I guess my sporting story truely started when I was about 6 or 7 years old. My parents decided it might be a good idea for me to progress beyond the standard learn to swim classes at the local leisure centre and try joining the competitive swimming team that usually used the pool after my evening lessons. At that age I showed a small amount of aptitude for thrashing my limbs in the right direction to propel me the forward but I was by no means an aquatic child prodigy.

 

I would never say that either now or then I was a particularly gifted swimmer. I have managed to compete at a reasonably good level through dedication and application. Growing up, swim training became the norm and the constant throughout my teenage years, providing the backdrop for many of my personal and team successes. The dynamics within the club changed as coaches and team mates came and went but the poolside and heavily (sometimes too heavily) chlorinated water, became a second home.

 

Through university I drifted, seemingly incapable of enjoying swimming as much as I used to and unable to find time to train in between my new found independance and studying. I continued the cycle of getting fit over the summer before returning to uni only to lose that fitness for the first two years of study, before I left on placement for a year and joined Coventry masters swimming team whilst working in the Midlands. 

 

My time with Coventry masters was the most intense swimming training period of my life. Despite the tag of 'masters team' the group were intent on keeping up a strong swim programme of 7 sessions a week, yes that's correct 7!

Under the dedicated and watchful guidance of coaches Frank and Allison Stoney I became the fittest I have ever been in the pool, and I believe this is the main reason my body is capable of absorbing large blocks of training with little side effect; so a big thank you to you two. 

 

Unfortunately returning to complete my bachelors degree ruined all the hard work and in a vain effort to keep fit for when I returned home over the summer months I took up running. Not since my younger years as an amateur footballer had I run properly, and to begin with it was a real struggle. As my fitness increased with a regular 5-6km daily jog, I began to feel better about stepping outside of the pool, but I needed a goal, a half marathon should do it. I entered the inaugural Surrey half and loved it, finishing in a respectable 1hour 38minutes. The first seeds of a competitive life beyond the pool were sown.

 

Following my bachelors degree I moved to London to complete a masters year, but the big turning point in my sporting career happened on poolside at a swimming masters event over that summer. I distinctly remember sitting on poolside having not swum very well over supposedly my distance (50m freestyle) and I just felt nothingness. I had reached the point where I could no longer commit to sitting on a hot poolside for a whole afternoon, with the vague hope that my brief time in the water would fall in the 25-26second window and make me happy. It was time for a change and a new challenge. 

 

So I entered triathlon. It was the most painful and enjoyable experience of my life. I stuggled round the Marlow Olympic distance 2014 race in a reasonable time of 2 hours and 34 minutes, but I was hooked. Only injury and lack of planning prevented me from entering another.

 

I moved to London in September of 2015 and joined up with the best bunch of people I have ever met - Tri London. The triathlon team based in North London took me under their wing and I've never looked back. PBs came, high positionings, good times and the crowning glory a place on the Team GB age group squad for the Europeans. The boy from the pool was gone, the Tri mad man was here to stay.