INTERVIEW – SHAUN CROWLEY

2013 and before I did a little bit of running and played soccer.

I run an outdoor swimming pool (I know! in the UK! how? lol) and after 2012 Olympics and the success of the Brownlee brothers I thought Triathlon looked cool so I organised a sprint at the pool and despite I couldn’t swim very well and didn’t own a bike, someone entered me… and I was hooked. The Beccles Triathlon is now so popular it sells out in a few hours!

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Beccles Triathlon Club – which I helped set up after starting the Beccles Triathlon

A little of both !

Each one of them (when I am back in transition or at the finish!)

Beccles, Suffolk, England

Flat !!! But we have great rivers and the sea to swim in (and an awesome outdoor swimming pool – www.facebook.com/beccleslido) and some great off road trails to run

It depends on what I am training for !!! not so much during the Covid – I have re-learned to love the swim/bike/run with no pressure !!! but usually 8-20 hours/week

I work at the swimming pool, train with my friends and relax with my family 🙂

No day is the same and the Covid has been an interruption but how about Tuesday this week, not so much work – a strength session at the gym then a yoga session with a new lady who just came to Beccles who also runs and bikes and wants to join Beccles Triathlon Club, then to the swimming pool in the afternoon to meet a supplier to measure up for a new pool cover, home, then back to Lido to meet friends, skins swim 1km in 14 degrees Celcius !!! and then welcome a Triathlon Club from nearby Norwich city who are cold water training – some in wetsuits and some in skins (only a hat, goggles and costume – English Channel swim rules) – and home via a cool new bar that just opened in Beccles – very important to hydrate after training 🙂

Of course it has to be Joe Skipper – my friend and sometimes training and racing buddy – I raced Challenge Almere with him in 2017 – my first Long and his first Long win AND sub-8 hours – we celebrated next day with bug bagels (yes real bugs – meal worms and crickets and locusts with cream cheese in a bagel) !!! and Lucy Gossage and Lucy Charles-Barclay – they’re quite good too 😉 and cool ladies who I met and raced with in Samorin and Peguera

2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and i just rolled 2020 to 2021

for it to happen! and for me to be there again! in 2015 I was AG50-55 3rd BUT missed the prize giving 🙁 2020 would have been my first race in AG60-65 – could I have been on the podium? who knows…

It was my first International race in my first Middle Distance season – and what an introduction to racing overseas, in the sun, and 3rd place AG50-55 !!! I loved it. I had a bad bike accident in April 2016 – I broke my back and had to be pinned back together – I was not allowed to bike for 12 months BUT set a target to relay swim/run Pegeura in September 2016 and it happened – what a swim – there were surfers on the waves !!! with a broken back – it was… emotional !!! and in 2017 I was back on my bike with all of Beccles Triathlon Club and Joe Skipper after a season in which I represented Team Great Britain at Challenge Herning and Almere, my first Long Distance !!! I have made so many great friends from around the world in this awesome sport, and so many race in Peguera and like me, return every year.

swimming, relaxing, the great bars and restaurants, the Triathlon vibe all weekend, the last sunny beach time for the season, hiking up to the tower on the cliff, watching friends in the Palma Marathon next day, cycling to Calvia for coffee at my new Mallorcan friend’s bar who once upon a time won the Galatzo Trail (which I should have raced in March 2020 after he told me about the race – any excuse to come back to Mallorca and Calvia province 🙂

JUST DO IT it’s SIMPLY THE BEST

Hard to pick – the swim when it is calm and you can see the ocean bed at the turn buoys, the bike course especially that first climb and onward to the crowds in Calvia, the run along the beach – but in fact the highlight is always the kids at the aid station – always so motivational