First of many posts

I've been thinking of starting up a triathlon specific blog for a while now. Not sure why. I think it has to do with the practice of writing race reports after each race. Something I've never done until I started doing triathlons and joined the Atlanta Triathlon Club. Now when I race or train, I'm thinking of details to write in my race report. It helps keep my mind busy on long training runs.

So let's start off with a bit of my background. I'm currently a freelance web, motion, graphic designer and photographer. Depending on the week, you can replace freelance with unemployed. Of course being a design and creative type, I had to come up with my own design for the blog background, which of course took longer than it will to write this post. Since I'm also a photographer, I'm going to try to post at least one photo for each post. Who wants to read a bunch of text anyway. A picture will help break things up a bit.

As a triathlete, there some benefits to not having a regular 9-5 job. I get to train when most folks are at work. The downside is if I'm training during the day, I'm not earning any money.

I wanted to do a triathlon for over 10 years and alway put it off. I think it had mainly to do with the swim portion. I heard stories of getting kicked in the face, getting pushed under or even an elbow to the face. That's enough to turn anyone off, especially if they're not a strong swimmer. The other reason for not doing it earlier simply broke down to time. I was so driven in my career that I forgot to take time for myself. During a very busy and stressful time in my career I gained almost 20 pounds. So when I lost my job (like many others in 2009) I decided to start running again. I had the free time, no reason not to start back up. Started running short races again, a couple of 5k's. I had done longer races before but never had the discipline to commit to a training schedule which led to injuries and taking time off from running.

I signed up for a training program with the Atlanta Track Club to run the Peachtree Road Race 10k. Had a great run (although slow) and finished without any injuries. I felt great but I wanted to push towards a longer distance. I had done 2 previous half marathons, but always ran injured and gave up running because I hated the pain. I signed up for a half marathon in October, with the goal to run healthy and uninjured. That goal gave me my motivation to continue my training during the summer months. Once again, I finished feeling pretty good and actually had a fairly decent time (2:05:ish). I then signed up for the ING Half Marathon in March hoping to keep training through the winter. This time the goal was to finish under 2 hours. Missed it by 1minute, 45 seconds.

It was at the ING expo that I walked past the Atlanta Triathlon Club booth. I actually walked by a couple times. I also stopped at the Georgia Multisports booth and talked to Jim Rainey. Jim is the race director and puts on several triathlons in Georgia. Several years ago I had worked with Jim's business partner and designed the Georgia Multisports logo. We talked about my reservations on the swim portion and how I was considering joining the Atlanta Triathlon Club to help train me for a triathlon. He assured me that not only would I be able to do a triathlon, but would enjoy it. I went back over to the booth and talked to one of the bike coaches and decided to go to a Q & A session the following week. I think I had already made up my mind to join and only went to the session for confirmation or I was looking for some excuse not to join. Didn't find any. I liked what I heard and knew that if I was going to do a triathlon, this was the year to do it. I had the time, I had no excuses. My journey to becoming a triathlete began April 2010. I did 2 sprint triathlons. I finished another half marathon and got my under 2 hour goal (1:54:21) and I'm just getting started.