Hi, and welcome to the site. I’m thetriguy, a 41 year old family man, with a busy job and a passion for fitness and health.

I’ve always been involved in sport, gaining a degree in Sport and Exercise Science at Uni and playing Football and Cricket to a relatively high level but a combination of work pressures, family life, (damn kids), and age, (it comes to us all eventually), has meant time has become more precious.

I like to do things whole heartedly and not let teammates down so team sports had to go, (my ‘retirement’ also tied in nicely with a nasty injury so I had a perfect excuse to blame why I never made it big – queue the Rocky ‘ I could have been a contender’ reminiscence down the pub)

In a vain attempt to keep fit I stupidly decided that individual sports were the way to go. Something I could do in my own time, at my own pace and set my own goals…and as I’d always been a shire horse rather than a racing one I decided long distance was my bag.

“who knew training for an individual sport would take up more of my time than the team sports I gave up…”

I set myself the challenge of running the London Marathon, gained a charity place and began training – who knew training for an individual sport would actually take up more of my time than the team sports I gave up!

I ran a half marathon race in 1 hour 50 and the marathon in 4 hours 20 after missing my start pen, (due to walking the wrong way to the bag drop), so I spent the first 6 miles dodging around fancy dress runners. No Mo Farah I know, but I can honestly say I thoroughly enjoyed the day, the atmosphere and the whole event, and if I’m brutally honest the personal satisfaction of being able to start a conversation with ‘when I ran the marathon…’

The next 6 years I like to refer as ‘the wilderness years’, a number of work problems and a subsequent bout of depression meant that all sport stopped. In fact my greatest achievement, (not to make light of a bad situation), was just getting through the day.

Family support and a personal desire to change dragged me out and back to life with one of the major factors being exercise. It made me realise just how important it is to me, (and I truly believe to everyone as well), and it’s importance in a good life / work balance.

My philosophy now is, to quote an ‘old proverb’, “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”

When my wife asked if I was up for a dirty weekend away I was excited at the prospect but when she mentioned it was a weekend culminating in a SupBikeRun race, (ie paddle boarding / off road bike / trail run), I was a little sceptical. I’m not a good swimmer and hadn’t ridden a bike since I put the old faithful Raleigh Chopper into hibernation. 3 days of dirt and cold lake water later and I was hooked.

I returned home and scoured the internet for new races and, not being one to do things by half, signed up for the Half Ironman in Weymouth the following year, despite no other triathlon experience and not knowing how to swim front crawl!

A year of training, learning and a range of ‘warm up’ events from Super Sprint right through to Olympic distance triathlons, and a 3 Peaks Challenge in the middle for good measure, I completed the Half Ironman in just over 6 hours.

Having spent a many years reading, learning and trying all things fitness, I’ve been wondering how to pass on some of this knowledge and experience and well…the site became a way for me to get it all down in writing.

So here it all is, a combination of thoughts, experience, training plans and product reviews which someone might find useful in their journey.

Any thoughts, comments, requests or questions gratefully received!