Where to next (end of the 14/15 season)

Having my daughter four days a week meant I had every excuse not to get out there and train or race. But that feeling of endorphins exploding everywhere from completing the swim and then finally crossing the finish line kept me going.

I completed two more races in my first season. All was going well but I wanted to enjoy this experience with more people. A race day can feel quite lonely when you don't have anyone there specifically supporting you. But worse still the training feels even lonelier. Running, swimming and cycling by yourself with the only real instruction coming from what you read in magazines and online forums.

Through this general training I did reach a massive milestone in January 2014. I had read that BMI wasn't the most accurate measure but as per my BMI I was officially overweight. This may not sound exciting but when your used to looking at your and seeing obese, overweight is an achievement, Anyone who has been obese will know how amazing this feeling is.

In relation to improving at my next race, the first thing I really needed to do was get some proper running shoes as the last ones I'd bought were simple cross trainers that I'd purchased because they were on special. I went to chat to the guys at Athletes Foot in Carindale and walked on the mat to see how I walk and run. This was all new to me. In the past the most thought I'd ever put into sports shoes was which which ones were the brightest I could find.

I found out that I pronate when I walk and run, but the thing that really surprised me was my foot size. Yes I knew my family have fat feet but it turns out for the past 10 years I'd been wearing the wrong size shoes. I'd always thought I was a size 12 as this was the only shoes that would fit comfortably however this was only due to the width of my feet and not the length, a pair of size 10.5 2E width New balance 860 shoes later and wow. This is different, my foot doesn't move around anymore, I wish I had done this sooner.

While getting fitted for these shoes he invited me to the "TAF run club" on Tuesday nights.

Right my first real training session with a sense of direction, being slightly coached and being able to chat with other people while training. This was fun! I enjoyed all aspects of the running club, it even made my other sessions better as I was using some of the principles that we'd gone through on Tuesday.

Through the the running club I was recommended to join South Bank Triathlon Club to improve my overall triathlon training. SBTC was considered as the party triathlon club of Brisbane which would more than likely suit what I was after, both somewhere that I could improve my fitness and even more importantly improve my social life as I had just taken a redundancy and so adult interaction was slightly lacking in my life.

I decided to wait until the start of the new season in July before joining but I was excited.

Oh one last thing to mention, I decided that even though I hadn't done any standard/ olympic distance triathlons I signed up to the Taupo 70.3 (Half Ironman) in December to give me a goal to strive towards.