is not a problem for the elite athlete of course, but while she stays focused on fitness, Ashleigh nevertheless appreciates that there is a change of tone to her daily routines.

“I have been training twice or three times a day most days, attended several different meetings online and continued to study hard for my upcoming assessments. I have also been working on my nutrition to maximize training. But it is also nice to have some downtime from the usual stress and it has been nice to spend some time with myself and to have loads of time to chat to my family back home in Germany.” 

Ashleigh Pittaway was born in Munich and it was in Germany that she nurtured her early sliding skills. It would turn out to be an auspicious proving ground for the Team GB racer.

“I got into skeleton through the German program when I was 10. I was a trampolinist like my dad, before I transitioned into the sliding sport. I had to stop trampolining when I finished German primary school in Munich and started boarding at a school in Berchstesgaden in lower Bavaria, as there weren’t any clubs in that area. My dad had a look at different winter sports I could get into and came across skeleton. We met up with the coach at the time, he looked at my athletic abilities and after testing he invited me to have a go at sliding. My first sessions on ice were terrifying but I toughed it out and now I love what I do! I switched to the British team when I was 14 and have since represented the country on all circuits.”