A warm hello and a welcome to my website. I’m Dan Ryan and entered the forty club at the start of 2024. I was a bit nervous on the run up to it if I’m honest and found myself assessing my life, both looking at the positives and also the things that hadn’t perhaps turned out the way I thought they would. Not sure how typical that is of somebody about to leave their thirties behind.
My birthday itself was enjoyable, celebrating it over a freezing January weekend in Edinburgh. Plenty of food and booze was consumed, but I did manage a run up to the summit of Arthur’s Seat, which my family thought was slightly bonkers. I guess it was, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
As you can tell from that previous sentence, I’ve always enjoyed sport and spent several years in my early to mid thirties competing in cycling time trials. Most Sundays would see me waking at some ungodly hour to go and race up and down a road dressed like an alien ( skinsuit and pointy hat.) I loved it.
It was the process of training and gradually improving my times that I particularly enjoyed. Setting several records for my cycling club along the way was probably my greatest achievement, although only my 100 mile record of 3 hours 40 minutes and twenty one seconds remains. I’m sure some up an coming prodigy will break that at some point, but I’ll enjoy being listed on the club’s website until that happens.
After five years or so of time trialing, I got a bit stale and fell out of love with the sport. Some challenging issues in my personal life proved hard to overcome too and I gave up cycling altogether for a couple of years. I still did the odd bit of exercise, but continued to eat like I was training ten hours a week. Not a wise move!
Gaining nearly two stone in body weight over the space of a year and my rapidly approaching 40th birthday made me seek change. I thought triathlon would be a great option. Work colleagues had done them and always raved about them. I also knew I could swim and run fairly well with years of cycle training under my belt too. Why not give it a try?
This takes us to now. While I don’t ever expect to be challenging the pros at Kona, I have big goals and hope to see just how much this now middle-aged triathlete can achieve. There will be ups and downs I’m sure, but you’ve got to be in it to win it. He who dares wins as Del Boy would say!
