A year in the life of a Tri Noob

Just over a year ago I was 200+ pounds and kicking around the idea of doing triathlons.  I wasn't very confident in it and was woefully out of shape.  Through a friend, who doesn't use the site at all, I found BT and quite frankly it made a dream of being a triathlete seem not so out of reach.

I started here on BT Sept 1st 2008 and my first workout was a 4x100, 4x50, and 4x25 swim.  Half way through the first 100 yards I wanted to get sick.  What could I have possibly gotten myself into I thought.  I logged it and read the forums determined to make it through the week.

I lurked on the forums for a bit until words like, "jock strap", and "donkey" drew me out to ask MaggyRuth via a personal message for definitions.  Who the freeb wants to be a jockstrap?!  I mean, ewwwe.  And what is glamorous about being a Donkey?!  She convinced me not to lurk and so I threw in a few posts here and there as a hello.  Luckily I was able to keep out of the line of fire between Davey and Amy Jo.

A month or so later I met up with some of the Madison Donks at an indian place on west wash.  I was fairly nervous about commiting some sort of faux pax until Phil growled at the waiter for offereing to take his plate.  After that I wasn't too worried.

In January after a month and a half hiatus I came back and tried to get back on the horse.  I started running .5 miles and walking the rest of the 30 minutes.  Still I read the forums and kept track of the donks.  Going to Rich's The Distance really inspired me.  If they could do the ironman I could do one sprint tri for sure.

In the months that followed I got a ton of help from everyone.  Anna helped me into the wetsuit.  Deanna got me to go out for my first OWS wherein I'm pretty sure I nearlly kicked Dar89 in the head when I stopped 50 yards out from the panic setting in.

Lake Mills was like competing at a sporting event at your home field.  Donks were everywhere and helped me out with gear, placement, encouragement and answered all the questions I had.  It was rediculously cool to eeaaww at people when they passed me or as I saw them go by on the run.  And it helped push me, even when I had the hernia, thinking to myself, "Whatever you do you can't let Deanna and Amy Jo pass you!  You have a 45 minute head start!"

Finally this august I completed my first Olympic tri after training quite a bit of the summer injured.

So I guess stats wise I went from not being able to run .5 miles to being able to do a 10k, from not being able to swim 100 yards to 1.5k, and from not being able to bike 15mph to just over 17mph.  More importantly I made lots of friends.

I guess this is a long winded post that is essentially trying to say thank you to all of you who supported me.  There are too many to mention but Anna for helping me with the wetsuit and Deanna for setting up my first OWS.  Amy Joe and Craig for calming me down at Lake Mills.  All of you are an inspiration.  This is a great place to be.  And I'm proud to be a Donkey.  Now I just have to beat up Phil and steal his jersey. :-P