Episode 13 Multisport Agegrouper, Megan Powell

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Currently a final year medical student at King's College London. Megan took up triathlon/duathlon in her first year.

She did her first degree in Biomedical Sciences at Newcastle University- She has  been at uni for 8 years, At Newcastle she  used to row and won a few BUCS medals. A shoulder injury and a gruelling training schedule where she would fall asleep in most lectures led her to think about a change of sport. She played netball for a year (coached by Sarah Harding who was episode 6 on this podcast!) but wanted to move away from team sports to have more flexibility at medical school.

Her mum Maria Powell is an extremely successful AG multisport athlete (15 podiums and 7 wins at Euro/World Championships in all disciplines except duathlon). Her family holidays used to revolve around watching her mum race around the world and family training camps at Club La Santa, Lanzarote! Megan was always inspired to take up the sport but didn't want to tread on her Mums toes! She grew up doing quite a bit of running in her spare time as a stress release/mental wellbeing but only did team sports competitively. Megans decision to take up triathlon when she moved to London was very much supported by her Mum  (she bought Megan her  first road bike for her 21st!) and she has coached her for the last 4 years!

Swimming has always been Megans least favourite and weakest discipline. She has had a two year battle with shoulder impingements and even managed to partially dislocate her shoulder in her sleep! This frustration led Megan to focus more on duathlons. 

She did her first sprint duathlon qualifier event at Oulton Park in 2017 where she won her age group (6th overall) and her first standard distance duathlon qualifier in 2018 at Anglian water where she was first female overall. She enjoy both sprint and standard and have got into a cycle of doing sprint at Europeans and standard at worlds. Sprint distance draft-legal racing is really fun but standard distance non-drafting really tests you physically!

Megans boyfriend Hugh has been a big part of her journey into AG racing. Prior to her taking up the sport he had done 2 ironman triathlons and was doing a lot of cycle racing! She convinced him to come to the qualifiers with her and give it a go and he has also done tremendously well! They have shared the podium a few times at world and european events! 

Looking forwards

Megan will graduate and start work as a doctor next year in August 2021. She is hoping to get one big season in before life becomes a bit more hectic! She wants to become a GP eventually and is very passionate about getting the public active! There are several doctors who have been professional triathletes at points in their life and she is  very inspired by them!

Mental health awareness is very important to her. She has experienced both depression and disordered eating- probably RED-S in hindsight. She is very passionate about changing the idea in endurance sports that lighter= faster. Many athletes get sucked into not fuelling themselves well enough (sometimes voluntarily sometimes not) and it generally always leads to worse performances! She is a big fan of the Train Brave initiative and she volunteers with BEAT at university (the UK's largest eating disorder charity).

to find out about the charities that Megan supports you can findthem  at....


Train_Brave  on Instagram and their web page is trainbrave.org

BEAT is on Instagram beateatingdisorders_voice and their webpage is beateatingdisorders.org

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