I played various team sports as a child and in university, but it wasn’t until I was working in London that I tried a triathlon in 1999.
I then meet Marc Becker in 2000 through a mutual friend when he was competing in IM Lanzarote and I was on holiday there.
He then coached me off and on (I took a break when I had children) for Olympic distances and for my first IM in Nice in 2006.
In that I finished in 11hrs 2mins. I continued racing for the next year or so but then injury, family commitments and work took me away from triathlon, though I still did some running and open sea swim races.
Last year I decided I wanted to do an other IM. After talking to my family I entered IM Nice again and contacted ironguides where Woody agreed to coach me.
My aim was to finish IM Nice and hopefully beat my time from 2006 and get under 11 hours. It wasn’t until the last 5k of the run that I knew I would achieve that goal and came in in 10hrs 46.
I was surprised then when my family told me I had won my age group and had a slot for Hawaii. It took a while to sink in and I still have to pinch myself that I’m going – something I always hoped I would do but didn’t dare believe it could happen.