swbkrun's group - FULL

Hi Steve, I would love to join your group.

A little about me:

Name: Mark from Austin, TX

I am married with one son (almost 3 yrs old) and another boy on the way (July) 

I will be 36 this summer and entering my first tri on May 25th (it will be a sprint).  Actually, I think it is less than a sprint (called a "first tri".  I am also registered for a sprint on June 22nd.  I would like to get a few sprints under my belt and then give Oly a try. 

I am a pretty strong swimmer and swam competitively in high school and my freshman year in college.  That was a while ago so I am really working on my endurance.  I have been a casual runner for the past 10 years but more for exercise than anything else.  I just recently bought an entry road bike and this will probably be my weakest event. 

Let me know if you need anything else.

 

Welcome Mark!

room for one more? let me know and i'll send you my info later today

Hi Steve, if there is room for one more I would like to join, I will write up a bio a little later today.

Thanks

Perry

great. i will send my bio later today.  i have been swamped at work but i definitely want to join the group.  thanks.

Here's a refresh on my bio for those of you who are new:

NAME: Ben

Story: While it's been a good ten years since I last competed, I decided this year was as good as any to return to the sport. So tossing aside all reason, I have thrown myself headfirst into the sport. Few races down, and many in the works, I love every minute of it.

My motivation to train is a combination of desire to compete, along with a weight-loss / toning goal. I let too many years go by, with too many bottles of wine and good dinners accumulate Now it's the challenge to undo the damage and get back into shape.

My strength is in the run (or was... need to build that back up!), but I am committed to working my swim strokes and learn the mechanics of cycling.

GOAL: Drop my weight from the November 2007 high (227) down to the 170s. Currently with my modified (re: nutrition and serving appropriate) diet I am just about to go under 190 lbs.

I am signed up for (a lot) of racing this year, and have been augmenting my triathlons with 5 and 10k road races. In order to motivate myself to train at a high level, I signed up for the April 2009 IM California 70.3 in Oceanside.

IM Kona is on my mind every time I get in the pool, sit on a bike, or lace up my shoes. I hope to make it there some day.

FAMILY STATUS: Married, two kids (3 and 1)

TRAINING: In the early phases of a custom-built 51-week HIM training/conditioning plan. I am still tweaking it, but I hope to post it up here soon for evaluation from the rest of you.

Hi swbkrun,

Im from New York City.
I am relatively new to the sport of triathlon.

I have never been a star athlete but particpated all through high school (Swim and Lacrosse). But I always hated running.

As a dare from a work collegue, we trained for a 5K race 2 summers ago. I ended up loving it and continued running and racing through the summer. As the fall and winter were approaching I knew that I would likely stay indoors  and lose my endurance. so I decided to join an organized group to help motivate me to continue running and have the organized coaching. I went to a meeting to sign up for their half marathon program and I was pulled into joining a triathlon. I complete by first Tri last april (olympic) despite injury (needing a cortisone injection) and fell in love.

However, I lost my season to my injury and have been battling both knee, ITB and shin splint issues ever since. So I keep training but am constantly having to rest and take days to weeks off to recover.... making getting conditioned for this season frustrating.

2008 Season:

St. Anthony's (last weekend) PR'd by 13min 

Capital of Texas  (Olympic) Memorial day Weekend

Mayors Half Marathon (Alaska) June  

Westchester (Olympic Relay Swim) September

Montauk Half IM ( Relay Swim) October

Current Goal: Improve Olympic Time to sub 3hours (now 3:13)

Future Goal: Half Ironman next season.

Onwards, Upwards and Sometimes Sideways

Bio time, I am a 6' 2" 34 years old and 6 months ago I was 238lbs and lazy, I decided to do a Triathlon in Dec of 07 as it has always interested me and I wanted to be able to push myself like I have never done before. I also have two little girls at home and I did want them being raised by an always tired and out of shape dad. I've never done any competive sports in the past, I have play football and volleyball but a recreational level so this is totally new to me.

As of today I have lost 35 punds (a weight I haven't seen in about 17 years) and looking to break the barrier of being under 200lbs for the first time in about 17 years.  I started training using one of the free BT plans in December on my own and also hired a personal trainer to help me. I have signed up as a gold member now and amdoing the basic Olympic distance plan and training up to 9 times a week. I am registered for an A race on Aug 17th which is an Olympic distance race. I am planning on doing at least one sprint before then so I am not completely a newbie for my A race, but would like to do more before then. I love the training that I am doing and feel energized when tell people about my plans and many say they have drawn inpiration from what I am doing which is a weird thing to hear.

