Helen Croydon

In this memoir, Helen Croydon chronicles her journey from party girl to Team GB triathlete. When she realises that her typical social activities of parties, alcohol and shopping are not giving her fulfilment, Helen joins a running club in an attempt to find a new hobby and new friendships. She also ends up finding a love of endurance sport, and specifically triathlons – and an eventual goal of qualifying as a member of Team GB.

As a runner who loves competing in half marathons and marathons (I say “loves competing;” in truth I mean I love it after I’ve done it), I was looking forward to reading this book and the first half of it definitely delivered. I myself have been toying with the idea of joining a running club, having always preferred to run solo, and so I enjoyed reading about her experiences in that regard. However, the second half of the book was taken up a lot by her experiences of improving her cycling – I have zero interest in cycling so found this part less engaging. The title of the book led me to believe that it would feature the running quite heavily, although I may have been a bit naive in that respect.

What I did like was that the author openly talked about her struggles with training, her sadness at finding it harder to create lasting friendships than she had expected or hoped, and the sheer exhilaration at discovering what you are capable of if you push yourself.

Overall, I did enjoy this book and would recommend to people with an interest in endurance sport, and especially anyone with an interest in triathlon.… (más)