Melissa’s Story

Melissa’s Story

Melissa is a valued member of Cheynes Training, as well as carrying out her roles within Cheynes, Melissa runs a full column hairdressing. In her spare time Melissa competes in triathlons. It all began when she first watched her husband participate in his first 1/2 Ironman and thought, ‘how difficult can this be?  As a child Melissa swam for Crawley, she remembered finding it easy. She also ran in obstacle course races, slowly but still she ran.  All Melissa needed to do now was learn to ride a road bike (With these skinny wheels and tiny saddle). However, it wasn’t that simple! Somewhere in the 30 plus years since club swimming she no longer found it easy. Running after the other two disciplines is different to any other running Melissa had experienced. Just think ‘jelly legs’! But she quickly grew to love cycling, it was the speed and getting out seeing the great outdoors which she began to take a shine to.

So why does Melissa put herself through this “I do it for personal challenge, to put myself out of my comfort zone, There is so much to learn, I still feel like a total newbie.’’ Everything is trial and error and yes I fall off my bike often!  Melissa’s first competitive competition was in 2017, since then her top three events have been;

1) First half iron distance race in the Cotswolds, can you believe it was actually 30 degrees!

2) The Tri club race, great fun and lots of friendly faces. Plus she won her age group.

3) Then Finland and Portugal 1/2 Ironman races. Both were amazing!

To be able to compete at these events takes dedication and hard work, Melissa typically trains 6 days a week and anywhere between 8 to 13.5 hours a week depending on race schedules. Long bike rides and runs are usually done on Sundays, so Mondays are recovery days.

So what’s next? Melissa is now training for an Olympic distance triathlon which includes 1500m swim, 40k bike ride and a 10k run!

Good Luck!