I overall plan is to do the Olympic this year, and then start planning and training for a HIM next year and if all goes well maybe just maybe a full IM in 2010, but only time will tell.

 I love this site and am on it on a regular basis and have aquired a lot of knowledge and inspiration from the stories here and I will be forever gratefull to BT for helping me with my journey.

Enough said..... lets getter done....

My name is Craig and I live in Amarillo, TX.  I am 28 years old and began my quest to conquer this triathlon thing in January.  For probably the last 3 or 4 years, I have been intrigued by the sport but never really had a chance to get into it.  I am a poor college student and could never really get enough money together to get a bike, so I just dreamt about it for a while.  This last September, I said screw it, bought a bike and started riding.  In January, I officially began training for my first triathlon.   I didn't find this website until about 3 weeks ago, but have been trying since then to absorb all of the valuable knowledge that all of the members throw out there.

I have no formal background in swimming, running, or cycling, but have always been very active, playing team sports most of my life.  Training is tough at times because I always worry that I'm not using my time wisely by doing the right things.  I can go out and put the time in but I always think to myself that I could be doing this differently with maybe a better result.  I haven't really been following a specific plan other than making sure I spend enough time each week on all 3 events.  I competed in my first race in March and like most people, was immediately hooked.  I continued the training and finished my second sprint last weekend.  I am improving daily and have numerous sprints lined up over the next few months.  I also plan on doing maybe 2 or 3 olympic distances during that time as well.

I am single, which allows for a huge amount of freedom to train whenever I want.  However, I am in medical school and am constantly having to battle studying, call, lectures.  My schedule is pretty erratic, but I use training as a release and have gotten into a nice routine to juggle everything. 

My long term goals are to compete in a 1/2 IM and IM within the next year or two.  I would love to one day qualify for Kona.  Other than that, I hope to do this for the rest of my life and meet a lot of great people along the way.  I love the culture of the sport and thrive off of the competition and fellowship that it creates.   

My strength is cycling and I love getting on the bike.  Swimming has been a self-teaching type thing and my running is pretty average.  I look forward to using you swimmers and runners for some knowledge along the way.  I am really excited about getting the most out of this mentor experience.

Tracy, I'm an Aggie, so we might have to team up against Mark.  Actually, I probably should worry about you two teaming up against me!

I'd like to join up as well!

I started training last year when I realized I was way too far overweight, and a triathlon was something I always wanted to do but thought it was too far out of reach.  So I trained from January, lost about 45lbs and did my first two Sprint triathlons in August and September.  I was very happy with the accomplishment, as well as the results!

This year I'm planning on a sprint in a couple of weeks, then my first Olympic in June, then another in July.  I'm registered for those, and after that is kind of up in the year.  My biggest struggle this year is how to find the time to ramp up the minutes that I need to do train successfully.

Also towards the end of last year I started to have lots of aches and pains that made the training not so much fun anymore.  I ended up taking a bunch of time off, and I've been very surprised at how much my fitness dropped off.  So I'd like to avoid that happening again. 

I've been married for coming up to 13 years now, and we have two daughters who are 10 and 7.

Assuming all goes well this year, I'd like to be able to do an HIM next year.

I should also mention that I'm riding a Mountain Bike!  So my goal is also to get a proper road bike or tri bike.  But today I'm about to drop $3k on a trip to Ireland in August to visit my wife's family (I dragged her over to the US after we got married!), so the bike is starting to look doubtful...  

Hey, looks like this group is still open and I'd like to join up.

My name is Matt, 31, married with a 10 month old daughter and yet to do my first tri.  I decided to do a triathlon in December of 2007 and have lost about 20 lbs since making that decision.  I am most recently a recreational mountain biker, but have always been athletic and participated in many different sports.

Swimming and biking are my stronger disciplines.  Running has been causing me issues of late, more on that later.

My goal for now is a Sprint on July 12th.  I haven't looked much beyond that.  I was considering a half-marathon in the fall, but with my run-training issues - who knows.

Thanks,

Matt