In the November issue of ELLE (out now) our Editor-in-Chief Lorraine Candy, interviewed (and exercised) with Victoria Pendleton, who is in the process with Fitness First of becoming a personal trainer, in the hope she could learn from the gold medalist how an ‘Olympic mindset’ can change your body – and your life.

You can buy the November issue of ELLE here, but in the meantime here’s 5 unexpected reasons why we love Victoria Pendleton…

Just like team ELLE Victoria loves coffee, in fact she’s perhaps a tad obsessed… ‘I love the process of making coffee, I love the smell, grinding the beans in the morning, I love that’. Oh, and she makes her own muesli, ‘I really enjoy it. I roast off my favourite seeds and nuts; then add dried fruit, which I chop into little bits - cranberries, Montgomery cherries, apricots. I mix it all with oats and have with almond milk’. 

Incredibly dedicated to cycling, Victoria graduated the University of Northumbria with a 2.1 Bsc (hons) in Sports and Exercise Science in 2002 – the same year she qualified for the Commonwealth Games team. 

No stranger to TV appearances she came 7th in series 10 of Strictly Come Dancing (her partner was Brendan Cole) and made a guest appearance on Emmerdale this year.

On her 30th birthday she got ‘Today is the greatest day I’ve ever known’ tattooed on her wrist. It’s a line from a Smashing Pumpkins song.

Can you believe it, but she used to be shy? ‘Cycling gave me so much confidence. I used to be such a shy child, ‘just ignore me, I’m in the corner,’ Pendleton tells ELLE. ‘The idea of speaking in front of people used to terrify me; I used to get sent out of class in school because I didn’t want to read English literature because I was afraid of stumbling over my words. But sport gave me the opportunity to feel more confident; to feel successful and I think without it I would have ended up a very different person. There needs to be more emphasis on offering new opportunities for people to try sport’.

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