I know I am a slacker. I have not posted but rest assured a lot is going on. Time has been really hard to find and time I need to write and be somewhat inspired to do it. I hope you caught my four article series at insidetri.com about how to plan your tri season.

Article 1
Article 2
Article 3
Article 4


But I wanted to continue my sport bio that I started earlier last year. My friend Roman got tired of how slow I was writing it. He asked me when was I going to write about my first Ironman. What can I say, I am making people wait. It took me a long time before I did my first Ironman. In my last bio post I wrote about my first triathlon. So this post is about what happened after it.

I crashed in my first triathlon and had road rash everywhere. But I finished and was hooked. I immediately signed up for a few more races. But I gave myself plenty of time to train some more. My bike split was horrible on my first triathlon so I was determined to do better there. I signed up to the United States Triathlon Series (USTS) Olympic distance race in Phoenix so as to go back and visit ASU where I had graduated and also signed up for USTS Boston. I improved in both races but knew I had a lot more in me.

In order to improve my cycling I joined the local bike racing team called the Wolfpack. If you live in Clear Lake south of Houston you may have heard of them. They sort of took me under their wing which was hard to do as I did not race bikes. The training was very hard. I was getting dropped like a bad habit. But I was determined and as time went by I was not getting dropped at all.

In those years there was no National Championships. So the big goal for triathletes was to do a USTS race and qualify for the championship race. In my first year in the sport I did not make it. But that became the goal.

Unfortunately the following year 1987 I developed a knee injury and could not run. But my swim and bike was solid. So I decided to do the USTS Houston race (Olympic distance) and see how my swim and bike was and then walk the run to finish. I did well so I was encouraged. I finished the race walking and then took the rest of the year off from triathlon. I did some swim meets. In fact I travelled to Australia (Brisbane) and did the World Masters Championships. I got a medal in the 200 meter breaststroke. That was fun.

For 1988 I saw an orthopedic doctor and he gave me some orthotics to fix my bad foot pronation that gave me the knee pain. I still remember my first run pain free. My legs hurt but as always the goal was in my mind. I trained hard and got real fit. I met my good friend Mike Kinter and he worked me on the run and made me do intervals. I was doing these painful but great mile repeats in Houston’s Memorial Park. Great memories! So I did USTS Houston and really kicked some butt. I remember I split a 38 minute 10K. I basically set a PR in a 10K in the triathlon. Also I met my goal of qualifying to go down to Hilton Head South Carolina to race at the Championship race. I knew I could do it.

At the 1988 USTS Houston race expo some folks had a video of a much longer race with a mile and half swim, 40+ miles of biking and 10 mile run. I looked so much more pleasant and low key. The video sold me so I signed up. The race was in September in the Texas Hill Country. The name was of course the Texas Hill Country Triathlon. Oh Boy! I had never trained in the hills and had no business doing this much longer race. It was so hot I stopped in the run and sat against the side of this house to get some shade. After cooling off I ran in to he finish. That was very hard. That night they had a great awards ceremony with a race video and rock music. Very impressive I must say. That is when I found out that this race was a qualifier to the Ironman in Hawaii. These people sure made a huge deal about qualifying for Hawaii. There were people crying, hugs, kisses etc. For god’s sake! Who won the lottery?

On my table at the awards was this guy that was just too cool for himself. He was sitting there with a little attitude and he had a very good looking girlfriend to boot. Who can argue with that eh? When they started announcing my age group and the Ironman qualifiers this guy stood up and took a slot. His girl was so static. I felt like I was at the Oscars. This Ironman thing must be a big deal. I had seen the Ironman on TV but had no idea you had to qualify and this was how. So this guy qualified and his time was 4:12. My time was 4:20 that is not that far back and I had a lot of trouble. Great!!! I have another goal. I have to qualify for this Ironman thing.

In my next bio post I will write about 1989 which was my first year of chasing the Kona slot.