I can't remember the exact turning point or thought process that got me back into sports and competing. But at the beginning of 2017; as a 20-year-old and final year uni student, I decided to pick up sports again. Having swum with my local club “Carnforth Otters” at a reasonable level up to the age of 16, and also having decent cycling fitness from years of mountain biking with friends , as well as the occasional road ride- taking up triathlon seemed a natural choice.
I joined the local Triathlon Club "Wrecsam Tri" and began attending their weekly running track sessions on a Wednesday night, along with their Thursday night swim sets. After only a few sessions, I could already see significant improvements in both sports.
I can distinctly remember getting lapped by the fastest runners multiple times, in my first track session and thinking ‘These guys are ridiculously quick!’ But session by session the number of times they lapped me decreased. With weekly running and swimming sessions sorted, I started looking for something similar on the bike. I joined the road cycling club,
“Fibrax Wrexham RC” soon after, and once spring arrived I started making use of the weekend group rides, and Tuesday night Time Trials.
Now that I had some regular training in place and was becoming fitter and faster. The next step was to actually choose an event to focus on. I decided on "Epicman Lancashire 2017". A 70.3 Mile triathlon- with the standout feature being a hilly bike course around the Trough of Bowland. With my degree finished, I was left with 1 month before race day for some final training.
The days leading up to the race had some extreme rain, resulting in concerns about the swim- which should have been an out and back in the River Lune. Race day came and still no confirmation about the swim. I arrived at race HQ and sure enough the Lune was flowing fast- to the extent that the support kayaks couldn't even make progress upstream. With only minutes before the flag was planned; the decision was made, "The swim is cancelled. It will be a bike and run with a time trial start". When my allocated start time finally arrived, I was off! Nervous as anything but I tried to keep things easy. I had a long day into the unknown ahead. On the first climb- I thought- "let's put it in an easy gear" but the front chaining wouldn't go into the easy ring. Clearly my pre-race gear tune hadn’t been as successful as I had thought. A short stop and frantic tweaking of the barrel adjuster and I was back in the 'granny ring’ and on the road again. The rest of the ride passed pretty smoothly. So onto the run. Oh, have I mentioned at this point I hadn't ever raced a 10km before? Let alone a half marathon. Luckily for me it was a relatively flat, 2 laps, an out and back course on the Lancaster cycle path that follows Lune. With my mad family out to support me, the miles were ticking down gradually. Into the final 2km and onto the final obstacle: a set of steps up and off the cycle path. These proved too much for me. But with agonising cramp spasms up both legs, I hobbled into the finish. After the final times had been calculated. I was surprised to see my name up in 13th position. A strong result for my first triathlon.
Time – 04:39.00 (Bike - 02:58:52 T1 - 00:01:41.50 Run - 01:38:26.20)
So 2017 was a big year for me. I complted my degree, found a love for sports again and made my first strides into becoming a triathlete. It will always go down as a significate year in my life.
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