Obligatory Introductory Post

I went to my first triathlon (Trinona, if you are interested) today to cheer on some friends from the local bike club.  Watching all those athletes go through the grueling stages of the race was awe-inspiring.   Having said that, a strange thought crept into my head...I bet I could do that.   It's a strange thought because I'm not used to thinking in those kinds of terms for anything physical.  I am a lifelong bookworm, hopeless at sports and more than a little clumsy.   But, in the last year I have started down a new path, and apparently this path has led me to a point where I watch people cramping in the last 100m of a 10k run and think "Yeah, that might be fun".  

At this point, I feel I should explain my back story a bit.   I'm going to write this as though you are a stranger, though odds are that you aren't.    Still, there's a lot that even my friends may not know about this journey I've been on, so perhaps it will be interesting to those who know me anyhow.  

In late March of 2011, I decided to imitate my best friend and lose some weight.   I'll admit I was more than a little motivated by the thought that if she lost weight, that would leave me as the sole fat friend and somehow that just wasn't cool.   Besides, a number of things had occurred in the year prior to bring to my attention that I was no longer just overweight, but that I had crossed a dangerous line into morbidly obese.    I had reached a point where my weight was limiting what I could do, like buying a kayak or snowshoes, and I was sick of it.   So, I set up an account with Lose It! and set about tracking my calories.    When I recorded my first weight, I entered 320 lbs.   It was a guess, and I later found it was low by about 10 lbs.  

Me at my heaviest 

I bought a bike and set about trying to get fit.    I never suffered from body image issues, and have been blessed with a rather resilient ego.   So, I never could use appearance as a motivator for very long.  On the other hand, I am perhaps overly proud, and being the friend left gasping for air on a hike was a good kick in the bum for my ambition when my enthusiasm began to flag.    My first ride was three miles on flat trail, and I thought I was going to die.   I wanted to ride with the Ladies' Ride my LBS had told me about, but I knew the short ride was about 10 miles.  I was going to have to work to get there.    So, I rode and over time I started to build up endurance.   Eventually I was doing 10 miles and then one day, almost by accident, I did my first 20 mile ride...and nothing has really been the same since.

Nowadays I ride a carbon beauty of a road bike and wear spandex shorts and worry about things like cadence and proper refueling strategies.   I have gone from someone who couldn't walk up the stairs to my apartment without huffing and puffing to being someone who considers a 20 mile ride recovery.   I am over 100 lbs lighter than I was a year ago,and while I have a ways to go before I can be considered a healthy weight, I am fitter than I have ever been in my life and, in the secret parts of my mind, consider myself something of an athlete.

Me in June 2012

And this is where the triathlon comes in.   I have a competitive streak that I can't quite kick, and it has attached itself rather tightly to my cycling.   I'm not very fast, and probably never will be, but I have a tolerance for doing things that rather suck while you are doing them...and I'm pretty sure a triathlon falls firmly into that category.   I'm a passable cyclist, a miserable swimmer, and can't run to save my life.    The person I was a year ago would scoff and walk away, ignoring that niggling thought that maybe just maybe I can do this thing.   Thing is, I'm no longer that person, and I'm pretty sure I want to kick ass.