The Early Years: My first triathlon

My entrance into the sport of triathlon was nothing less than a fluke. I started as a road cyclist and was later convinced to join the high school swim team my junior year. I didn’t know how to swim when I started, but had a group of great coaches that helped me every step of the way. By the next season I worked my way up to being the captain of the varsity squad. After a fairly successful senior year of swimming I was ready to get back on my bike and start racing. I opened the 2008 road season with two wins in local races and a win in Santa Fe, NM at the end of May. Two weeks into the month of June, with no races planned for a few months, I started to feel an itch for competition. After calling around I found out that there was a triathlon in nearby Lubbock, TX. I was never interested in triathlons and told myself on several occasions that I would never do one. The only running background that I had was playing basketball in the 7^th grade and being burnt-out on swimming didn’t help. I found myself starving to compete anyways.   

 My first tri was a sprint that took place simultaneously with a 70.3. At this event I met 2010 Trisports.com (http://trisports.com/) teammate Mike Montoya for the first time. He looked me up and down in my florescent blue Speedo and asked if I was on a swim team. After a few words of encouragement and advice from Mike my nerves were calmed for only a few minutes before the start.  I had a mechanical issue on the bike, but was still able to finish the race in 30^th place overall. Once I had finished my race the pro 70.3 competitors were just starting their run. After experiencing the performance of the professional 70.3 athletes its like something in my head clicked. For some reason I was drawn into every aspect of triathlon. Learning everything I could about the sport was my main priority. Once I returned home, I immediately looked at the results of my race and was determined to prove to myself that I could do better. I looked up the results of all the other local races to see how fast I needed to go to win. I found one thing in common with most of these races; Mike had won them. After looking at all of Mike’s times I remember saying to myself, “man, I want to be as fast as that guy one day.” The next tri I competed in was two weeks later and I finished 6^th overall. Finishing 6^th was much better than the previous 30^th, but I was still not convinced it was my best. So, the most common saying in the sport goes, “do one, then you’re hooked.” I soon realized I was no exception.

Safe Training

Rance

 I see several bad decisions in this photo

 First triathlon, first 5k

Year and a half  later, I'm running down Mike. I still wasn't able to beat him though. He won by 8 seconds. Not long after this Mike broke the course record at the AVIA Austin Sprint Triathlon.