1) How'd I become a triathlete: Well I've swam on summer league teams my entire life -as well as swimming for my high school, and my parents were both bike racers, so combine that with playing travel soccer and all the running that requires, and there's all three disciplines.  I pursued all three individually, and only discovered recently that triathlons are always equal to much more then the sum of the parts.

2) How do I balance work, school, family etc: It certainly proves to be the most difficult part of the entire act, but balancing is not really the term to use for it.  To balance everything implies that you are doing all of them at the same time, I try juggling -only holding to one thing at a time- because it allows for you to apply much more mental focus to the task at hand.  When doing homework for example, I don't want to be worrying about how fit I am for swimming; I know that if I focus on the homework, later, I'll have more time for swimming.

3) Good training tip: You learn something every time you go out.  Whether it is to go run on a Saturday morning, or getting dropped by the field in a criterium, you always learn something.  We all learn from our failures, but the best athletes learn from their successes.

 4) Inspirational quotes: "Pain is temporary, motivational clichés last forever."

“Dude, you don’t want to eat that.” –Glenn McCarroll.