After a year of lurking...introducing myself

Triathlon Forum
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It all started in 2003. I was a “skinny fat” guy, somewhat active and ate somewhat well. I did a bit of running and weight lifting here & there, but never anything structured or serious.

Then one evening, I went to the local pool for a lap swim, expecting to struggle to get from one end of the pool to the other. I struggled, but it wasn’t as bad as I had imagined. For some unexplained reason, after that swim I thought to myself “I can swim, I can run, I should do a triathlon”.

I found a local race in Ottawa: the Early Bird Triathlon in May 2003. I bought a used road bike for $200. There wasn’t much info about tri training on the internet at that time, but I managed to put together what I considered a “training plan” and followed it as best I could.

I loved the feeling of following a training plan and working out with a purpose.

I finished my first sprint tri in 1:43:29 & never looked back. More sprints, olympics, marathons, tri relays, a half iron tri and now duathlons.

I upgraded to a Felt Z80 road bike. I love to ride that thing.

I cleaned up my diet. I increased the intensity of my workotus. The beer belly and love handles disappeared. I am now not only living the endurance sports lifestyle, but I finally LOOK LIKE someone who lives the endurance sports lifestyle.

This year I was on track to qualify for Boston at the Fall Colours Marathon in October, but a severe back injury has sidelined me and put that dream on hold until next year.

My lifetime goal is to achieve The Rudy Award: an award given to Ottawa-area athletes who complete a skate-ski-run winter tri, a 50k ski race, a long distance bike tour, a marathon and an iron distance triathlon, all in one calendar year.

I just graduated from university 18 months ago. My biggest limiter right now is lack of disposable income and lack of car. My cycling & running are decent. My swimming is horrific and my skiing and skating are non-existant. I am going to focus on marathon running and roadie group rides until lack of $$$ is no longer an issue. Then I will gradually acquire swim lessons, XC skis & skates.

I have dabbled in other tri forums - triscoop.com, beginnertriathlete.com, trifuel.com, etc. - but slowtwitch has grown to become my favourite. I particularly enjoy the straight-up, goal-oriented, make-no-excuses attitude around here.

It’s good to be here. Thanks for reading.

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Good for you for making the decision. I like the sound of that winter tri! You CAN do it on a shoe string budget. Believe me, personal experience. I’d love a new bike and actually had one, but was hit by a car in June so I’m on my 20+ y/o Bianchi road bike. It works. I did my “training” with minimal family impact, ie bike to work, run during lunch. Swim on weekends at the lake house.

I’m a newbie myself, both to the sport & this site. Marco at Quad Multi Sport pointed me here. Too bad it was after my first race last weekend.

Hope to see you cruise by on the Boston run one of these years. Heartbreak Hill is a figment of the media’s imagination! Really!

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welcome from out of the shadows.

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Your seat’s too high :wink:
Sorry! the devil made me do it.

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You are a rock-n-roll bad ass. You are Guided By Voices fuck me brilliant. I love overcoming stories and doing new thing stories. Hang out enjoy the wine and don’t feed Big Kahuna.

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Welcome and good luck! Since you’ve been lurking for a long time, you already know there are plenty of Ottawa triathletes on here already.

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Thanks for sharing and welcome!

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Welcome and HTFU now or lurk in the lavenderroom. LOL… Welcome aboard!

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i watched the winterlude tri last year. the T-zone is hilarious. it’s just mounds of snow with XC skis sticking out of them. then you say to yourself “only in canada…”

any advice on how i should approach tackling the Rudy Award? i realize the goal is at least 5-10 years away for me. i’m just curious about how i should break it down into smaller, more managable steps.

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maybe start training with Dev or the seemingly endless parade of other fast doodes/doodettes from Ottawa. Once you can crush all of their dreams you will be on your way…

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those guys would drop me in 2 seconds, but that’s the dream. i’ll need another few years of training before i’m at that level.

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sounds like a plan…oh and do not “reply” to yourself, reply to the person you are responding to. That way they are aware that you responded.

Welcome to the conversation

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how does that work? do you get an email notification if someone replies to your post? or does the ‘reply to’ feature just make it easier to scan a thread to see if someone is talking to you?

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First, welcome. You’ve already seen there’s a wealth of information here from the most basic of questions to pretty advanced topics.

About the reply; the person you respond to receives an e-mail notice so they know to see if another response is needed or, if you’ve asked a question, you know someone responded. (How they respond…67% smart ass, 33% informative). Also, it helps readers keep track of the trail of comments. Often, responses are to comments several replies upstream. If you click on the name they are responding to, ST will redirect you to the correct comment.

Since you’re new, I’d suggest posting a critique my position thread. Make certain the picture is taken in the messiest, worst decorated room in your home. :slight_smile: If you’re bored and want to stir something up, start a discussion of BMI. I haven’t seen one of those for a while. People get more emotional than when discussing abortion, healthcare, religion, or tax reform.

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if you set it up in your profile settings you get an email notification that someone has replied to your post. Makes it easy.