I entered 2025 knowing I wanted to challenge myself physically. Over the prior winter break, I read a book called Born to Run that kind of opened my eyes to our innate human ability for endurance. Didn’t find any books called Born to Bike or Born to Swim but I kind of took a leap of faith that if I figured out running, I could figure out the other two. :)

I’ve found it helps me to be pot-committed on hard goals, so I worked backward from a full Ironman in Arizona, which I signed up for first. From there, I built up through shorter distances.

I don’t have an athletic background from college or otherwise but I had a solid cardio base from sports like soccer and squash, plus gym/workout classes like Barry’s, Orangetheory, F45 etc.

All three disciplines were new. Running came naturally — I bought my first pair of running shoes and ran a half marathon in February, which gave me a lot of confidence to take it up a notch. Swimming was the toughest by far; you can power through biking and running, but swimming really requires technique and repetition.

Pretty early on I attended the info session at Manny’s. While I was too late to join the official 0-60 program I made a point to attend all the open training sessions & was really grateful for how welcoming the club was. Honestly, I don’t think I could have crossed the finish line without SF Tri. Whether through the formal training programs or more generally — endurance sports can get really lonely when training on your own. Having a set of peers around me who were also pushing themselves really helped me push through as well.

Leading up to 70.3 it got to 10 hours per week and in the final ramp to the full it got up to 15-20 hours some weeks.

Hah not sure I can call myself an accomplished triathlete, still have a ton to learn but I’d say an unexpected discovery is anyone can become an athlete. Oh and I love running :)

Santa Cruz 70.3 for multiple reasons — the course itself is so beautiful. There were many points during the bike course where I forgot we were even racing. Having my cohort of 60-70.3 peers, the SF tri cheer squad & family/friends there to cheer me on made the experience even more special.

At Ironman Arizona had a couple of unexpected & perhaps avoidable issues. First my goggle lens cap came off right before the swim start, and then on my bike computer lost connectivity to both my HR and power meter. On both I just stopped trying to fix things and just raced on feel. It was a good reminder not to rely too much on technology :)

Have fun. It’s a hard (and slightly masochistic) sport, but what sustains you is enjoying the process and the community.

Don’t skip the gym & mobility work. These were the first sessions I scheduled every week and I think they really helped me stay injury free as my training volume ramped up.

Nutrition wise carb up! I was on a low carb diet leading into the season & I found that to be a pretty hard adjustment but incredibly important to keep my energy levels up.

Don’t cut your sessions short — especially the discipline you feel least strong in. Early on I think I was a pretty lax when it came to swimming sessions — I’d convince myself I could make up for it on race day but your body has a funny way of remembering when it’s in uncharted territory — learned this the hard way during the Napa Oly swim!

I think a lot of it is intrinsic motivation to keep becoming a better version of myself. The beautiful thing about all 3 of these sports is you’re ultimately only competing with you from yesterday.

Taking a sabbatical this year :) But I will be back next year — I definitely want to do another Full IM but want to build up a solid base & shoot for a time goal next time around. Still training in the meanwhile but mostly for the vibes.