My younger years

I guess most people that read my blog will know a little about me and my history but I thought it may be interesting to those who don't if I give a little recap of my athletics life.

I've loved to run from a young age, I remember running around my street with a towel tied around my neck (as a cloak) pretending I was superman. I joined my local athletics club (Colchester & Tendering AC) at the age of 10. During my first few years at the club it was always about enjoyment and trying new events so I had no particular event that I specialised in although I was always better at the longer distances than sprinting or field events (I've always been pretty skinny). My first real memory of competition was when I came second in the 1500m at the Essex Championships as an U13. Not long after this I got my first proper coach, a guy named Dave Needham who guided my through the age groups until I left Colchester to go to University.

From the age of 14 my main event was always the 800m in which I had decent success coming 4^th in the English Schools as a Junior Boy and 5^th as Senior Boy. I still liked competing in every event and would do at least one mutli-event every year. In fact I competed in 17 English Schools, track & field, cross-country and multi-events, I believe this is a record in the UK as you don't get many multi-eventers competing in cross country and vice a versa.

After School I went to the University of Birmingham where initially I still ran. In my first year I ran some decent times over 800m and 1500m and had the brilliant experience of touring the Ivy League Universities in the USA which was a real highlight for me and something I would get to experience again 4 years later when I was the club captain of the University Athletics Club. After the BUSA championship in my first year where I didn't compete to my expectations I stopped enjoying running and quit, hardly running a step for a year and a half until a letter from my next coach Bud Baldaro made me decide to start running again. I won't tell you what I got up to in that time I didn't run but lets just say it wasn't conducive to becoming a good runner!!



Competing in the BUSA 3000m S/C



The rest of my athletics history tomorrow....