- Now, due to your busy work schedule, how often do you manage to get up on your skis? In principle, do you comply with the regime now when it is not required?
- Last year, due to lack of snow, I mostly ran. I had to get up at 6 in the morning and go to work after a run. Now I switched to another training regime in order to switch my head, remove the negativity - right after work I go out for a run.
If there is not enough snow, this is an hour and a half training session, about 15 km. If on skis, then also an hour and a half, but already 20-25 km. I can't help but move. When I lose my sports activity, I feel uncomfortable. Can you imagine what energy costs were in sports and what they are now. The food remained the same, the energy consumption decreased.
Recently, my coach Konstantin Mikhailovich Voronin called me and invited me to a competition in Korolev. At first I thought it was in the role of a guest. And he says to me: "Alexey, we have good prizes, come and compete."
I explain to him that on weekdays I work, move only for myself, no longer do any high-speed work. "I can come to the competition, but I won't run."
People do not understand - I remained an athlete for them. In a year and a half, I turned into a person for whom victories in sports are no longer important, I let it go. It is important for me to work out for myself, for pleasure.
Much effort has been put into achieving professional goals in sports. Athletes who have not run into professional sports (there are actually few of them), they are trying to prove something to someone, they cannot psychologically let go, lose to someone.
Athletes who have achieved high results are reorganizing to another activity - perhaps also sports, but from a different angle. Larisa Evgenievna Lazutina, a five-time Olympic champion, now holds the position of Deputy Chairman of the Moscow Regional Duma. For her, training now is a walk for 30 minutes according to her mood.
Anton Shipulin is a State Duma deputy, work does not allow now to devote much time to sports. People who have something to do at work can no longer spend so much time on training.
There is, of course, an exception to the rule - Alexander Legkov, who will always find time for training, - said Petukhov.