February 28th I decided that I was going to do a triathlon. My wife thought I was crazy but when has she not though that? Because I hadn’t been working out much and because I needed something to get me back into shape I just decided it was time for me to take up triathlons. I had always wanted to do a triathlon. When I was a kid I would run in 5k’s and 10k’s with my Mom and would do decent for a little whipper snapper but I never ran anything more than that. As I signed up that day for my first triathlon my goal was to be able to get into shape, finish the race and not completely die.

The first race I signed up for was the TimpTriClub Triathlon on March 24th, 2007. The breakdown was this: swim 300 meters, Bike 11.7 miles and run 3.1 miles. This is a short distance triathlon that is called a sprint triathlon. I think it’s funny that a race that can take 1:30 hours can be called a sprint. The only part of the race that really worried me was the swim. I had never really swam laps before and I never learned correct form. Even so I trained the best I could. On my first training session to get me prepared for the race I decided to bike 11.7 miles on a stationary bike and to run 3.1 miles on a treadmill. I was able to finish both in about an hour and twenty two minutes and I felt pretty proud of myself being able to do that after not working out for a good amount of time. I decided my goal would be an hour and thirty minutes for the first race.