My life so far

I was born in Alveston in South Gloucester in 1980. My junior athletic years were spent swimming for my local club, Thornbury, where I competed in Diddy and later Speedo leagues at regional level, achieving Western County qualifying times in my mid-teens. As an avid mountain biker, when not in the pool, you would have found me building jumps or jumping over them in the local woods for most of my teenage years. I didn't really enjoy running, but unfortunately I was pretty good at it and was selected for school, area, and regional cross country championships. I never really got into ball sports.

At Bath University (one of the UK's top triathlon academies), I decided to start a new sport: rowing, in which I competed for over seven years, the highlight being when my crew won student national gold medals in the lightweight coxless fours competition at BUSA. Post university, and after a brief spell competing in local and regional sculling competitions, I decide to branch out into a sport that, on paper at least, I should be very good at. The result, however, remains to be seen.

Athletic History

• Swimming: for 10 years competitively prior to university
• Running: 15th in Regional Cross Country 1996
• Rowing: for 7 years during and after university, including Student National Champ Lwt 4 (BUSA 2004)
• Triathlon: from August 2006 to the present time

Triathlon really took off quickly for me when I joined Bristol and District Triathletes and found that I was among the best swimmers and runners in the club. When I spoke to the head coach, he said that I had the potential to make GB age-group standard with in the first few years of doing the sport provided that I followed a training plan. Winter training went well as I soon realised in the pool I had the upper hand on my fellow athletes. Spring training camp in Tenerife was spent cycling in the mountains (7500m climbing in 5 days) which enabled me to find my legs early on. The summer quickly arrived though and I found myself deep into the racing season. I learned quickly in the sprint races prior to GB selection events achieving great results in the Honiton Aquathon and Lydney Sprint Triathlon – I came 4th overall from a field of 100+ athletes in my first ever triathlon!

The first Olympic distance triathlons went well. 2hr.06m at Shropshire was an excellent time for my first Olympic distance event. Pembroke was another learning experience and gave a fair result in tricky conditions. At the National Championships in Wakefield, I finally got into the swing of things, coming out just behind the lead group in the swim and holding position during the bike leg. Running was then just a case of holding on to qualify for Hamburg, but overtaking one of my peers on the last lap enabled me to qualify for both the 2007 and 2008 World Championships without the need to race again in September.