Least
talented
in the room.

British titles, a European championship, and a day job finding hidden people

I joined Greater Manchester Police after college. A two-year hiring freeze got in the way, and in the gap I found competitive powerlifting. I was small for it and late to it. I made up for both by never missing a session. Multiple British titles, a European championship, and a trip to the world finals later, I had proof that the method worked on a barbell.

Meanwhile I rose to Detective Inspector, working adult safeguarding, modern slavery and human trafficking. It was serious, heavy work, and training was how I stayed level through it. It also taught me how to plan under pressure, how to read what people don't say, and how to keep going on a case for months without a result. Those are coaching skills. I didn't know that yet.

From 72,000th in the world to the Games semi-finals

In 2017 I did my first CrossFit Open and finished 72,426th. Two years later I was 7,396th. The year after, 4,139th, 208th in the UK. Same method: two years of unglamorous work to get to a level where I could qualify, then seven years of competing without missing a single heat. I dropped fifteen percent body fat in the switch and kept every one of my powerlifting PBs. That was the first time I understood you don't have to choose.

"It proved that I can exist in multiple worlds, and so can you."

In January 2025 I competed at Wodapalooza in Miami with my team, missed a heat for the first time in my life because of a speaker fault, lifted 102 kg overhead squats in the coldest week in the city's history, and six days later ran the Miami Marathon in 4:41, a nineteen-minute PB, with a cold.

Three sports, three continents, eighteen days. And a failure that built this site.

A full Ironman in Japan. A powerlifting meet in Miami one week later, where I totalled close to eight times my bodyweight. Then, six days after that, a 100 km mountain ultra in Whistler with 18,000 feet of climbing. I got through two summits and nine hours, and was timed out at a checkpoint by two minutes and eight seconds.

"Pain tolerance isn't the same as preparation, and it only works in the short term."

I didn't quit. I did everything the inspirational posts tell you to do. And I didn't finish, because the problem was never fitness. It was recovery: three continents of travel, broken sleep, patchy food, a full-time job, and pride that wouldn't let me change the plan. That post-mortem, published in Men's Health, is the most useful thing I've ever written, and it's the reason every High Persistence plan starts from self-respect rather than suffering.