What an eventful year 2012 was!

My first full year of Triathlon went way better than I expected, and I ended the year as British National Age Group champion with my sights now firmly set on 2013.

Looking back on the year, I’d say that my first elite race at Blenheim last June was my breakthrough event, giving me the confidence that I had the ability to compete against the best in the country. It was also the first time I’d done a shorter distance triathlon and I have got to say I loved having a 5k run at the end and not the usual 10k! My best memory of the day was probably coming out first after the swim – closely followed by my worst, the 400m uphill climb to transition! I finally finished 13^th which I was pretty pleased with, though more importantly, it was a great learning event,  enabling me to better identify where I needed to focus upon in order to compete with the very best!

….and a final highlight of the year? Well that has to be the Virgin Active London Triathlon.  I was pretty nervous before this event due to the presence of such a strong international field, though naturally I’m starting to get used to this now.  In spite of ice-cold water conditions and a wrong turn at the turnaround buoy, I came out of the swim equal 2^nd (along with Jodie Stimpson and Natalie Milne) just behind Olympic Domestique  Lucy Hall. After lots of training on the roads and hills of Yorkshire, the bike was going really well – until I was brought down by fellow rider at a particularly slippy part of the rain swept course. I guess upon reflection that this cost me 60 seconds or so, but I still managed to come home 5^th - taking me into the prize money for the first time!

So that was 2012 – an Olympic year for many, a pre-Olympic year for me. Now it’s time to get some intensive training in through the winter – working particularly on my running, where, with the help of my physio Ian Blackburn i can stay injury free.

See you at  Clumber Park for the first race of the season!

Jess x

It has been a crazy year, and if someone had said to me, “you’ll have your own website in a year” I’d of thought they were mad!  But here we are!!!  Thanks to my partner Jon for helping me with it.