[Music] it was actually through my previous job with Lloyd they had a charity place at London Triathlon and they offered it to me and at the time I was training for in Marathon and I was a little bit bored of just running and I was like I know how to swim I have a bike I'll give it a go gave it a go really enjoyed it at the time I'd recently moved to London was kind of looking for something active maybe competitive to do cuz I'd played a lot of field hockey through University but hadn't found anything like that in London when I'd been there did the triathlon really enjoyed it and as a result then joined up to my local Tri Club cuz I thought that would also be good way of meeting new people in London and yeah it kind of all just stemmed from there like I started doing the training I really enjoyed it I met this great group of friends some of whom are now still my best friends and spent that first year in 2014 basically doing loads of the London League races just picking up entries basically of where other people were dropping out through 2014 basically then started hearing about being able to represent your country as an age grouper and then decided that like that sounded really cool like I can race for GB made that my mission to then do that for the next year so qualified them for the European duathlon Champs in 2015 and the Olympic distance champs did both of those yeah the Olympic distance Champs in Chicago I kind of realized pretty quickly that my swim and my run were nowhere near good enough at that distance to be competitive decided to move up the distances I'd also byy this point cuz i' been in the Triathlon Club started hearing people talk about this mythical place in cona I was like what is this cona thing people are talking about even at that point still like an Iron Man just seemed absolutely crazy I was like how can people do that like that just seemed so long and so hard but yeah moved up to the 7.3 distance enjoyed that was doing quite well at that and then decided I was going to have to take the plunge and in 2017 did my first Iron Man did Lotti which my coach at the time was like that's a terrible idea it's really hard and I was like well if I want to go and do Kaa then I might as well do a hard one at least then I know that if I can do a hard one that cona maybe won't be as hard it went really badly there was a combination of things I think I over car loaded I was sick in the swim I had to do two toilet stops in the bike and then the marathon was basically find every portal I could find so it didn't go to plan still finished third in my age group and luckily for me the lady that came first already had her cona spot and the lady that came second didn't want it so I got the coner spot so went to cona in 2017 just thinking it can't be as bad as lanzerotti and it wasn't like it was you know it was all right I came third in my age group I had a much better time than uh lanzerotti and by that point as I firmly got the bug like this I really enjoy this this is what I want to do by that point I'd also heard about people going pro even though they hadn't been Elite athletes as youngsters which to me was also still quite an alien thought that you didn't have to be this kind of superum person that had always done Elite Sport from a kid and that actually you could have had a corporate job and then moved into professional sport decided that was something I'd quite like to do at some point but also knew that a I wanted to win cona overall before I did that because to me that would then make me feel like I was good enough and also I wanted to be senior enough in my job at Lloyd's to either be able to go part-time or take a sabatical and be able to get back into it quite easily 2018 2019 I then actually got the more senior job at Lloyds which I absolutely loved but it was also very hard work so I was like working like 50 60 hours a week also doing a lot of training yeah so 2018 I managed to win my age group but I was third age group overall and at that point I'd only done six month month this job so I was like this isn't the right time to go pro so I was like I'll give myself another year I then also got into the zift academy which was like the most amazing kind of Journey that year and like the support from that really helped with that like whole year up to cona I had a pretty good year other than a bit of a crash post Roth which was 11 weeks before cona so broke my collar bone I was like oh the dream's over like there's no way that I can get back and win the whole race but kind of thought I'll just do what I can do see what happens managed to win the overall race and yeah I was like right this is it I'm going to take the plunge I'm going to take my Pro license spoke to my boss at the time and I was like can I I I basically invented a job for myself so I could go part-time uh which he thankfully was on board with so went down to two days a week went and did my first pro race in Australia that year cuz I kind of just thought why not let's just go give it a go and yeah again the race didn't really go to plan I had a really terrible swim even for me it was terrible I think I was I wasn't quite last I was all I was person before the last person out of the water I then got onto my bike and um yeah this is the level of my mechanics hadn't realized that you couldn't put a 28 mil Tire on with the specialized bike I had at the time with like the hydration on the back so my tire was like jammed on the hydration so I basically had to let loads of air out the tire so it would roll so I was probably running on like 50 psi on that race and then I got one puncher which I managed to fix and then it punch it again with like 20K to go so I had to roll the whole last 20K back in on a completely flat disc wheel not ideal and then was actually having an all right run and then had some knee issues so yeah not a great first pro race and then Co hit so 2020 was an interesting first year of being a pro but yeah from then it's all kind of picked up quite nicely so like 2021 the racing kind of came back a bit we had