Jake’s Story: Non-Swimmer to 70.3, T100 and an Ironman Build

The Explosive Endurance Podcast · Oct 22, 2026 · 19m

When Jake joined Explosive Endurance, he could swim 25 metres. Since then he’s done his first 70.3 in 5:28, finished 21st out of 141 in his age group at T100 London, and put his FTP up from 220 to 304 watts while losing 10kg.

I sat down with Jake to go through his journey over the last two years. We get into nearly drowning after one length of the pool, getting seasick in a lake on his first open water swim, how he fits full-time training around running his own tattoo studio, and why he stopped beating himself up over missed sessions.

We also talk about Ironman Barcelona being cancelled the…