What got the newest newbies into Tris

I started biking to do a charity ride, felt great after training and accomplishing my goal for the ride, felt i needed to find an outlet to continue improving my physical conditioning after battling some health issues related to weight and blood pressure. Googled and Found this site and all the great peeps, asked for recommendations for race sites, got lots and and signed up for my first race, did a second and like every other "A" Type personality here, i got hooked.

check out http://www.trifind.com

Went to a New Year's Eve party last year (12-31-2007) and met some guys there talking about signing up for a local sprint triathlon the following morning as soon as registration opened up on the website.  Started asking questions, got interested, got up the next morning at 7AM when registration opened up and registered.  Went back to bed and then told my wife what I had done a couple of hours later.  She thought I was nuts and pointed out that 'those guys' I was talking to at the party the night before were easily 15-20 years younger.  Anyway, she fully supported me throughout the training and it was a big change for me.  I had let myself become fairly sedentary and wasn't engaged in any significant fitness related sports.  In fact, I had never been involved in endurance sports at all, so it was a big change for me.  I have enjoyed the training because I saw fairly dramatic improvements throughout the year because I was starting from couch potato fitness level.  It motivated me more each time I PR'd on my bike or running. 

Anyway, prior to that night, I didn't know there was any triathlon other than an Ironman.  I was truly uninformed.  Now, I think it is fun as hell even though I will probably never be on a podium.  That is probably why I enjoy them so much, I don't feel any pressure.

Greg

Well as a motocross racer I run and bike year round to stay in shape. My younger brother is a swimmer who convinced me to start swimming with him. After a few months of training I decided to enter a sprint tri to see where my fitness really was. After that race i've been hooked. I just finished my 2nd sprint last weekend and plan on working my way up to a HIM.

I left the Army in 2003 at 175 lbs. Since that time I have been between 205 and 245, usually around 220. I'm at 205 now and wanting to establish a healthy lifestyle. I have ample time for training and frankly I need something to keep my mind off my family while over here. I am planning on participating in the Redman Sprint in OKC in September. I found it through www.triokc.org.

Well I guess I officially got started this year in tri's. My first is in May. After that one, two more to call it a season for me I guess.

I've always been a runner & a swimmer. Just go out, pound asphalt and call it good. Jump in the pool and swim and all was well. It's all I had ever needed. Both came pretty natural to me, and I truly enjoyed them.

Unfortunately, I hairlined fractured my foot. Sidelined my running & swimming. Came back. Snow skiing accident and I needed knee surgery. Sidelined my running, kept swimming some. Came back. Gained weight. Started running again, stress fractured both legs. Sidelined my running. Picked up biking, kept swimming (joined Masters) to keep in shape. Now, coming back.

Doctor advised me to do strongly emphasize crosstraining. He liked my biking progress and thought it complimented well. He urged me to drop some weight and make some diet changes to avoid family medical problems. Took it one step further, I figured if I'm doing all three, I ought to make it work for something.

Googled something about triathlons and training and found BT. Lurked around, got info, and started adjusting my training schedules.

Decided it was time to make it real, told the missus, and signed up.

Running is back on track. Biking has picked up seriously w/ a real bike purchase. Swimming is just a great reason to wake up in the morning. Couldn't be better!

I just have everyone here to thank actually. So, Thanks fellow members of BT!

thanks!   right now we have three adult cats of our own + 2 foster kittens.

I was introduced to triathlon by my younger brother who competed in his first Tri OCT 08.  I visited him a few months later, and was amazed at what great shape he had gotten in as a result of his training.  It seemed that the sport had really given his life  a great boost, and I was happy for him.  At the time, however, it really never crossed my mind that Tri's would be something that I was interested in or could even do. 

I was slightly out of shape due to a bad lower back injury, and had been out of the gym for a while.  So in January, about a year after my injury, I felt confident enough to get a gym membership and started excercising again.  I was lifting some light weights and running for cardio, but I was getting bored quickly due to the same routine (short attention span, i guess).  To break things up, I tried a spin class.  It was amazing and was very challenging.  Then I decided to try swimming some laps in the pool every now and then to break things up a bit.  Before I even realized it, I was beginning to put all the pieces together, and then it hit me one night while I was talking to my brother about his upcoming season.  I CAN DO THIS TOO!

He referred me to BT and Trifind.com, and I signed up for my first race that night.  I'll be competing in a local sprint on May 17th.  I've lost tons of weight, am feeding my competitive appetite, found new energy and motivation, met lots of great people, and I AM TOTALLY HOOOKED!

I ran a 1/2 Marathon in Alaska with Team in Training a few years ago.  It was my first (and only) long distance race. Ever since then I have wanted to do a triathlon, but could never seem to get fully motivated to train.  The last year I have been working out 5 days/week and am in the best shape of my life.  I saw a poster at my gym about a month ago advertising the local Tri Club and I thought it was a sign... that it was time to do this!  So I joined the club, got my (mountain) bike tuned up and joined the local masters group.  I am so pumped about doing this!  This is the first REAL swimming I have ever done and I love it... it's something I could see sticking with forever! 

I found out about races just by Googling.  I use active.com to find the 5K races that I do, so I just went there and started looking around.  There are more races in my area than I expected.  My first tri will be a sprint in April.  Can't wait!

Oh and I found this website by Googling beginning triathlon workout.  So glad I found this place!

I used http://www.active.com and the race lists on BT initially (I too found trifind.com later).

I need the goal/commitment of an event/race to help me be consistent in exercising to lose weight and be healthier. Based on my belief in cross training I thought doing tri's would be more beneficial in the long term over just being a one sport person. Between this site and all the fun I had at my 1st event, I was hooked :]

edit:
Great, I wrote my answer before the revealing info posted just above. If our answers and normal willingness to participate in BT forums is used as potential substance in future BT competition, then we all need to get paid for any info we've provided then ..

My first tri (a sprint) will be in May 09 and what motivated me to try a triathlon was I got into running after the gym scene got boring and ran a 2:01:09 1/2-marathon (not too bad for a 200-lb guy).  However, while training for the same event's marathon the following year I ran into some ITBS issues and my knee never felt right again especially after 6 miles.  So, while back at the gym, I started to take some spinning classes and my wife suggested to give a triathlon a try...

So, this past December I started to slowly get things in order (gear, training, etc) for the May 09 tri.  Mind you the most swimming I've ever done was to swim from one side of my pool to the other to grab my beer, so swimming has been fun ...actually what motivates still is when I went into my local Sports Chalet to look for a pair of jammers and the employee looked at me up and down and said,"Well, we have some over there....but they're for competitive swimmers"  F*C* YOU, I thought...anyway, I digress.

 Fast forward, it's 3/6/09, I'm down about 9 pounds from December and enjoy my various training activities and am eagerly looking forward to the tri in May...

To answer your last question, I usually search on Active.com or in a local (Phoenix, AZ) magazine called Sweat to find local events.

 it was doing much better, and my runs were longer and times faster; never back to normal, but it felt much stronger...that was until i was rear ended in my car a few months ago, now its pain 24/7 and i'm stuck to aquajogging and only on the bike for short periods of time