Finally my official "hello"

To all my BT-ers,

Ok, I figured after several weeks on this site, it's finally time for people to get to know me. Now that I finally have some decent amount of free time...tonight's the night!!!

So, I'll get a few of the specifics out of the way:

Name: Jasmine...aka Jazzy...aka Spazzy, the list goes on--feel free to make up your own
Age: 23
Height: 5'8"
Weight: somewhere between 128 and 135, depending on how much I ate that day!!! :-)
Location: Seattle, WA...but originally from the northern suburbs of Los Angeles
Job: Graduate student in Atmospheric Sciences
Tri experience: 3 sprints when I was 15...nothing since

Ok, so those are the logistics. Now the fun stuff.

So I've been pretty active my whole life. I've played soccer since I was 5, ran cross-country and track all 4 years of HS (800 specialist...nasty race!!). I tore my ACL a year and a half ago during a soccer match and decided it may be time to say good-bye to my sport. I sat around for almost a year after my rehab was complete and lost 5-10 lbs of muscle and gained it back as fat. I was deciding what to do to get back into shape when my mom mentioned competing in this year's Reebok Women's Triathlon Series in Seattle. She had competed in the same event last year in honor of her cousin who passed away from ovarian cancer. This series is similar to the Danskin, but raises money for ovarian cancer. She couldn't compete this year, so I promised that I would compete. I joined a group of women that promised to raise $500 for ovarian cancer research. So far I've raised $1000 (some BT-ers have even helped out!) and thus far us tri-ers have raised over $74,000!!!

The problem is that I have the bug now!!! I'm so bummed that I am competing at the end of the season (Sept 12), but can't wait to join the Master's swim team over the winter to help my underdeveloped stroke, build up my biking distance, and compete in several 5 and 10K's to get my speed back up to what it was long ago. My goal next year is to be rather competitive in an olympic race...hopefully getting up on the age group podium. Doable? We'll see!!! I have high goals and I am super competitive...I HATE to lose!!!!

I love this website so much. Hearing what everyone is doing that day is so inspiring, and the training log keeps me honest!!! I already received a few "inspiration" comments...which means people are keeping track of me and I'd better do what I said I would do! I have asked a few questions already and answered a few. But I just wanted to finally write a formal introduction. Thanks for all of the support thus far and I can't wait to report on my Tri this September!!!

Best wishes and happy training!!!