On a glorious June afternoon, the waters of Inniscarra Lake invite the imagination to conjure lazy summer images of peaceful strolls by the shoreline. No such languid thoughts, however, for Zoe Hyde as she pulls mightily on her oars to power across the water – another day pushing her body to the limit in preparation for the ultimate prize.
The National Rowing Centre is the epicentre of Irish rowing, set in a scenic corner of the Cork countryside where dreams of Olympic glory are fashioned into a sterling reality.
“We’re here for the next few weeks, then off to a training camp in Italy just ahead of the Olympics,” Hyde explains. “It’s pretty much all training. We basically work daily from 8am to early evening. We get a programme at the start of each week and, allowing for the changeable Irish weather, stick to that schedule for the seven days.”
The isolation of training at Inniscarra makes for a complete contrast to Hyde’s day job at professional service firm Deloitte, a commercial career she currently juggles in tandem with her athletic ambitions. Deloitte is also an official partner to Team Ireland. In days divided between the water and the gym, her Olympic preparation is an always-on escalator of workout, eat, workout, rest, from early morning until dusk.
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“We do have evenings to ourselves and the odd Sunday off but otherwise it’s pretty much full-on all the time,” she says.
Similar to us mere mortals, Hyde admits to cherishing her precious hours of downtime and doing those lazy, ordinary things.
“For sure, you have to switch off and relax at times,” she says. “As soon as I come through the door in the evenings, my feet are up and Netflix and food are all that matter until bedtime.”
I wonder, can trying to be your sporting best sometimes make for a lonely life?
“Honestly, I’ve thankfully never felt any of that because there’s such a big team of us and we’re all basically on the same page doing the same thing,” says Hyde. “In fact, I actually rarely get a chance to have time to myself.”
Cloistered away in a world determined by daily measurements of faster, stronger, harder, Hyde’s team-mates become an alternative family.
“They’re exactly that – a second family-support network,” she says. “We are all so like minded, sharing similar ambitions and helping each other to achieve them.”
And, of course, it’s good to have company to indulge in the occasional guilty pleasure: “To be fair, because we’re training so much we can eat whatever we want. It’s pizzas and chocolate if we want, just to get the calories and carbs in. We’re training so much, there’s a constant need to replace them.”
Supporting athletes’ climb to the summit
Allied to Zoe’s physical regimen is the increasingly important mental preparation, a world familiar to Institute of Sport clinical psychologist Paul Gaffney.
“When they reach the Olympic level, there is very little between all athletes, and the difference between a good athlete and a great athlete often comes down to psychological and mental preparation,” he says.
“While the physical qualities required are insane, it is that extra mental gear that separates the winners from the also-rans.”
Strong bonds are built by being there for those athletes when things go wrong on the day, or helping them through the often extended periods of injury.
“People like myself in Team Ireland are essentially sherpas,” says Gaffney. “Our function is to get those athletes up the mountain safely to do the job they’ve invested so much time and effort in. And after they’ve performed that job, we are there to get them safely back down from that summit and ready them to do it again.”
In this high-performance world, the difference between winning and losing can come down to less than an inch.
“This is a high-performance business and I love the intensity of it, the need to deliver every day,” says Gaffney. “Every conversation matters, every interaction matters. If I’m not on top of my game, then I’m no use to the athletes. In a job like mine you are always working on behalf of your athletes, always thinking of how they can be better than yesterday, always trying to find that extra inch that will bring them victory.”
Another gear in the engine that helps Zoe toward ultimate achievement is sustenance, an area where performance nutritionist Laura Mahony plays her part.
“When you get to an elite sporting level – and especially with rowing – there is a huge fuelling demand on athletes,” says Mahony. “Whatever the overall goal is – faster, fitter – they want to be adapting to the training, getting better and recovering well between sessions. Food becomes so important because it allows athletes to expend the energy that they need during the training sessions.”
With Hyde’s schedule encompassing multiple daily training sessions on the water, of up to three hours each, nutrition must compliment that timetable for maximum effect.
“The kind of nutrition includes the right amounts of carbohydrates to provide energy, protein to repair muscle damage, as well as micro-nutrients like iron and calcium for bone health,” says Mahony.
“Effectively, the role of performance nutrition is about is making sure you have a healthy athlete who can perform at their best and recover quickly from injury.”
Strength-and-conditioning coach Eamonn Flanagan adds yet another aspect to the athlete’s wellbeing.
“Rowing is a hybrid sport and fundamentally a relatively short endurance event where very high levels of strength and muscular power are really important,” he says.
Flanagan’s role is very much about developing the physical strength and power qualities that can help an athlete deliver the required performance, in addition to bullet proofing their robustness to help them tolerate the high volume of training required.
“When rowers need to go from 32 strokes to 40 strokes a minute, they need that extra explosive power to assist them tactically and strategically,” he says. “They need to have that application of strength and power for that last effort over the final 250 metres of a race.
“At the end of the day, the medals are won in the intensive training periods on Inniscarra lake or at the training camp in Italy, and the strength work helps give them the physical tools to tolerate those higher levels of performance.”
From Olympics to Deloitte Future Leaders academy
Having only been told that she had made the cut for the Irish Olympic team just a day before we meet, Hyde is clearly buzzing with the prospect of testing herself on the greatest sporting stage of all.
“You’re never really sure you’ve made the grade to go; there’s always that fear that your performance might not be enough,” she says. “So when I actually heard those words it was the classic ‘pinch me’ moment – it hasn’t fully sunk in even yet.”
And what about her life after the Olympics? Has she already pencilled in other sporting events or will it be time to concentrate on her burgeoning career as a member of the Deloitte Future Leaders Academy, the company’s multi-award-winning graduate programme?
Providing a collaborative environment to enable members fulfil their potential on a successful career path, the programme delivers opportunities for growth both professionally and personally through continuous coaching, training, support and development.
“I was working full time with Deloitte up until the moment I got the call to join the Irish team,” Hyde says of the call up that has changed her life. “Deloitte allowed me flexible hours to integrate with the sporting schedule and then gave me the blessing to focus completely on rowing.
“The ultimate goal has always been Paris 2024 and the firm will continue to back me on rowing over work to give it my best shot. It is a very good feeling to know that my desk in Deloitte is being held for me through all of this – it is incredible support just when I need it.”
High performance, unwavering commitment and a vision for excellence are some of the shared values of Deloitte, says Sinead Gogan, who is partner for people and purpose for the firm.
“By supporting the athletes, coaches and the performance teams who make up Team Ireland, we want to highlight the endless possibilities and impact they are having not only on future generations but on the nation.”