So i have always been a tomboy. As a kid i was always out playing on my bike, or climbing trees and such with my local friends. In junior school my teacher, Mrs Wooldridge, introduced 'short' tennis into the school (now known as mini tennis). I took to this quickly and enjoyed playing in local tournaments doing OK. I soon progressed to 'lawn' tennis and with coaching i quickly entered the Welsh squad, and was ranked No.1 in wales for a while in my age-group under 12. My life as a tennis player meant i travelled around a lot, with my parents regularly travelling the country with me on weekends to different tournaments. It was only as i grew older that i appreciated how much of a financial, temporal, and emotional drain this must have been for them.
I played a number of tournaments in Scotland, even remembering Andy Murray as a kid i kicked a football around with when he was about 6! I also travelled with the welsh squad to the Republic of Ireland, Belgium, and Denmark. However, what let me down at this age was my ability to talk myself out of matches. My awareness of my mental fragility at this tender age resulted in me pursuing a career in psychology, so i could help others not make the same mistakes i made. Needless to say, my mental skills now are a strength for me.
At the age of 15 i decided that i wanted to concentrate on my GCSEs rather than endless tennis tournaments that i was no longer enjoying due to the anxiety i used to experience prior to competitions. However, i continued to play recreationally for my club, and i also won a British Universities Sporting Association gold medal whilst a student at Loughborough. However, my tennis racket got jung up at the age of 24 when i moved away to do my doctorate.
Anyways, back to sport...so after tennis i turned my hand to a bit of everything whilst at Loughborough, as part of the intramural sport competition between halls of residence. This was great fun and i successfully led our team to victory the year that i was the sports secretary for our hall.
After uni i became a bit of a gym bunny, and slowly started to enjoy running for running's sake. As a kid in the welsh tennis programme i had had 6 monthly fitness tests and had been a member of a gym since age 12, so at this age i hadn't enjoyed the fitness side of it as it was a pressure element that when you're a kid is hard to take on board. I still have shivers down my spine when i hear the beeps of the bleep test! But, i started to enjoy weights, and got into a number of different fitness classes - body combat, step, body pump, etc. I also started doing spin classes regularly and really enjoyed this sweat fest!
But how did i go from gym bunny to focused on triathlon?
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