We would like to introduce our female ambassador,Kaylegh Adams.Below a quick introduction from her.
From the age of 13 sport has been a massive part of my life. From this age I started swimming for my local swimming club. I started off swimming for just 2 hours a week but this very quickly progressed to swimming 8-9 times each week. Fitting this in around school was stressful but to me at that point keeping fit and staying in shape was very important, so no matter what it took I made it work. As I became one of the older swimmers in the club I soon figured out that I had joined the sport late in swimming terms and I was never going to be able to compete with those swimmers that had been training since they were 6/7 years old. This spurred me on to try other sports, one of which was triathlon. I took part in my first triathlon in 2014 and I came second in that, just behind a world class athlete. I then tried one more and managed to win, I then knew that triathlon was the sport that I wanted totake further; giving me new challenges both physically and mentally. I got myself a proper coach who had me training around 12 times a week (which seems a lot) but when it is something that you love, it’s something that just comes naturally. Once I had qualified for the World Championships, the day before my 18th Birthday, everything began to happen very quickly. Sponsorship opportunities happened and I became somewhat of a ’local celebrity’, something I still struggle to both accept and deal with!. Once I had finished 9th in the world and then 2nd at the Europeans everything became much more serious and people including other competitors started to want to talk to me about what training I was doing, what races I was doing and how fit I was feeling which then became a constant internal battle with myself. Self doubt started to creep in... Every time someone asked me how fit I was feeling, I would wonder if I was as fit as I could be; if I had trained as hard as I could do; whether I was indeed capable of competing at that level. I was always asking these questions internally... Did I need to add in extra training sessions; whether I needed to up my game... this was my own internal argument and it really didn’t matter what any of my coaches said... I was full of self doubt. This has a detrimental effect on athletes both mentally and physically (believe me, I speak from experience!). I began to get injured and fatigued which, I now know was a direct impact of my continued overtraining – my continued self doubt and the negative effect that this has on the mind. A human body just cannot cope with so much stress both physically and mentally. With this in mind, I thought that a new coach may be the answer to all of my problems. I swapped coach and this was the best move I could have made at this time. My original coach is and will always be important to me and I have so much to thank her for however, for me at that time a change was as good as a rest as they say! The sessions were different, more challenging... This stopped me over training and has just forced me to adapt and force my mind to work in a completely different way. I have different challenges to focus on.
I am writing this now as I am considering all of my options within all 3 disciplines that make up triathlon. Cycling is definitely the discipline which I enjoy the most. There is no hard session of cycling that has ever put me off. I love the burning sensation in the legs and the buzz it gives you after, without mentioning how much cool kit you can get to dress up in for each ride. I feel that the pressure of sport, performance and constant training has really affected my enjoyment of the sport of triathlon and am hoping that a complete change in training with my coach Mark Yeoman will be just what the doctor ordered to allow me to keep excelling in sport as after all, sport is one of the best ways to make friends, keep fit and keep your mind and body healthy.
I would like to thank Stefano at Saddle Drunk for all his support on my triathlon/cycling journey and I hope that many other people are able to experience his amazing kit while taking part in one of the best sports that there are - cycling. Ride fast, ride slow, just ride.