Athletic background

A little bit of athletic background on me. Well, let’s see… I wasn’t very good at any sports in grade school, high school or college. I don’t think we actually had any real sports programs at my grade school (go Chicago Public Schools!). Come to think of it… I can’t even remember the name of our school’s mascot or if we even had one. Sad, really. In high school I tried out for soccer but quickly realized I have wonky ankles and poor foot/eye coordination. I played a little bit of ultimate Frisbee after school but that was the extent of my extracurricular activities. The one shining light on my otherwise dismal athletic report card was the summer job I picked up my junior/senior years. I don’t remember how it all started, but somehow I ended up picking up a job as a bike messenger in Chicago. Easily the coolest job I had ever had at the time and it actually paid pretty well if you were fast and could haul ass on the streets of Chicago. Armed with a used road bike I hit the streets and starting earning some nice spare cash flying in between cars and pedestrians all throughout downtown Chicago. I messengered during my summer breaks and winter breaks (winters were pretty hard). Unfortunately after a couple run-ins with cabbies (literally) I decided to hang up my messenger bag. In college I kept riding my bike casually and tried to run every now and then but nothing too serious. Oh, I started boxing too, and that was a lot of fun until I got too serious into my training and got my ass kicked several times during sparring sessions. At some point I realized I would probably need my brains for the future so I hung up my competitive boxing gloves.

After college I realized my life would involve a lot of desk sitting so I decided to try and get active so that I wouldn’t live a complete sedentary lifestyle. I saw there was a running group named CARA in Chicago that did marathon training so I set the 2002 Chicago marathon as the first real training goal in my life. Several months later I completed my first marathon, but not after a long grueling season of running. I had a lot of injuries that year, especially dealing with knee pain and I decided to dial down the running distance and incorporate a bit more cross training into my overall fitness routine.

Fast forward several years to 2007. I was still running and biking (and boxing) a bit, but I hadn’t done any real races in a while. I was in decent shape but I was getting bored with my routine and wanted to set a goal that I could work towards that would help motivate me. I had wanted to get into triathlons for a while now but there was one small problem. I didn’t know how to swim at all. I had never really learned how to swim and over the years I had grown a healthy fear of water. I knew I could do the bike and the run but the swim was the thing holding me back. But 2007 would be my year, and without knowing how to swim I signed up for the Chicago Triathlon that year. I signed up to train with CES (Chicago Endurance Sports) and also signed up for private swim lessons with the Chicago Blue Dolphins. By the end of that summer I was proud to call myself a triathlete. And from there a healthy obsession began.