Hi. I'm Jon Sykes, Founder of Racemappr and someone who loves to race. I'm 33, and from the UK but I have been living in Berlin, Germany for over 3 years. My favourite sport is triathlon, but I also regularly compete in running and cycling events and belong to the great community that is the Berlin Social Runners.

I've always loved to compete in sports, and as a child this was a mixture of swimming, tennis, rugby and cycling. At Cardiff Uni, I then got involved in rowing and had a great time learning something completely different. The training for it was often brutal, but a huge amount of fun and a real community feeling. After Uni I moved to London and soon realised I wouldn't be able to continue with the rowing, and after talking with a great colleague and friend Brayton, we started training for a triathlon together. That got me - I was completely hooked, and now i'm always thinking about my next challenge.

Having fun and enjoying events has always been a big part of it. Which is why at some races I'm more focused on the outfit than the time, but that is the special race day feeling. It's such an inspiration to watch people with different goals, backgrounds, abilities and passions all come together to race. 

This is what started the inspiration behind Racemappr. I've worked in the creative industry for years, across brands, campaigns and also web products and love to find solutions to problems. Whilst I loved to race I always thought that there were opportunities to make finding races easier, inspire people to race more and to also take some of the wonderful community feeling from race day online so that it exists both before and after the event. 

This is what I am trying to achieve. I am looking to connect the whole race community to make it smoother, simpler and happier. It's going to be a long journey, and I look forward to sharing progress with you (so please follow me) but most of all I really want to hear from you. How can we improve things both on and offline. I'm also keen to hear your stories, motivations, passions and ultimately what challenge you want to achieve. This is truly a platform for all of us who want to race, so I hope we can build it together.

Happy racing and thanks for reading.

Jon