by It’s exactly a year since Georgia Bell, a full-time cyber security expert, decided to put her fitness to the test by entering the Parkrun at Bushy Park near her home in south London.
Yes, the pedigree of the English schools national title 800 meters in the distant past but, before her 30th birthday, was much more serious about riding her bike and duathlon (in which she won an age group world title) than competitive athletics.
However, she was pleasantly surprised by a 5km Parkrun time of just over 16 minutes so she sent a speculative message to her former athletics coach, Trevor Painter, to see if he would be interested in mentoring her again.
Twelve months on and Bell is not only the most likely inclusion in Great Britain’s squad for the World Indoor Championships which start in Glasgow on Friday, but is targeting both a medal and a place at this summer’s Olympics Paris.
“It was good old Parkrun,” she says. “I just did Parkrun, ran about 16 and a half minutes and thought, ‘That’s a reasonable time for me to go out running and cycling by myself’. I had gone back to running and cycling during the lockdown period.
“Parkrun was Bushy Park, on the grass. I took it to Trevor, he said, ‘I ran this on my own without following a plan, what do you think about working together?’ I think he was happy.
“I thought I would never step on the road again. Then we started incorporating some speed training, which Trevor focuses on a lot, and I’ve seen a really big impact very quickly. My PB is now down to 4min 3sec [from 4min 16sec last July]. And we have the whole summer to lower it further.”
Bell will go over 1500m this week but she still has no idea where exactly her Olympic dream will focus from 800m all the way up to 5000m, it shows how extraordinary her comeback is.
The painter, who is married to former European champion Jenny Meadows and also coaches Olympic 800m silver medalist Keely Hodgkinson, is not reigning, although we do know he always saw Bell as “the one who quit”.
“What Trevor always says to me before I start is, ‘Go and have fun baby’, so I try to,” says Bell, whose father is Channel 5 News political editor Andy Bell.
“They have a really great mix of quality professional training plans that really work… but it’s also a really fun culture. Trevor is a bit of a joker. We have Trevor as head coach but then Jenny [Meadows] been through it all before. I think the two of them together give it a family feel.”
Bell initially left Painter’s training group when she was offered a place to study at the University of California, Berkeley in 2015. She had intended to continue her athletic career but was not suited to the high mileage emphasis at Berkeley and she got up often. injured.
She was also studying for a Masters degree in political science and, with her athletics taking a back seat, started working in the San Francisco tech hub before joining London-based firms that tackle cyber attacks.
‘It was a big deal to leave my job’
She now combines a 9-5 job with early morning and evening training sessions that include around 100 miles on the bike each week. Recent training camps at high altitude in South Africa with Hodgkinson in the Painter/Meadows group had to be taken as holidays and it is clear that a big decision awaits before the Olympics.
“We use machine learning and AI to go into organizations and see how they’re fundamentally coping,” she says. “So it’s very interesting – we work with companies all over the world. Companies often come to us after they’ve had a cyber attack, get funding and need to get something in to protect themselves. It can be reactive or proactive but we try to be proactive.
“It’s a booming business, so it was a big thing to walk away from, but obviously the opportunity is very unique this year with Paris. It’s a lot to manage for sure. Things may change in the summer…but, at the moment, it’s just a big juggling act to make it happen.”
And how did she come to train closely with Hodgkinson, the reigning European champion, and one of this summer’s favorites for Olympic 800m gold?
“It’s really exciting to see what she’s achieved, and also very motivating if you can be in the mix in training sessions,” says Bell.
“There will be a bit of experimentation going on in the coming months. We did not expect the amount of improvement we had in such a short time. My aim will definitely be to go to the Olympics.
“If you would have asked me four months ago I would never have thought that. Now I think the goalposts are really changing.
“I’ve got good momentum and, because I’m getting back into it, I’m so grateful to have a second shot. He is bringing a very good perspective to the races.
“I’m just taking every opportunity. A base [this weekend] it’s something I would focus on.”
