Howdy from Sacramento.

Hi everyone!

My younger brother did his first triathlon last year, and he really enjoyed it, so I decided I should tri one too. I’ve dabbled in all three sports off and on, and I’ve been an avid mountain biker for about 15 years. So I feel pretty confident about the biking, somewhat sure I can do the swim, and pretty sure I can do the run if I don’t end up being plagued by various minor knee issues that have bugged me in the past. I’m planning on doing a sprint distance some time in March or April, followed by an Olympic around May and then maybe a half-IM later in the year, assuming each race goes well and I keep enjoying myself.

I’ve been reading “Becoming an Ironman,” which is a great, inspiring book and I have the crazy idea in my head that I’d love to add the IM to my “life goals” list. Currently, this list contains two items – to climb El Capitan in Yosemite, and to read all of Shakespeare’s play (if you’re interested in reading the story of how I accomplished the first of those goals, feel free to check out my description of the adventure: http://climbernet.com/miscellany/climbing/salathe.html)

An Ironman seems like it would be sufficiently “huge” to warrant addition to the life goals list, which only contains items that are a) challenging enough to require at least a year or two of preparation/training/participation and b) have at least some chance of failure – if it’s a slam dunk, it’s not worth putting on the list…

I don’t know if I’d be physically capable of something as daunting as an IM, and it seems a little premature to set so lofty a goal before I’ve even done my first triathlon, but there’s something so appealing about the purity of the Ironman – the history, the distances, etc. I can still remember watching on TV when Julie Moss crawled across the finish line – I was just a chubby, nerdy junior high school student, still getting picked last for gym class… it would be a few years later that I started road racing - the first of my athletic endeavors, and the one that would (at least partly) transform me from overweight nerd into moderately fit pseudo-athlete (although the geeky side of me never really died, thankfully...) Anyway, I think it’s still that chubby adolescent within me that would like to prove to myself that I can accomplish something as daunting as an Ironman.

Well, that was a very long winded introduction. Mostly I just wanted to say “Hi” and express how much I’ve enjoyed browsing this website and reading everyone’s stories and advice. I’ve never seen such a supportive and friendly online community and I’m looking forward to becoming a part of it!

Thanks for reading,
Scott