This little hodgepodge of questions will make you smile. Either because you had to answer one of these or you may have asked one yourself. So relax, read through and don’t take it too seriously. We still do enjoy every conversation like that.

1) Is this piece of cake part of your nutrition plan?

No aunt Carol it isn’t but thanks for making me feel even guiltier.

2) So how many hours do you actually work?

Do we just count the training hours or do we add the hours of meetings, analysis, preperation and so on? Many people only see the pure training hours which obviously is nothing compared to the working hours of a usual job. I get that. But there is so much more to it. You only see the top of the iceberg. An example is an away trip over the weekend. That easily adds 35 hours or more to the clock.

3) You do that for a living?

Guess what? I do and I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t ask that my male colleague.

4) When will you get called up for the national team?

First of all I appreciate the good intention of this question, but honestly it’s nothing I could do in my sleep. Representing your country is the ultimate goal of every athlete but only a few actually get the chance. So when do you get promoted into the highend/top area of your company?

5) How much do you earn?

This question is inapropriate already, unless you are a real close friend. But it gets worse when you only get to ask that, because you are a woman.

6) Do you do anything else or is that all you do?

Believe it or not, this is all I do and it keeps me pretty occupied. Sport is performance based, so you can’t judge it on the pure training hours. Recovery time is key and influences your so called “free time” as well. Going on a shopping tour the day before a game? That ain’t happening. You need to save your legs to be fully fit for game day.

7) In off-season do you have to train at all or do you literally have that many holidays?

Off-season is a good time, I won’t even dare to deny that but it isn’t as relaxing as it looks like. Often you only get two weeks completly off, after that you have to fullfil your individual training program which includes two sessions a day for the most part. On top of that you still have to take care of your nutrition. So yeah you do have more freedom, cause you can choose at what time you want to train but it’s not like real holidays where you have full control over every 24 hours of your days.

8) You are going on winter training camp in Spain? I wish I would get payed holidays.

Comparing training camp with holidays is something I hear super often, and it’s so wrong that I don’t even know where to start. You train a minimum twice a day on camp, more so three times. This means your day looks like this: train, eat, train, eat, sleep and repeat. Besides the training sessions, meetings and analysis are on the program. The bit of free time you get is usually used to relax because you’re knackered from the session. On top of that, you barely have any privacy. Your teammates are always around, you even share a room. To top it off you are miles away from your partner, friends and family. If that sounds like a vacation for you, something seriously is off. I mean who takes their boss on vacation?

9) Who is your favorite male athlete?

That is an interesting one because it has nothing to do with me as an athlete and automatically describes the man as something desirable and better. I wonder how many male athletes get to ask who’s their favorite female athlete.

10) Do people even go to your games?

This may surprise a few people, but yes there is a good portion of people out there who appreciate women’s sports. Is it that far off to think that a sport not played by a male can actually be entertaining?