The Beginning

At the beginning of 2004, I was out of shape and decided to start working with a trainer at my local gym. After a few months, I started to see results. I felt ready to start running. I had a running background, so I decided to start training for a half marathon. I completed the La Jolla Half Marathon on April 25, 2004 in 2 hours and 2 minutes. I was happy with this time as I had not had much time to train for the distance. Over the next three months, I competed in a few 10ks, 5k's and mud runs. I even finished third in my division in one of these races. Then I entered America's Finest City's 1/2 Marathon, with a goal of breaking two hours. On August 15, 2004, I ran the first 9 miles of the America's Finest City 1/2 Marathon at goal pace. But my knee was hurting pretty badly. Before reaching the 10 mile point I had been reduced to walking. I felt like crying. My time was 2 hours and 18 minutes. I felt like a failure.

After the disappointment of the 1/2 marathon, I decided it was time to look for a new challenge. I had recently bought a mountain bike and enjoyed riding my new bike a lot more than my running. I looked through Active.com's upcoming events and decided to do a sprint triathlon in Long Beach, California. The swim was 800 meters in the ocean, the bike was 11 miles, and the run was 3 miles. I already could easily bike 11 miles and run 3 miles. All I needed to do was learn to swim 800 meters comfortably. I thought it would be "a piece of cake". The next week, I came in to my training session and proudly announced to my trainer that I had signed up for a triathlon and that I was now a triathlete. She corrected me and said "you're not a triathlete until you have finished a triathlon". I went out and bought a book about training for my first triathlon called "Starting Out". I was a little scared, but mostly I was very excited.

Over the next six weeks, I read my triathlon book religiously. It became my new "bible". I started taking Masters Swim classes. I was the slowest swimmer in the class, but I that did not stop me from showing up. My trainer was impressed with how seriously I was taking this challenge but she warned me. "Don't expect to do well. There will be a lot of very fit triathletes there." I really didn't know what to expect, but I thought she could very well be wrong. Sure I was a little overweight and getting up there in age (44). But in college I had been a very good runner and had even broken the school record in the mile. I just might surprise her. Being a triathlete couldn't be that hard. Could it?