Reading another thread reminded me of what got me started in this sport. To the uninitiated, the thought of doing a tri can be intimidating. So for me, as I’m sure it did for others, it took something to light my fuse. I’m curious as to what got others started in this crazy thing we called triathlon.
A friend of mine had been doing tris and adventure races and kept urging me to do a tri. The idea sat on the back burner until I saw the 20th anniversary Ironman special on TV. After seeing Moss, the Hoyts, Bell, and all the other great high lights, I was very moved and decided I needed to give this a try. I started training and looked for the shortest race I could find. I signed up for the Mission Bay Tri in San Diego and I’ve been addicted ever since.
I always wanted to swim from Alcatraz and was super impressed with people who had. I also thought it would get me a six pack. Now I’ve swam from Alcatraz multiple times…still no six pack.
It might have been my thread you were reading. And To Mt Tamalpais Runner, that hill has something to do with my tri beginnings also. I broke my big toe up there a few weeks ago training for Dipsea which necessitated getting in the pool and running every day to try and maintain some level of fitness. Pool running is about as much fun as watching grass grow so I’d swim a bit too to break up the monotony.
Last weekend my fiancee finished her first sprint tri and recruited me to do one with her in August…when the toe is better.
I’ve kinda hit a wall with my running this year too and was looking for new challenges.
I always had the idea in the back of my mind “I’d like to try a triathlon”. I had been somewhat of a runner, knew how to bike, but the big missing piece was the swim. Then I starting dating a young swim coach and got into the pool. Don’t have the girlfriend anymore, but still have the tri’s.
Three years ago a fourth year medical student told me about doing triathlons… which got me thinking. I was curious and read stuff on the internet, found this and trinewbies… thoght it sounded like fun. My gym finally opened a pool. Talked some people into doing a tri with me and it whent from there
Sorry its so banal
I also had extra motivation of getting in shape for my wedding that year which helped drive me harder…
I blew out my ACL, and while rehabbing my knee I met a few Triathletes (two injured and one was a PTA). I was being tested one day on an iso-kinetic machine and the therapist asked me “you’re a triathlete right?” She asked me this because I am naturrally very lean and was very focused during my sessions. It set off a light bulb in my head and I stopped at Barnes and Nobel and bought an issue of Triathlete magazine and decided I wanted to race the Ironman one day. The only problem was I did not know how to swim, did not own a bike, and was not allowed to run yet. I ran my first 5k 6 months later, My first marathon 1.5 years after that, My first ironman distance race 2.5 years after that, and Kona (lottery) 3.5 years after.
Began as a runner. Jan-Apr 1990 raced every weekend and got burned and decided I had accomplished pretty much everything I was going to and had always had tri’s in the back of my mind. There was a short swim run bike ymca tri and was hooked. Have only done running races since as they might relate to tri training. Began with running as strongest event and now it’s probably the weakest. Hope to be doing tri’s into my 80’s but unfortunantly don’t have as long as I would like.
i live in a boring part of the usa. keeps me entertained while living in my hyper-conservative little redneck town. I’d go stir-crazy if I couldn’t get out and do something.
Back in 1980, I was running high school track, and rode my bike everywhere for transportation. I’d ride 15K each way to a soccer game since my dad said I could either take the bus or my bike. I also lifted weights for track at the weight room at my local swimming pool where former world breastroke record holder Victor Davis used to train and lift. I’d go swim laps after weights to cool off. Soon I realized that I could do all the requisite sports and I read about this crazy race in Hawaii. It stuck at the back of my mind. In 1985, I spent 4 weeks riding across Europe from Nice to Amsterdam snaking my way through the Alpes and then up the Rhine valley. When I came back from that trip, I was in great shape and, I heard that their was a tri in the town that I was going to college (Kingston Ontario), so I entered the 2k swim/55 K ride/15K run and has a blast. That was it. I was hooked. Been racing 5-10 races per year since then. I’m on my 20th season of racing now !
In my 20’s did any sort of sports for fun including jogging with the pooch and racquet ball. Had to give up the racquet ball when I was pregnant with kid #1 so took up swimming laps at the Y. Kept swimming through another pregnancy and kid#2 (16 months apart). After that one, kept swimming and started jogging again to get the “baby fat” off. The YMCA I went to had a sprint distance tri in the summer, figured I knew how to ride a bike, got a $300 Raleigh steel frame 10 speed at the local shop and started some sort of training program. It’s been 16 years since I did that first tri, I still have the shirt.
Watching older triathletes collect their awards at a tri awards ceremony, I thought, “wow, I want to look like that when I get older.” I took up running the next day and bought a bike a few weeks later. I’ve been doing tri’s ever since, that was 10 years ago.
I didn’t do much organised sport but did commute 50km per day on my bike and did the bike leg of a olympic distance triathlon (before it was called that). I had a great time and decided I could do the whole thing.
Back then I thought I was a cyclist but now I realise I was a latent runner pretending to be a cyclist!
Did a couple of sprints and then got to take part in the ITU worlds in 1984 which were held in my home town of Wellington.
Started running with dorm master for a detention for running in the dorms at boarding school. Started swimming with a squad at school, where the girls from our sister school trained as well. Won a local aquathon against all the ‘Ironmen’ jocks and won 50 skins. Continued to go to these events, saved up enough for a bike that cost 400 skins. Now Im onto my 4th bike worth near 10,000 skins. Just love it, and cant get enough long course tris into me, and Im a young pup by most standards here.
pinkboy…all $$$ quoted in AUD, so convert the prices yourselves
At 15, after a few years of riding road bikes, one of my friends in Boyscouts (go ahead and laff Tibbs…we’ll meet someday) threw down a gaunlet. In two weeks there would be a canoe/bike/run event being held by a local Scout group…and if I was man enough he’d like to kick my ass. We went, we raced, and it wasn’t my ass that got kicked. Third in my category (he was fifth) and 6th overall. Went back for the next three years in a row…second/third…second/second…and at long last first/first (with a course record that still stands today…using ScottDH bars that came out in the spring of that year…'87). The summer after the first one…my brother (a lifeguard at the time…and helping out at this race) got me into the very first, of what is now, Trisport race in Grimsby. Held by none other than Graham Fraser. And now, almost 20yrs later, I’m still here…and I aint goin nowhere.
I’ve always been a runner, and I started swimming in HS when I tore my hip flexor and couldn’t play soccer anymore. People had told me a while that I should do tri’s, but they seemed kind of hard and I didn’t have a bike either.
But last summer my girlfriend got me to do some of the MGPS races that she’d been doing for a while, and I loved it. Even though I was riding, and still am riding, a 1974 Fuji that I swear weighs more than I do. The rest is history
Or will be history after I’ve done this for a while longer.
