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Big thanks to our guest Joe Simpson for coming on the pod and saying his journey.

Joe says "I've always been active and involved in sport from a young age, thanks to a very supportive family who always tried to give me and my brother the best opportunities to be successful. I grew up in York and swam often when I could doing well in local events at the pool that we swam at. I've ridden bikes from a young age and can remember seeing videos of me running at small events when my Dad was doing 10K's on the same day. However, the sport of football and later cricket were around and when we left York to where my parents are now still near Malton, I joined local teams and the swimming especially stopped.

I did a charity triathlon which was very small and low key around 2008 I think. I enjoyed that, but never really carried on with it after, something I wish I had. We had Dalby Forest on our doorstep and could mountain bike there loads. Still did the occasional low key run event, Bramham Park was a particular favourite.

Moving forwards a few years to 2017, I was at uni in Leeds and the sport of triathlon was starting to become a bit more of a thing. I remember watching the World series in Leeds the year before and my Dad saying 'why are we not there'. I was at Leeds Beckett and had seen plenty of the GB team around so I looked into the 2017 race and entered the go tri and haven't looked back since. I got hooked and did other local races around the North Yorkshire area and minus the covid year, always did the Leeds weekend with my mum and dad, it's such a shame that it got moved from there. I enjoyed seeing my times improving, parkrun also has helped so much with this.

Two events at Leeds really made me think hmm I like this were in 2019 and 2022. I won my age group in the 2019 race and was 4th in the Yorkshire champs in 2022. In 2019 I first heard the words 'GB age group' and can remember over taking plenty of GB suits along the way. I had a few personal challenges that year and really doubted my self in my work life and relationship life so this race was a good distraction. The 2022 event I was now involved with Craven energy (CE) tri club in Skipton where I am still now and having a great time. I would have been Yorkshire champion that year or at least top 3, but my bike seat fell off and that lost me the 10 minutes I finished behind the winner with. That year the head coach at CE really spoke loads to me about age group racing. I did a few qualifiers in triathlon but never got anywhere. I was going to try again in 2023 at Leeds but then it was taken to Sunderland, I didn't go.

I tried duathlon, as by then my run for 5K had come down from 26.30- sub 19, it's now 17:55 and I'm aiming to break 17:30 by the end of the year. I went to Darley Moor in 2023 and qualified on a roll down slot for Portugal 2024. That was my proudest sporting moment and along with graduation, proudest life moment. My parents and girlfriend made it into a nice trip and I certainly enjoyed the experience. I've never come from a rich family, I've just got parents who have worked hard but not just given me and my brother things without us working for them, especially now. The cost of GB racing is a lot so I make sure I work around it all well with my work as an outdoor instructor. I'm around great people and really am looking forward to the euros next year in 2026 wherever they may be, just need the final conformation now. My main goal in this sport is to try take it as far as I can. I'm enjoying the process very much and seeing my running times now down where they are shows me that my hard work is working."

Good luck to Joe in the future you can follow his journey on Instagram @joed_simpson

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