Hello and welcome to my brand new blog! My name is Ryan, I’m 20 years old and passionate about triathlon. I have created this blog to give you a unique insight into my life as a triathlete, and hopefully provide a useful resource for similar people, as well as beginners that are looking at getting into the sport.
In this first post, I’ll give you a little introduction into me and my sporting achievements to date, giving you an idea of where I currently am. Let’s go…
I’ll start with my swimming (the first part of a triathlon.) I started swimming at a young age and have always liked being in the water. At around the age of five, I joined a swim academy where I learnt a strong technique and practiced regularly until I was twelve. I really enjoyed this as a child, but as I was getting older I began becoming more competitive and wanted to race. This was something that the academy didn’t offer me, so I joined my new school’s swim squad. I quickly realised that I was not particularly built for short distances, and I was much better at endurance than sprints. Over the next years I often swam for fun and to keep fit, especially as I knew that I would be competing in longer distance triathlons as soon as I was old enough.
Three years ago I started open water swimming with my dad, an experienced triathlete. I built this up over time, until I was able to compete in a five-mile open water swim last year. Since then I have kept this up, swimming around three times a week and pushing myself in every session. I also open water swim as much as possible, as its one of my favourite things to do and I really enjoy it.
The next part of the triathlon is the cycling. This is my newest discipline, as I only started properly when I was 13, however my love for bikes has grown a lot since then! Cycling has been the discipline that I have struggled with the most, as I found myself not making any progress and therefore not enjoying as much as the others. However, since September last year I have realised that I actually have a lot of potential, I just had to work out how to unlock this. I went on a Zwift training plan which gave me a lot of guidance and more confidence in myself. I started using a power meter enabling me to see my data, which meant I could look back on it afterwards and find where I could improve. This made me train smarter and I made a lot of progress in a very short amount of time.
Running is the last part of the triathlon, and often the hardest to perfect after completing the previous two. I have been running since I was young, and therefore for me this hasn’t proved too difficult to develop. I completed my first half marathon was I was thirteen, and competed with the school cross country team, of which I was captain of in my final year at school.
My triathlon experience up to 2019 was limited. I partook in a few of the local sprint distance races when I was growing up, which was a huge learning curve! These really taught me how triathlon actually works and how hard the longer distances can be. It inspired me as a child to keep it up into adulthood. I then took part in two middle distance triathlons when I was seventeen and nineteen for enjoyment (and also for a lot of food to enjoy afterwards!)
I hope that this post has given you an idea about my experience to date, and told you a little bit about me! I will be posting regular blogs including product reviews and beginner’s tips, so I would really appreciate it if you gave them a read!
Please don’t hesitate to email me any questions or advice that you have for me, and follow me on Instagram (see link at the bottom of my page) so we can go through our triathlon journeys together.
Ryan Coombs Triathlon 
Amazing journey so far ,
Will be following !
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