How It All Began

My submersion into the world of triathlon was a long and slow road, it was always something I wanted to do but committing to training was tough for me. Simply put my heart wasn't in it yet. And I honestly had bad luck getting signed up for a race.

As I said in the previous post, I discovered the Timberman Triathlon in '07 but was unable to compete due to the fact that I wouldn't be around for the event. With this in mind, I saw no point to training.

The next year, 2008, I thought about it a little more and decided to sign up for the race. I learned my first lesson of triathlon: heed registration deadlines! The race after opening registration was full within two weeks. I wouldn't be able to run it this year, once again I was uninspired to train.

The fall of '08 and the spring of '09 made up my freshman year of college. During this time I received my first boost of inspiration. My high school girlfriend ended our relationship, and I honestly just needed to look forward to something. So I said to myself, "someday, I'm going to be an Ironman!" As silly as it seems, I must be honest and that is how I really first kicked things into gear. When it came time for registration to Timberman a friend asked me to be part of a relay, the running leg. So the swimmer tried to turn himself into a runner.

I learned a little bit about myself at this point. Mainly: I'm a crappy runner. I headed to my college track in late March for a little time trial. 1 mile. All out. My time: 7:47. Realizing I have a little over 3 months to run 6 miles and considering my time, I was severely discouraged. So I did the exact opposite of what I should have done, I didn't train.

The fear of making a fool of myself eventually got me going with about 4 weeks to go before the race. And eventually I was on my way to taking part in my first triathlon.