Ladies and Gentleman, introducing Sprint (wo) Man!

On Sunday, September 24, 2006, I completed my first sprint triathlon. This day has been two years in the making.

Now you might be thinking, "hey, I bet there's a great story here. Honey, gather the kids! Wow, two years to get to the place where this woman can swim 750 meters, bike 12 miles and run a 5K. This must be someone who has overcome serious obstacles, someone who has an inspiring story to tell."

And the answer is (drum roll please): umm, not so much. Though I could say that I am paralyzed . . . ("guys, a paralyzed triathlete!") . . . ahh, by my fear of the water.

Yes, I know, believe me I know, it's quite a letdown. I guess another way one could say it is that I am a big wussy scaredy cat crybaby. Let's see, after consideration Alex, I'll go with water paralysis for $100.00.

I first got interested in triathlon two years ago through people at the gym where I work out. I was taking cardio kickboxing classes and someone that I met in that class encouraged me to try the bootcamp class. And Bootcamp is where I met FB, who remains the most sarcastic, sadistic, hilarious instructor/coach/personal trainer that I have ever met.

Besides bootcamp, FB ran the triathlon class. And he was always recruiting. When it came my turn, I pointed out to FB that I could NOT swim AT ALL. Yes, despite the fact that I grew up in Minnesota, the land of 10,000+ vile and evil bodies of water commonly referred to as "lakes," and despite the fact that in MN fishing is considered a "sport", and despite the fact that everybody in MN (and their brother too) have weekend cabins on the lake where they go to water ski and do water activities, I had never learned to swim (hello, my mother is from Ecuador. It's a well known fact that Ecuadorians cannot swim. Hey, that's my story and I'm sticking to it). FB being a diabolical genius said something to the effect of "oh, that's okay, just come and do the bike and run portion and see how it goes."

And so with that my triathlon story and journey began. And now having been inspired by the stories and journeys I've found in blogs, I'm sharing mine.