Holly Lawrence interview: "I want to prove I can still be the best of the best"

Holly Lawrence is a podium contender at any race she enters, but the bubbly Brit’s pro career hasn’t always been the easiest of rides, with illness and injury presenting plenty of challenges.

This season, though, the former 70.3 world champ is happier, healthier and readier than ever to prove she’s still got what it takes to succeed at the very top…

220: You’ve lived in the U.S. for almost a decade now and you recently moved to Boulder. What prompted the move and how’s life in the tri mecca?

Holly Lawrence: We came to Boulder for a few weeks last summer and instantly enjoyed it; LA was becoming an increasingly hard place to live and train, especially after Covid. I tend to absorb the energy or stress of others.

Boulder is so much quieter and life just feels easier. I grew up in a rural area in the UK, so being in nature feels like home. Where we live, I can be out riding or running on trails within a few hundred metres of my front door.

Of course, it’s also great to have so many people to train with, if I want to. I hate swimming on my own and have always enjoyed swimming with people faster than me. I’m often in the pool with Flora Duffy, Rudy von Berg and ITU speedsters like Kevin Macdowell and Kirsten Kasper.

I usually ride and run with Sean [Jefferson, her fiancé, coach and former pro ITU racer] and link up for some of my long runs with friends who are pro runners. I’m a social trainer and this gives me a good mix of training solo when I need to and being around others when I want to.

220: Where will we see you racing this year?

HL: I started the season with fourth at 70.3 Oceanside. Next up for me will be the PTO European Open in Ibiza in May [Holly finished 10th], then probably 70.3 Boulder in August, the PTO US Open in August and possibly the PTO Asian Open in Singapore, but that’s only a week out from my main focus – the 70.3 Worlds in Finland at the end of August.

220: You’ve already won a 70.3 world championship [in 2016]. What motivates you to win another?

HL: I want to prove it wasn’t a fluke. I want to get back to the form I had before getting sick at the end of 2019, and it’s the pursuit of that that really drives me. [Lawrence won five 70.3 races in 2019 after returning from a broken foot in 2018, but was then sidelined for months with pneumonia in late 2019].

I love that feeling of being in a race, knowing you’re at your very best, executing the performance you’re capable of, pushing yourself to your absolute limits. It’s at those times that I can really eke everything from myself. I had that in 2019 and it felt phenomenal.

There’s still more to come from me – I know it and my team knows it – and that’s what keeps me motivated. I feel like it’s taken a while to get back to where I was, but I’m rediscovering that form now and that excites me.

The standard of racing is higher now than it’s ever been, the hierarchies are always changing; I want to prove I can still be the best of the best.

220: And you have more than 
just the Worlds to look forward 
to this summer.

HL: Yes, Sean and I are getting married the week after the 70.3 Worlds. We’ll fly from Finland to the UK where our wedding will take place in the village where I grew up, Buckland St. Mary in Somerset. My parents are arranging it all and we have friends and family coming from all over the world.

220: You say a happy Holly is a 
fast Holly. How do you get the best from yourself?

HL: Consistency and routine. I love routine. I love quietly doing the work, day after day. I like to keep it fun. I like to think of every race I go to as a holiday. Even though I’m doing this professionally and it’s my job I still want it to feel special, I never want it to feel too serious.

That’s why you’ll always see me goofing around at the start of a race. I like to keep it like that and I like to interact with fans and age-groupers as much as possible.

220: You have a strong social media presence. How important is social media for pro athletes nowadays?

HL: Incredibly important. But I always remind myself that I’m an athlete first and foremost, not an influencer, and nothing is more important than training. It’s something I’ve struggled with because I’m naturally a shy person, so it doesn’t always come easily to me to share things in such a public setting.

Sean and I recently launched our own YouTube channel and I struggled with that a bit to begin with. But over the past few years it’s become especially important and is typically written into every sponsorship contract now. More than anything, I want my social content to reflect me and who I am, to be authentic.

220: Do you have any plans to step up to Ironman this year?

HL: Tentative ones, yes! I’ve been considering it and it’s something we will make a call on a bit later in the season. If I do one it would obviously be after the 70.3 Worlds and then it would be a case of picking a race that plays to my strengths.

220: Do you ever think about what you’ll do when you retire?

HL: I’ve always said I’ll keep racing for as long as I’m enjoying it and I still feel I have plenty of years left yet. Sean and I would like to have a family, so that’s something I’ve thought about, but that obviously wouldn’t have to mean the end of my racing career.

It’s been so inspiring to see so many pro women proving that you can do both and come back to racing, particularly after Chelsea’s [Sodaro] win in Kona last year.

I feel like I’m someone who always enjoys the energy and excitement of racing, so when it does come time to retire I’d want to stay in triathlon somehow, making the most of what I can give back to the sport.

Top image credit: PTO/Darren Wheeler