Since the beginning of the lockdown, I have learned and changed a lot of my training schedule, so much really, that I thought I’d start writing about it. However, I am a man of science and order, and do not really want to delve straight into my thoughts of certain aspects of training, without alienating you. Instead, I’ll use chronology. I’ve already discussed what this blog will be about, so now, lets start from the beginning, when I first got into sport. Ready? If not, then make yourself comfy and crack open an alcoholic beverage to get yourself through this.

My story of getting into sport goes back to 2012, specifically speaking, the London 2012 Olympic games (remember that, when people actually liked….anyway, I’m not getting into politics). I think it’s one of the only times in my life where it seemed all nations lay down their differences, and came together, sending their best athletes to London to compete in a spectacle of phenomenal achievement. It seemed as though we forgot who we all were, and just enjoyed and celebrated sport together, as a world united. Thinking back, I wished I watched more, but I live by the phrase “have no regrets”, and I don’t, for one very good reason; the reason where I am today is because of that event.

Let me explain.

2012:

There I was, not a chubs, but a typical teenager, just about to go into my final year of secondary school (was 15 years old at the time). I had joined the gym, because like many other hormone dominated environments, all boys wanted to get a girlfriend, and would stop at nothing to do that. Some joined the gym, some just acted like they were too cool for school, or some just got on with their lives. For me, it was the gym. Yes, I wanted to be buff. Laugh all you want, but it’s true, and that was the extent of my sporting activities in those days. Fast forward to the Olympic Games and the track cycling, and my my, what nail biting, butt clenching, edge of the sofa TV content that was.

I watched in awe; seeing the likes of Chris Hoy, Victoria Pendleton, the then Laura Trott, Jason Kenny, Wiggo, Chris Froome, Joanna Rowsell (the list is massive, but the GB cyclists know who they are) dominate the field of cycling. Team GB got 8 golds out of 18 events, and 12 medals in total, out of 55. If that wasn’t inspiring enough, then I don’t know what is. From then on, I wanted to become a professional cyclist, and compete at the 2020 Olympic games (yeah, that didn’t happen, and hasn’t happened for all athletes).

I started to ride my dad’s old road bike (in the process, gradually buggering up my knees because of sizing differences). My folks were sceptical, considering they had seen me go through many 5 minute wander phases of interests thought that this was another one of those, but I was determined to show them that this was no phase, and that I had found a hobby I wanted to stick at, and achieve great things.

2013:

Finally, after a lot of convincing, they soon realised that I wasn’t going to stop this sport for a while, and so, enter my first ever bike (I had had bikes before, but being the younger sibling of 2, they were always hand me downs), the Ribble Audax winter bike (which I still have and adore). I got the bike in 2013, which is the year I started racing and joined my first cycling club.

I stuck at it, but never really made much of an impact. I raced on the road and circuits for the next 5-years, with interest in racing gradually diminishing, for a few reasons. Although I loved the bike, I loved training, and loved the thrill of racing in a big pack, I was trying to balance the hardest academic years of my life with trying to be a competitive cyclist. Seeing as though by this point my life ambitions had changed, academia took precedent, and racing went on the back burner. For a while, I stuck at racing – road racing was my favourite, but very sketchy, and I didn’t particularly want to wreck my swanky new Giant TCR (pictured below) which was my 18th birthday present.

2015:

I continued to race through university (in the first and second year at least), however, a dodgy second year of results meant I really had to put all effort into my Geography degree during my third year. Training and racing seemed to get harder, and there was a reason for it. An underlying problem (caused by rapid growth spurts) which was impossible to avoid. This isn’t a sob story, but one of the major reasons I started to lose interest in cycling; it was expensive, hard to juggle with university life (I’m not the smartest person in the world, and I wanted a good result, I had to put all my effort into that very thing), and a condition called costochondritis. It’s the inflammation of the rib cage cartridge, which happens during intense exercise. If I could describe it, it’s like having a knife that’s constantly prodding your lung every time you breath; this flared up 80% of the time when I trained, and occurred mostly at uni, so no wonder I started to lose interest in cycling. Cycling hurt for all the wrong reasons, and I thought that it was never going to get better (obviously, it did – but didn’t know that at the time).

