Because Kurt said so...

I'm starting this blog because a friend of mine (Kurt), started his own... (http://buikurt.blogspot.com/2010/01/50.html), and mentioned that I should do the same.

Towards the end of 2008, Kurt mentioned to me that he wanted to try triathlons, and I should do the same.

As a kid I always enjoyed swimming and biking, and always thought of triathlons as a really cool thing, but never really imagined participating in them myself... But, when Kurt mentioned this, it really connected with me, as my fitness level left quite a bit to be desired. When I was in the Navy, I was in pretty good shape and lifted weights almost every day, but after getting out in 1996, going through college, getting married, having kids, and drinking too much beer, and eating too much good "junk" food, it had all caught up with me. In fact a couple of Dr's visits had revealed that my blood pressure was also slowly creeping up.

In November of 2008 (because Kurt said so..), I started the training, not being able to run much more than a couple of minutes at a time. BeginnerTriathlete.com had a "couch to 5k" training program that was a perfect fit, and I got started on it. It was sometime after that, that we decided that doing the Lincoln Half marathon in May 2009 would be a good idea, and I started on a Half-Marathon training plan from Runnersworld.com in January 2009, and really stuck to it pretty closely. I had never been much of a runner, but was determined to change this fact.

2009 ended up being a great year of accomplishment for me. One half marathon, 3 sprint triathlons, 1 triathlon closer to Oly distance and a whole lot of training time has changed much for me in a hurry. Losing around 45lbs in the process is probably the biggest highlight for me.

I've read a lot of stories about people going out and doing their first triathlons, and being hooked from that point on, and I've done quite a bit of thinking on this, wondering if that is the case for me. What I have figured out is, I'm hooked on the training, there just isn't a better feeling than the "Endorphine Rush" that comes after a hard workout, swimming a faster lap, not feeling absolutely winded biking up a big hill, or setting a new PR running time at any distance. Putting all the training to use in a race is also a lot of fun, and allows me to tap into my competitive nature as well.

Ok, so maybe Kurt has had a couple good ideas in the past, but please don't tell him I admit that...