If you need inspiration to prove it’s never too late to improve your fitness and activity, then listen up to the story of Rhys Jones.
Less than three years ago, Jones was a 39-year-old average runner and self-confessed awful swimmer with deteriorating eyesight.
Now, he’s off to the Commonwealth Games to compete for Wales as a paratriathlete in Birmingham.
Jones - who manages to combine his training and competing with working as a consultant psychiatrist in Leeds - got on his bike and worked hard to improve his cycling, running and virtually learn to swim all over again.
To watch him surging along the coastal path at Llanelli at a recent British Triathlon Super Series event - skilfully avoiding concrete bollards and kerbs with the help of his guide Rhys James - was to observe something of a middle-aged superhero.
He knocked a minute or so off his previous best time and days later was confirmed in the Team Wales squad for the Games, where he will wear a red Welsh vest for the first time in his life at the age of 42.
“I came into triathlon through a talent ID event,” says Rhys, who suffers from an eyesight condition called cone dystrophy.
“I had only really been an amateur runner before that, although I had played football and basketball when I was younger.
“I had always enjoyed my running but I’d never really considered triathlon until I went to this talent event. They suggested I try it, so they put me on a Watt bike and I was quite good.
“They said, ‘Can you swim?’ And I said no.
“So, they told me I had better go and learn and that’s what I did through a long and painful journey. Now, there’s still improvement to make, but it’s finally coming.
“I was 39 when I started. I am 42 now.
“Sometimes, I feel 42. Sometimes, I don’t.”
Sometimes other paratriathletes can keep pace with the Peter Pan of the sport. Sometimes they can’t.
Last year - in his first full season at international level competition - he finished 10th at the European Championships and he then clinched a breakthrough World Cup bronze in Alhandra, in Portugal in October.
“When I got into para-triathlon, it was a case of trying it and seeing how it goes,” adds Rhys, whose medical specialism is in the area of eating disorders.
“I was successful in a few races and thought I’d commit to it.
“My work have been incredibly supportive and told me to go for it. So, I’m on a career break at the moment.”