Our minds are funny things, and when something goes wrong, you can sit there and dwell on it, or try and work out what’s wrong. I did both with cycling, but the former took precedent. The pain happened every time I trained, and I instantly had to back off – eventually I though “f*ck this, I’m just going to cycle for the enjoyment of it, forget road racing and circuits, I’ll just do time trials”. I did however compete for my university in York for the university cycling champs (BUCS). Came last. (I did do some track, but I won’t go down that road).

Towards the end of uni, I decided to by a time trial bike, my Cervelo P2 (which has had more upgrades than I care to mention since I bought it back in 2018). It was around this time, when I had a personal trainer giving me plans for the gym, that my best mate, Jamie, was going to be running to raise money for his girlfriend to do charity work in Africa (not sure which country). Being a bit down in the dumps (I’ll explain this at a later date), I asked if I could join, he said yes. The day after I entered the Bristol 10K, I got a message, Jamie and his girlfriend weren’t doing it. Well, sh*t. I’m not giving up my place, and all this running training I’ve done, I’m not stopping.

The 10K was a toughy, going from cycling to running is not easy, so I was thrilled to get a time of 42:10 (something I still use to base my performance on). It was after, I had an epiphany, I didn’t want to stop cycling, as I started to enjoy it once again, but didn’t want to stop running, I enjoyed that too; why not combine the 2 sports, and become a Duathlete! That’s exactly what happened.

2018/2019:

The rest is history really. August 2018 was when I moved to Leeds for my new job with npower (I left the following March following the company falling apart and a mental breakdown). During my time living on my own, I trained hard, and focused on getting pretty serious with my sport. Acquiring sponsors to help me with my journey (my personal training was my first, and still is), soon, during the winter months of 2018/2019, I trained to qualify for the 2020 World and European Standard Distance Age Group Duathlon Championships (a mouthful I know). It was going so well, until February 2019, when I got a hideous injury (too much running in such a short amount of time), plantar fasciitis. If you know what it is, then you know, but for those who don’t, the best way to describe it is like constantly walking on needles and glass. No running, and all hopes of qualifying I thought were lost.

By now (March 2019) I was back home in Somerset, and making a mental (and physical recovery). The second qualifying race for the Euros was fast approaching, with the second qualifying race for the world’s not long after. All I had to do was finish within 110% of my age group winners time. I did (for both events), for the world qualifier, I podiumed in my age group, best race ever.

Race came after race, result after result. Things looked up, and they were (and still are) – all things considered. I did have one fall back in 2019 though, I over trained and blew out majorly during a standard duathlon in Oxfordshire – something I will never do again.

2020:

I loved Duathlons. Training was (and still is) very hard work. Although they don’t necessarily say “training gets harder”, you just get faster. The thrill of Duathlons, its society is something I fell in love with, and I knew I had found my sport, my niche and gruelling sport. The attitude and openness of multi-sport certainly trumped that of road racing, something racing cyclists could learn a lot from.

2020 was going to be my year – I dropped out of the Euros (where it was being held, and on my salary, wasn’t going to happen) so focused on something called Powerman (still am). This race has a format of 10k run, 60k bike, 10k run, rather than 10/40/5 for a standard. But obviously, the 2020 season has fallen apart, but that didn’t mean training did.

That’s it really. A simple journey from very amateur cyclist, to a competitive amateur GB Duathlete. Quite a journey, and considering I have only been a multi-sport athlete for the past year and a half, I think what lies round the corner (should I continue – which I will) excites me…all things considered that is. I haven’t focused much on the multi-sport athlete of genesis, since this blog will be talking all about that, however, the purpose of this post is to set the scene for future posts. There will be a lot to discuss in future posts; this is just the beginning (like genesis, you know).

Next week, I will be talking about younger athletes Vs seniors in a physical sense.