Elite athletes are often asked how they balance training and racing.
For Sophie Evans, there is another layer to the equation.
How do two professional endurance athletes, a one-year-old daughter and a race calendar stretching across the world somehow make it all work?
The answer, she smiles, is still evolving.
“We’re learning on the job,” Evans admits when TRI247 caught up with her recently to talk about motherhood, her triathlon comeback and much more.
Support network
Day-to-day life in the Evans household is a carefully choreographed balancing act.
Her husband, reigning UTMB champion Tom Evans, has been away in America for the last few weeks for Hardrock 100, while Sophie is building towards the second half of her triathlon season, starting with WTCS London next weekend.
Despite competing in different sports, she says their training schedules often complement each other surprisingly well.
“Day to day, when no one’s racing and we’re both at home, it actually works really well.
“Tom’s not trying to swim at 7:30 in the morning and I’m not trying to do six hours in the Peaks on a Friday.
“So logistically it works really well for us.”
That doesn’t mean they do it alone.
Evans is quick to acknowledge the support network around them, with both sets of grandparents helping to care for daughter Phoebe, who has recently started nursery two days a week.
Those days, she laughs, are not necessarily about fitting in more training.
“They just kind of give a bit of breathing space. A bit more recovery, if I’m being honest.”
Learning process
Training itself has changed too.
Rather than simply trying to replicate the workload she managed before becoming a mum, Evans and coach Adam Elliott have rebuilt her programme around quality and flexibility.
“I don’t want to be away from Phoebe all the time and I want to be present and be a good mum as well.
“Adam has been so good at altering training and working out how we get the most from certain sessions but maybe keeping the volume down a bit.
“So, yeah, it’s all learning.”
‘The best year of my life’
Perhaps the biggest surprise has been discovering that supporting someone else’s sporting dreams can be just as rewarding as chasing your own.
Last year, Evans gave gave birth to Phoebe in May and they both watched Tom claim one of trail running’s greatest prizes at UTMB in August.
It remains, she says, the happiest sporting memory of her life.
“I didn’t race one triathlon in 2025, but it was by far the best year of my life.
“Watching Tom achieve what he achieved in UTMB… I’ve never felt that feeling of almost living through someone else’s success and just how proud I was.
“The whole thing was just unbelievable.”
It was another reminder that success can take many different forms.
The race calendar may still be full and the ambitions remain as high as ever.
But these days, the finish line is only one part of the story.
