Claire Williams
As a child I swam at my local swimming club, but I quit when I went to university. Let’s say I enjoyed my university years and everything that came with the university lifestyle. Unfortunately, due to this I not surprisingly gained a lot of weight, it piled on! I continued in this oblivious state for some years until it was time to set a date for my wedding. I decided enough was enough, I was not going to be a fat bride who was embarrassed by my wedding photos.
This determination drove me to get fit again and try and loose the weight I had gained over the years; I did this by dieting and I started running. I loved my wedding photos but once this motivation and goal had passed the weight crept back on, but I continued with my running.
With this newfound passion for sport I was dragged along to the local triathlon club by my friend to try out one of their swimming sessions, which I loved! I signed up to the club straight away but felt as though I was nowhere near fit enough to take part in a triathlon, so I continued to attend the training sessions and volunteered at the club events. After seeing how supportive and inclusive the triathlon community was I decided to bite the bullet and enter my first triathlon at Nantwich in 2013. That was it, I was hooked, I bought a road bike, a wetsuit and started looking for events to enter the following year. I always felt very self-conscious at the events that I did while wearing my lycra suit, so much so that I wore a t-shirt over the top so people couldn’t see my body, I felt huge!
Where things started to take off and change for me was when my training buddy mentioned that if I had registered my intent to qualify for the Great Britain age group team I would have potentially got a place. I obviously didn’t believe him but thought I would give it a try. I very surprisingly managed to qualify for both the standard and sprint distances at the 2017 World Triathlon Championships. It was such a honour to wear the GB kit and having people shout and cheer for you all the way around the course was just something that I can’t explain, but what I did know is that it’s made me hungry for more! That gave me so much confidence and it made me realise no one see's me for the size I am but for the athlete and achievement of wearing and competing for Team GB.
I have since worked hard at keeping the weight off and keeping my body healthy to be able to compete at my best against the best in the world. I now competed at both European and World championships level in both the sprint and standard distances, I am also hoping to qualify for the Ironman 70.3 world championships and European middle-distance triathlons next year. That is my motivation and my drive and I would love to motivate and help others to keep fit, be active, be healthy and look after their bodies. If I can go from heavy drinking and binge eating to losing weight, keeping it off and feeling the best I have ever felt, then so can others.
Now I am a personal trainer and I want to share the knowledge and experience that I have learnt about eating properly and exercising in the correct way so that you too can achieve healthy sustainable weight loss and lead you to live the life of your dreams just like I have.