The head teacher in my primary school was keen on getting a good swimming squad together, so I used to train 3 times a week at school. I was never a natural freestyle swimmer, so I was picked for the breaststroke races, but that all changed at secondary, and I didn’t really swim, except to get picked for the Butterfly races as nobody else could do it (I can’t either!) I swam a bit for fitness in Nottingham, and then in Sheffield I joined a swimming group at the gym, which consisted of me and a few men. I started swimming competitively when starting triathlon. I have improved my time over 100m by 20+ seconds through coaching.
I used to ride recreationally with my parents, and then as a form of transport when living in the city. I had a brief introduction to mountain biking from an ex-boyfriend, and joined the University Mountain biking club in Nottingham. I went out a few times with them, but got fed up with being the only woman, I started cycling again in Sheffield out on my hybrid bike in the Peak district, and was a bit of a fair weather cyclist. I started cycling competitively when I started triathlon, and I now take part in time trials, and the odd bit of mountain biking. I won the Welsh 100 mile time trial championship in 2014 with a time of 4:46. I am a keen power meter user and can provide coaching and advice based on power zones.
I have run competitively since I was about 11 years old. I was picked out when doing a cross country run as being good enough to run on the boys team. There were no girls cross country teams in those days! I was often the only girl at races, but kept it up as I enjoyed running. I continued to run in secondary school, where I ran cross country,1500m and 800m. The highlights were running for Somerset county, and winning the AAA championship 1500m in Somerset. When I left school I continued to run for fitness, and dabbled in running competitively again in Sheffield for the Dark Peak fell runners. I then moved to Pembrokeshire, got pregnant and ran up to 8 months with my first child, then started doing triathlon.