***I started writing this post last month. Just finished it now.

I am declaring 2015 the year of trying new things. This all began on January 4th when I raced the Lifetime Fitness Indoor Tri. Serena, my trainer and friend, had invited all of her friends to join her only a few weeks before. I figured that thanks to her kickass workouts I was in the best shape of my life… So if there was any good time to take the leap into triathlons, I might as well just go for it, rather than overthink it and put it off. Melissa Zinder was the only other girl crazy enough to say yes to Serena!

I’d been thinking about doing a triathlon since fall 2012 when I accompanied Jurell Sison and Craig Sidol to their triathlon in Detroit. I was the photographer/videographer for their race. It was an awesome weekend watching from the sidelines and they both seemed to have a good experience racing their tri. I’d always kept the idea of racing one myself in the back of my mind.

The Lifetime Indoor Tri was a great way to start! I didn’t place a ton of pressure on myself since I hadn’t done any tri specific training. I was able to just enjoy the race. Throughout, I kept thinking “Jeez this is so much easier than running 13.1 miles!”  We did a 10 minute swim, followed by a 30 minute bike, and finished with a 20 minute run. Our first triathlon complete within one hour!

Another great part of the race was meeting people from Team RWB. Serena had joined RWB a few months before. Team RWB is Team Red, White, and Blue and their mission is to enrich the lives of America’s veterans by connecting them to their community through physical and social activity. After the race, Serena and I joined the group from RWB for brunch. A lot of the women were triathlon veterans with several races of various distances under their belts. We asked lots of questions and they shared their tips and tricks for racing tri’s in the DC area. Just sharing one meal with some RWB people I could tell what a great community it was. So I joined the next day!

Serena and I both agreed we wanted to race another triathlon after our postive experience at Lifetime. We both signed up for both the Westfields Sprint Tri (April 26) and the Nations Sprint Tri (September 13). We are now finishing our 5th week of training for the Westfields Sprint. I can’t believe how the time has flown. We’ve been running, biking and swimming indoors until now. With the warmer weather, it will be great to finally spend some time training outside. With only six more weeks until race day, I’m hoping to blog at least once a week with a training update!

If you’d like more information about Team RWB: http://teamrwb.org/

For more information about the various races:

Lifetime Fitness Tri – http://www.lifetimetri.com/

There is another round of indoor tri’s going on between April 11 and May 3. If you’re interested in racing your first tri, this is a great place to start! No need to worry about equipment or open water swim.

Westfields Sprint Tri – http://rev3tri.com/westfields/westfields-news/

Nation’s Tri – http://nationstri.com/