I'm not very good at writing about myself and to me it always sounds like a sob story.  So let me get the sob story stuff out of the way.  I have hypothyroidism, asthma, I'm anemic and I had my gallbladder removed in November of 2008 because it stopped functioning properly.  Now onto my history.  Whenever I'm with a group of triathletes, the first question everyone asks is "What is your background?"  The usual response is either running or swimming.  My response is soccer.  That always gets a few surprised looks and leads to my history.  I played soccer all through high school for the varsity team and I played on a premier club team called TNT Dynamite for three years in high school.  I went onto college for I played on scholarship for two years before deciding my time in soccer was done.  I also played semi-professional for the Michigan Phoenix for a year.  When I decided my time with soccer was done, I transferred to Michigan State University where I decided to play one more year for the club team.  We ended up going to Nationals and placed 3rd.  What drove me away from soccer, besides too many concussions, was the politics.  Whenever I would get angry with my college coach I would hit the road on my Trek 1000.  After doing this for a summer, I decided to try my hand at triathlon.  And I ended up being good.  I qualified for the Triathlon World Championship my first year and competed at Worlds the following June.  I fell in love with the sport in that first year, really I fell in love during the first race.  So now when people ask me what I do, I answer "I'm a triathlete."  That gets surprised looks and looks that say "you're crazy!" but I can't imagine doing anything else.  There is something great about the pain, the endurance and finishing.  It's alluring and addicting and I love it.