New to the forums, but not really "new" to triathlons

Hello from Utah!

As the subject line states, I'm not really new to triathlons, I've done about 3 (1 per year). I've learned some thing over the past couple of years, and would like to share my newb knowledge as well as learn some new things to expand upon my newb knowledge

So, a little story of how i got into racing:

A couple of years ago I was getting pretty out of shape and over weight. When my oldest daughter started to learn how to crawl and then walk I was getting tired and worn out from chasing her around the house. I decided I needed to make a change a bought my first bike and started commuting to work. I was hooked, but I wanted and needed more.

Fast forward another year I bought a better bike, a full suspension MTB, and I decided to enter in my first mountain bike race. I took second and has hooked on mountain bike racing. the problem was, there was only 1 or 2 races in my area per summer. So I decided to start filling my schedule with a monthly race, but it a 5k, fun run, bike race or whatever. Well the triathlon came about when I was looking for something I hadn't done and there was a triathlon being held at the pool close to my home. I could swim (sorta), I could bike (fast enough to not fall over) and I could run (if you could call it that).

I completed my first race, and I did awful. But I didn't care, and it was fun. And I found that loved to race because it gave me a reason to train, and to get off the couch.

Fast forward again to this year. I don't know why but this summer I've been bitten by the bug and want to do more Triathlon races. I've had a couple of podium finishes in my age group. I've only done sprints and have been looking at moving up to an Olympic distance, not to win, but to challenge myself to train harder.