New guy!

Hi all!

I guess I should rather be a little ashamed of lurking and of not posting on here previously, having been a BT member for over a year and all....

So about me.. usually people start out with their previous sports backgrounds. high school swim champ, multiple marathon finisher in the top 10 etc etc. nope not me! I plain and simply do not have a sporty background. I don't even particularly like watching sports. I am 37 years and overweight (190lbs) So why tri?

Well its more of a tale of inevitability. It is every fat mans new years resolution to lose a few lbs, at 215lbs it was mine too, but from somewhere, don't ask, even I don't know.. I had the idea that I was going to actually lose weight, not just a little, but a lot... Not only that but i would also enter for the Helsinki city run (just a half marathon). So I went out and bought me a spanking new Polar RC3 GPS, made me a up a nice training plan and set out running. Started off running quite slowly at about 35 minutes running a 5k. I had planned to run this 3 times a week but I quickly became bored of just 5k and started running longer distances. My times got better and two months passed and I had lost about 35lbs, I would still have to lose another 20 or so to not be technically classed as overweight anymore. I felt great, I felt motivated!. On one evenings training session, just a simple 5k I ran out from home the usual 2.5km and i felt.. I feel awesome, lets make it a 10km today.. So i ran another 2,5km, i still felt that after running 5km that I had way too much energy, so i decided to run to the next town which was just a little over 10km from where i started! By the time I got home it was almost 1AM and i was grinning from ear to ear because I had just ran a half marathon distance in 2 hours and 12 minutes. Go fatty!!

https://www.polarpersonaltrainer.com/shared/exercise.ftl?shareTag=ce...

The following morning I woke up still half asleep stumbled, tripped and kicked the bed post so hard I broke my foot... You really can't make that up... That was the end of my running plans, it actually took many months for my foot to be pain free. But the motivation that I started with had gone. Depression from not being able to do what I thoroughly enjoyed doing caused my weight to rocket back up due to poor food choice and medication side effects.

So.. the new year is coming on fast, I am starting to itch.... Every fat mans resolution and all that. I had visited my brother and parents in the UK (i live in Finland) and My brother and his wife showed me their lovely shiny road bikes, mountain bikes, tri bikes etc (both are multiple IM finishers, they actually hold hands crossing the line..awww lol). And I knew what I wanted to do the following year. I had that year received more than enough tax rebate to buy myself a road bike, not a great one but fairly decent. The following year I trained again, not as intense or as much as I should have as an afterthought. It was much nicer and easier than running... Weight came off again, and I actually participated in the Tour de Helsinki (140km) in sept 2014.

As a result of being a grade-A idiot and buying a new saddle a few weeks before hand and using it for the TdH I ended up with blister running all the way up my and I couldn't train for a few weeks, I couldn't anyway, It started snowing...

This year (2015) I had been chosen at work to participate in a series of seminars and as a result, training for anything was not feasible. A lot of my personal time was consumed by these courses which spanned almost the entire year and due to inactivity some of my weight came back.

Now... brother and sister-in-law again talking about Ironman (Mallorca this time) and how they were preparing for it, my brother planted that evil seed in me... "Why don't you do triathlons?".. Why don't I? I already know I can run if I work at it, as long as I stay away from pointy bed posts.. I have a decent enough bike with which to participate and.. oh god, how the hell am I going to swim 1,5km (I for some reason had already decided that my first triathlon will be olympic distance). i haven't swam at any real distance for more than 20 years. There was nothing else to it than to goto a pool and to check out how bad I am, Wasn't too bad, I never could front crawl anyways, but i was able to do 500m breaststroke in one go.

I have still 31 weeks to train for an even held locally.. like.. 2 miles away...

My training weeks consists of:

3 swims a week.

And after having already trained for a few weeks I can already do 2km breaststroke but it is dreadfully slow at 3min/100m (I am hoping that this will allow me to actually finish the event if I don't get the hang of front crawl) I am however self learning to do the front crawl with the help of total-immersion and actually today managed to do (not in one go) 450m at 2:34min/100m. Breathing seems to be a major issue for me right now but like I said, i have 31 weeks still to go!

2 days of cycling.

One of these is actually part of a brick, did my first one last week, just a 20km cycle followed by a 5k, was a little wierd to start running after cycling but after a while my legs adapted. the other day is a long distance. I also purchased a tri-bike on which to train and participate, the wife said she will buy me a Specialized shiv if I do a HIM.. wow, that's some motivation!! :P

3 days of running.

Again one of these is part of a brick and the pace is just one that I think is suitable and realistic, the others are for tempo and long distance. I even managed to get my wife to do the runs with me. Recently I managed to run 24,5km just because I was bored.

My next year calendar is full, and I have registered for all the events that I previously planned for and didn't do and those that I participated in, as well as my first triathlon. I already feel that I am hooked but I start getting scared when I read some forums and how the elite reeeeally really despise people who do breaststroke. I hope I don't have to do it, but If i need to I will!

Any and all advice is appreciated and now that I am no longer classified "Lurker" I'm sure you will see a lot more of me here