Hello! Be warned, long introduction follows...

Hi Guys,

First off would like to say this is the best Website I've found so far, for information and useable tips etc... And its the first one with a forum that is active and not full of garbage. Well done

Heres an intro to me and my Beginner Tri ambitions:
I'm 27 years old women and I live in Christchurch New Zealand. 5.5'-ish 155Ib-ish
As a kid/teenager I didn't participate in sports or physical activity...I was too hung up on "everyone is staring at me" to enjoy it. It stopped me from doing lots of things that I really wanted to do, which is sad but true. I joined the Navy at 18 and was forced to RUN lots!!! This was awful, I suck at running and was always last, and EVERYONE was looking at me i'm sure of it I left at 21 and stopped doing anything physical.

When I got to about 23 I realised that living my life by worrying about what others thought was the worst way to live, so I got off my ass and started running again. I spent about a year or so trying to become a 'runner', and found my fitness improved lots, but my speed, well lack of still sucked! I entered in a company 5km run, and did okay. (was last-ish, but I'm used to it now). I was so stoked that I actually did something in public!! and didn't die of shame, that I went out and signed up for a local womens Tri-a-tri (350/10/3) triathlon a couple of months later.
I dragged my friend into it and we both started "training". We ended up getting the same time and crossing the line together which was fun, but the best bit was we had just completed our first triathlon!

That was in Feb, and then Winter set in (NZ is in the Southern Hemisphere ) and our motivation kinda slackened off. But spring is coming and we've signed up for a series of Three short distance womens tris in OCT/NOV and DEC this year. So we are back into it, but wiser this time as to which bits to work on and how to prepare for them.

So i'm definately a beginner, and will be for a few years yet... my goal is to do a Sprint. Possibly next year, but we are doing our OE in 05 so training will be hard, then we are living in the UK for a year. But i've heard they have a triathlons similar to here, so we'll see...

Sorry that was long winded! I guess you don't realise you have a 'story' till you try to write it down...

I look forward to reading the forums and I'm already making good use of the training logs on this site.

Thanks for listening everybody,
Danielle.