a good few races I was starting to see more improvements from having had that whole year of more sleep in particular and then I'd say like 2020 well 2021 I guess I won my first IR man in mior and then backed it up with South Africa 5 weeks after and then 2022 probably best result to date was coming fifth at the IMM World Champs 2023 was then a bit of a write off struggled with lots of C issues so yeah hoping now feel like there's been quite a lot of changes now so for 2024 I'm now completely full-time athlete so I've left Lloyd so that's quite a big change I've changed coaches so I'm now working with Casper which is slightly different philosophy got a new coach I've got a few new other people in my kind of broader team so I've been doing all this work with Lawrence van lingan on like the running and how I move a lot of different things coming into this year and then I think I've also got the confidence of the fact that despite such a bad year last year the brands that I've enjoyed working with have stuck by me and still want to support me so I feel like this year I've kind of got that confidence of I've got those Brands I like and they believe in me even though I haven't had the results last year to back it up I've got like this great team around me to help and then we've got this exciting thing like the Iron Man Pro Series which is going to be my focus so I'm going to focus on that try and win that so it's quite a lot of racing get in for the year which is partly why I've taken like a longer sort of winter to kind of build into it to make sure I've got that really good base for the season should be an exciting [Music] year having rised sne before I think gives me some confidence in that I know the course better than some other people um and obviously now spending more time out here at the moment it's just a really beautiful course and it's challenging so I think it'll be a completely different Dynamic to cona it'll definitely suit me better being a harder bike cuz I think you'll have a little bit less of that group dynamic of people being able to kind of sit in you know but like kind of go around with a group on the bike and then run really well like everyone's going to have to get up and down that Hill which is very different to the kind of cona much flatter kind of course so yeah I think having it on a different course really excites me because it is just that different Dynamic having it on a course where you don't for me have to fly Halfway Around the World also really nice like jet lag is something that I'm not going to have to deal with which will be really quite refreshing I think it's just going to be like a really really exciting [Music] race so working with parkour has been really good yeah I've been really impressed by the different Wheels having the options of everything from like the training wheels up to the racing wheels and the way that they're kind of optimized for The Wider tires which yeah for someone who generally trains on like not as Great British roads makes it just much more comfortable to train on also seeing the level of testing that they go to so like I know that previously they've done lots of testing in Kona to look at like what is the best Wheel and Tire combination for that specific course so knowing that I've got a team behind me that is willing to look into those details is really reassuring the bike is obviously a my favorite and B is a big part of an Iron Man in particular so having a bike that I know fits me really well that I know again like the design that's gone into it has had everything thought about alongside that I think it's again it's having that belief from the team that they think I'm worthy of being on their bike you know I think with argon 18 they've sort of started working with me before I had any of my like good results I guess yeah it gives me the confidence that they can kind of see the story they can see the progression and they believe in that too so that helps espe when I have like some of my not as good days being like if a brand like argon 18 like believe in me then I must be good so yeah that like that's quite reassuring knowing that I have Brands like that in my corner that it's kind of believe in me [Music] too the transition from age group to Pro you hear about it from lots of different people in terms of what it's going to be like and that it's going to be harder than you think definitely harder than you always expect it to be I think mainly from a mental perspective of you kind of get used to winning as an age grouper then you basically get to the you know you're coming in and you're then definitely the beginning like obviously I think there are a few exceptions to some people that come in and still start winning straight away but you're generally then more towards the back of the pack I think for someone like me as well where swimming is not my strength potentially the racing doesn't feel that different because often for me it's still quite a solo time trial of like I'm not necessarily with the group like I'm still having to push fairly hard to get back up to the group but yeah in many ways for me it's still I can race kind of my own race hopefully this year now that I've made some swim improvements I'll be a bit more in like the race Dynamics cuz I think actually as a pro that can be very different to an age grouper of you have to make those decisions of oh the group's kind of going do I push a bit harder to stay with them or do I just stick to what I think my power should be so yeah I think there's more tactics at play in the Pro Racing I think people also assume that you're just going to be training way more but actually you know I think the biggest Advantage comes from the recovery time so mainly for me it's been sleep like I now get on average about 8 and 1 half to 9 hours sleep at night compared to about 5 and 1/ half that I was getting before I think the recovery is probably the biggest advantage [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] he he [Music] [Music] [Music] he [Music] [Music] [Music] he [Music] he