The Journey Starts Here

I have been working out regularly for 4 months. I'm relatively in shape now but still 20 lbs overweight! 5'1," 36 years old and 150 lbs!

My regular workouts include weight training with a personal trainer 3x a week, plus swimming and biking. When I'm in the pool I swim anywhere from 1/4 mile to 1.5 miles. Biking is mostly indoors now but its 1 hr spin class to sometimes a 2 hour class.

I have done a few sprint triathlons a year with two goals:

1). Finish
2). Not last

Some friends and I decided that we would try an Olympic distance this year so we scheduled it for late August. I have NEVER been able to run: my weight, my chest size, and hyper-mobility have prevented me from running more than a 5K without miserable pain. The thought of an Olympic Distance Triathlon was terrifying to me! 10K! I thought "well I guess I could walk."

It was Fri Jan 22 2010, My trainer Nicole had me on the treadmill doing sprints 1 min on 2 min off. I had the treadmill up to a 10-11 min mile pace, which is LIGHTENING speed for me! I kept this up for 30 min.

Sat Jan 23, I went to the gym and got on the treadmill myself. This alone was a bizare event. I cranked up the sprint interval to a 10 min pace and did 2 min on 2 min off. I was able to complete this for 30 minutes. This sounds stupid, but this 30 minutes of activity gave me the confidence that I CAN run.

Sun Jan 24: I arrived at the regular spin class with my friends Alexis and Anne. I was so jazzed up about the abiltity to run that I looked at Alexis and said "Ironman in 2012?" and she said "hm.. sounds like a good goal." From there.. we had a great spin class, then went into the pool and did some sprints and worked on the stroke.

Later that day I thought about it some more and every time I thought about the possibility of crossing that finish line, I would get choked up! I knew this was something I had to do.

I also started poking my friends to see who was with me. While talking to a friend Lori she said her husband Kevin has "always wanted to do that." I, of course, asked "so what's stopping you- this is 2.5 years away??" Needless to say he's joining me on this journey!