A former McDonalds worker who struggled to run to the end of her road has qualified for Team GB's duathlon team.
Lizz Davidson, from Southport, Merseyside, was overweight and could barely run the length of her street at 24-years-old.
But after overhauling her lifestyle, she dropped six stone and found a love for training leading her to take part in her first triathlon with friends in 2009.
Now aged 39, she has earned a place in Team GB for the second time in four years and will compete in the Duathlon Championships in Romania this summer, the Liverpool Echo reports.
She said: "It all started when I was a student and I was working part-time for McDonald's to get a wage.
"I put on weight with the lifestyle of a student where you're going out drinking and eating what you want, doing what you want and the weight just piled on.
"Then came a time when I just thought 'enough's enough'. I'd put like four stone on and I needed to lose weight.
"I didn't feel good in myself and I couldn't even run to the end of the road.
"I can remember it like it was yesterday.
"If someone said to me 'you're going to run a mile' it would have been like me running a marathon.
"I had to do aerobics once a week to build myself up and then when I felt confident enough I joined the gym.
"There were some friends at the gym who asked me to do a triathlon with them and I was just like 'oh yeh, whatever' but I did it, managed to get around and I loved it, hated it but loved it.
"That's what got me to love triathlons.
"I was training through pregnancies because I refused to let that stop me and I didn't want to put the weight back on so I trained safely and then in between my pregnancies I continued to do my triathlons. I kept fit."
After continuously earning a place on the podium in competitive events, Lizz was told she should try qualifying for Great Britain's Age Group Team.
The age group teams compete at a non-elite level but have 20 different groups where people can qualify depending on their age.
Lizz competed in her first triathlon in 2009 and just nine years later was competing in Glasgow at the European Championships.
Now a mum-of-three, Lizz starts her training at 4am before her daughter, one, and two sons, five and six, even wake up.
She said: "A lot of athletes won't have children so young. A lot of them have to train twice a day and do what they want.
"Whereas I have three children all under seven so to find the time train means I have to get up early at four o'clock in the morning to do my training around my family life."
