Hee, what do you want to know? The basic story is that when I was a kid I swam competitively (for some aspirational value of competitive) on our town team, when I was in college my boyfriend was a bicycle racer and so I used to ride a lot (he'd go out on a workout ride and then come back and we'd go on an easy ride), and when I was in grad school triathlon was just getting popular, and I figured, I can do 2 out of 3, how hard can running be?
So I did triathlons in the late 1980s, mostly what is now called Olympic distance (1M swim, 25M bike, 10K run) but up to half Ironman. I was pretty good, not great (generally finished in the top 25% and sometimes placed in my age group) mostly because it was just starting out as a sport. I qualified for the nationals and competed one year. But when I moved to Colorado everyone was so good, my placing dropped to about 50% and I also found other things I wanted to do (like rock climbing and mountain biking) so I gave up the triathlon.
Oddly, running was my least favorite and worst sport of the three, but eventually I got really into running and mostly dropped the other two sports (I still mountain bike but I no longer have a road bike, and I swim sometimes for fun but don't do workouts any more) but have done nine marathons and one 50K. How did I become a runner? I don't know! It just happened!
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2021-11-12 02:47 am (UTC)So I did triathlons in the late 1980s, mostly what is now called Olympic distance (1M swim, 25M bike, 10K run) but up to half Ironman. I was pretty good, not great (generally finished in the top 25% and sometimes placed in my age group) mostly because it was just starting out as a sport. I qualified for the nationals and competed one year. But when I moved to Colorado everyone was so good, my placing dropped to about 50% and I also found other things I wanted to do (like rock climbing and mountain biking) so I gave up the triathlon.
Oddly, running was my least favorite and worst sport of the three, but eventually I got really into running and mostly dropped the other two sports (I still mountain bike but I no longer have a road bike, and I swim sometimes for fun but don't do workouts any more) but have done nine marathons and one 50K. How did I become a runner? I don't know! It just happened!