About Me

My name is James Bray, I am 29 years old and a keen triathlete, although this wasn't always the case. I train and race for Barracuda Triathlon Club in East Yorkshire. Below is a brief history of my background and some training and racing stories. Please feel free to contact and tweet me ideally via twitter - @jameswbray

Well my journey into triathlon isn't your stereotypical path of an endurance athlete (namely swimming or running) at a young age following the typical steps, I would describe mine as defiantly "a latecomer". From as long as I can remember my main passion for sport came in the form of cricket, which I played throughout school progressing into Premier League club cricket. Whilst studying for a BSc and MSc in Sport and Nutrition Science at university I was looking for something outside of the cricket season to keep me conditioned so found myself in the gym smashing out the bench press like most lads at that age!!

My transition into triathlon (pardon the pun) came at a ripe old age of 25 and it all started when I started a new job in The Department of Sport, Health and Exercise Science at The University of Hull. Within a few months of starting some of my colleagues who were already keen triathletes suggested that I get a bike and become an endurance athlete. Once I started looking into getting a bike I came across the “Cycle2Work Scheme”. So I signed on the dotted line and a few weeks later got a road bike and started training. I started off just cycling during the winter and then before I knew it I was getting taken to swimming sessions that Barracuda Triathlon Club were running and the rest they say is history. So in a nut shell, I was a cricketer and gym goer until I was 25 years old and for the last 4 years have fully committed to triathlon.

So onto my triathlon career……………….

The first two years in triathlon have been very much learning and development years and I have stuck exclusively to pool based “sprint” distance races. The first triathlon I ever participated in was the Humber Sprint ran by Toro RT. This was pretty much on my door step and the bike course was on roads that are my local training ground. I absolutely loved racing and once recovered, I then knew that this was the sport for me and left me chomping at the bit for more!! After two seasons I got myself an entry level wetsuit and embarked on open water swimming with the aim of racing in a GB Age-Group qualifier. After consistently training and racing I decided to have a crack at qualifying for the GB Age-Group Team so entered One Step Beyond, Rother Valley triathlon. I had a really good race gave it 110% and was happy that I couldn't have done any better. I placed 7th in my Age-Group, just missing out on automatic qualification, but was delighted to receive an email a month later telling me that I had done enough to qualify to represent GB at the ETU European Championships in Alanya, Turkey in 2013.

Unfortunately the build up to the Euros didn’t go very well as my father was taken seriously ill so I had an extended period off training, although I was still determined to give it my all off the back of minimal training. The race didn’t go very well for me and I finished to the back of my fellow AG’ers. Racing in Turkey was a huge learning experience and also an eye opener as I had moved from being a big fish in a small pond to a small fish in a big pond!! The biggest take home message was that I needed to up the ante and move from being self-coached to being coached. Lucky one of my close university friends Ian Mayhew is a successful triathlon coach running Gears and Tears. Fortunately I was able to get him to start coaching me and now I’m on the constant quest for more GB Age-Group action!!

Keep watching the blog for regular updates and how I fair in representing the GB Age-Group team!