So how did I end up getting into the world of triathlons? As the title of my blog states, A.D.D. ;-) I'm always looking for some new adventure or sport to try. Below is the first part of a very long story on how this all got started.
A few years ago, around 2005, I was a "lost" late 20 something trying to figure out "What can I do or where can I go to meet more people other than work while at the same time doing something fun?"
I started searching the web for some adventure sports. For some reason (and yes, I occasionally listen to country and live in L.A.) I had those Tim McGraw lyrics stuck in my head "I went skydiving. I went rocky mountain climbing." Then of course it hit me! Skydiving and rock climbing! So my night ended up researching those two adventure sports on the web.
I never did get a chance to go skydiving (yet), but I ended up finding a class at Beach City Rocks (hey! I know that guy on the classes page!) It turns out that the the rock climbing class was offered through the city of Redondo Beach. And just like any other tangent while surfing the web I end up on the City of Redondo Beach web site signing up for the rock climbing and beach volleyball classes. Perfect!
So those classes came and went and I ended up meeting a lot more friends from the South Bay. I also ended up loving the beach cities (Redondo, Hermosa, & Manhattan) so much that I was looking for more to do in the area. That lead me to the next sport - running.
I ended up finding the perfect training/social group in Hermosa Beach. They ran on the Strand on Tuesdays and let me tell you, running on the Strand makes you love living in LA!
As far as me & running goes, I was on the cross country team and the track team back in high school, but I was never really the best runner. I ran my first 10k the year before and it was tough. I wanted to run the Nike Run Hit Remix and for this race I wanted to beat my time from the last year (59:38). But could I really do it?
Well, not only did I PR (52:45), but the best part about it? I wanted MORE!
Once that race completed, our running group committed to all signing up for Las Vegas Half Marathon in December. Now THIS was huge! A half marathon? 13.1 miles! Again, the same question. Could I really do it?
Training was going ok, but then the I got sick and couldn't train for a few weeks. I was getting more nervous about the event as that date approached. To top it off, I get an email from one of my best friends saying my other friend's bachelor party is going to be in Vegas the night before the race. Great. A best friend's bachelor party or do the race I've been training for, for months? Well I couldn't pass on either, and somehow the genius in me figured, "Ah hell with it, I'll do both!"
The bachelor party was..well, a bachelor party. ;-) I ended up only getting 1 hour of sleep, and had to meet my friends at 5:30am! Insane! But, training really does pay off and I ended up finishing in 2:19:12. And that was with running through a casino for a bathroom stop!
So that pretty much sums up my intro to endurance sports. There's probably a bit more details that I'm not sharing ;-), but overall, that's the the gist. In the next part, I'll talk about getting into the world of triathlons.
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