Right, thought I should introduce myself properly! Thanks for inviting me to join by the way!

I have been cometeing in sport of some kind since I dont know when, my parents are very sporty and always allowed me to take part in what ever sport I wanted. I have tried most things from horse riding, gymnastics, swimming, hockey, netball, martial arts, athletics, cricket, rugby - yes I played rugby actually got into it quite seriously at one point I was in the full England Womens training squad, but then got bored/miss guided at Uni and just lost motivation - this is when I started running as a means of keeping fit and found myself entered into 10k races for a bit of competition and found myself doing well. I was always good at School, running for the county etc at cross country and 1500m with no specific training only my combined sports training. I guess not to be big headed or anything I one of those extremely lucky people who is able to turn a hand to most sports!

I got into triathlon by luck really. Its a bit of a long winded story but i basically decided to buy a bike to do some cross training to reduce the likelyhood of injures from lots of running mileage. I found myself in a Triathlon Shop and buying a bike. Funny thing is I got asked out on a date by the guy who sold me the bike "do you fancy coming out for some supper and a training ride on your new bike?" Ha ha!! To cut a long story short he took me out on my lovely new bike with the local Tri Club and I haven't looked back.

I am now about to start my second season in the sport. I have a coach who sets me a program every week. This can be anything from 10 - 20 plus hours of training depending where in the season we are and what cycle I am on. we normally work on a cycle of 3 -4week hard sessions followed by a recovery week or few days.

Last season was my first full season and I did extreamly well considering I only really started proper training at the begining of the year. I won the national champs for my age group (20 -24) and came 6th at the Worlds in my age category. (Amatur by the way) This season I am hopfully going to be racing a few elite races to see how I get on so watch this space .......

Wow. Simply wow.

I am completely in awe of your sporting prowess and look forward to seeing you win the world series at triathlon.

Excellent to see you here

Trichick

Good to see you here!

Cant help but be impressed with your determination and dedication!..good luck in the races!!!!

KP

Good to have you here Trichick... great addition to the forums

Hi there Trichick!

Is great to have you here on the 'cool persons' forum (well, cool persons + dtlv74!)!

Am looking forward to your posts

Great to have you here. I was hoping you would join & here you are

Funny thing is I got asked out on a date by the guy who sold me the bike "do you fancy coming out for some supper and a training ride on your new bike?" Ha ha!!

I think I need to change sports, last time I asked a girl to join me in a lifting session and a post-workout shake, all I got was an odd look?!

Nice to see you here Tri.

Very, very impressive.

What are you sporting goals?

Hey and welcome aboard

Hey, thanks for the welcome everyone!

My sporting goals currently are to race elite this season in Triathlon and be competitive. To be able to do this I need to reduce my swim time from about 22 mins for the 1500m to nearer or below 20. This is my winter training goal. My run and bike are my strenghts and are good enough to race elite so its just a case of continuing there improvement and really hitting the swimming hard. With swimming technique is all important so I do lots of drills to helf refine my technique.

Do the elite get paid to do it?

Well, not exactly all it depends who you are. The top few are funded through lottery as its an olympic sport and most have sponsorship deals of some sort. There are cash prises in elite races but only the top few are purely proffesionals and can get by with race winnings and sponsorship. Triathlon is however a very fast growing sport but because of its nature its not got the TV appeal due to races being long I guess. however some big companies such as nokia and mazda for example are now getting on bored and putting money into the sport. We shall see how it progresses!!

good to have you here triathlon has to be the hardest sport

darts is harder mate, thought you would have known that!

welcome trichick.