The Beginning - The start of my athletics career i guess is how most kids start in sport through the avenue of the school system and the help from parent backing. I was known to try any sport at school and had an attitude to try new things that the school threw at us in PE. Being brought up by a strong sporting emphasis by my parents that equaled my enjoyment for sport athletics seemed a great choice to try in after school actitivies. My sporting range was extremely vast at high school having played rugby football triathlons, squash and tennis all upto county level. It was the different type of challange's that made athletics attractive it was in essence to gain individual glory in the events but to help the school team win. I was known as muscles or "the big lad" in my form at school due to my first love of swimming where i developed large shoulders n biceps! Trying all events was fun as all came as a challenge and being an eager teen i wanted to win at all but when discus day came i excelled at that the most. It gave me a great sense of achievement to see how far it went compared to the rest in my form and this was easily recogniced by my form tutor mr higgins who just happened to compete at a high level in athletics primarily the field events. With his suggestion of finding a club i eagerly told my parents of my small success at school and looked for a local club. This is where i stumbled across loughborough university based charnwood athletics club. As i attended training sessions with my first coach things didn't seem to go so well as i could throw much further than most but techniques that the coach got me to do were some what dated. So as i could see i wasn't progressing i decided to move to another coach, and still my current coach today. Training sessions were allot more exciting as we did proper controlled weight sessions and as a young vein developing teenager it was seen to be very macho thing to do at school. From joining charnwood aged 12 till i started with the new coach i had little success but when i was 13/14 i had won several titles county schools champion and under 15 county champion seemed like olympic titles to me. The friendship i made at the club was probably the motivation i needed to keep me going. I made several close friends in the same group and throughout the team, due to youth and junior leagues. This was only made possible by my parents who gave me the opportunity for my success by carting me all over the country just to compete in a sport i might not be very good at. But if it wasnt for their vision and determination to get me to training and competitions i no i would not be half the person or athlete i am today. The years progressed and each year that went by was like a building block. At first it would be small wins in the local county school's and then harder competitions in the county champs and regional champs. During this time as a young thrower i did all four disciplines shot, javelin, hammer and discus for the club. Discus always came last in the day at competitions so id secretly reserve most of my energy for that as i enjoyed it the most and wanted the most success out of that event. Sometimes id just do one or two throws to secure a point for the club and then use all six throws in the discus to try and win. The years that lead to my under 17 and u 20 years were structured the same as today even back then it was conditioning winter weight's speed/stability and competition maininence. Which taught me and my coach a great deal on how to deal with different types of training as well as preparation for competitions. At the later teenage years my attitude became less playful and more focused on success. Something ive developed with my carrear. This enabled me to earn the hunger for success because no-one likes to loose especially me.