The History of it

Being the best was always a goal of mine, and being the best at my sports has always been highly important.

In grade school I had to run the fastest mile in gym class, I had to be the fastest swimmer, and needed to be in a starting role on the team sports that I played. This changed slightly in high school as I was introduced to a much larger pool of talented athletes. I was no longer the fastest runner or the fastest swimmer. I realized that with a lot of hard work and dedication that I could be the elite of my sports, but never the absolute best.

At 16 I saw the Tour de France on TV and decided I wanted to ride bikes. My mother bought me my first real road bike from a shop in Wheaton, IL called Spokes. The bike was amazing, a Lemond Zurich with Shimano 600 and Reynolds 853 steel tubing.

I started out with the hardest 20 mile rides of my life. Soon it was 30 and then 50; 50 was a really long ride. After a few weeks of riding I decided that I liked being on the bike. I already knew that I enjoyed swimming and so triathlon was the next step.

When I first started training for my first triathlon, I knew that competing at the World Championships, Ironman Hawaii, was the ultimate goal. I was prepared to take the steps and put in the training to reach this goal; I was unaware of how long it would take to qualify for Kona.

11 years, 3 Ironmans, and countless short course races later I have finally qualified for Kona. October 11th, 2008 is the day; now it's time to train.