I often get asked, “How did you start?”

Well...

I was 44 and I decided I needed to do something. I had kind of done some running when I was younger, on and off. I was talking with someone in the gym who stated she had not missed a day of exercise in 2 years. I said, “You have got to be kidding me. 2 years? Whoa, that's pretty heavy.”

So I started running, 11 years later I missed one day of exercise because I had flown in from Florida and I just forgot. I was so pissed.

I was in St. Croix with my husband when we saw our first half Ironman. I was 53 at that time and thought, “Oh this shouldn't be hard...what's the big deal about a mile swim and a 56 mile bike ride and a 13 mile run. I could do that.” Yeah right.

I am not an athlete. You know I ran and did some gym work. But at 53 I just decided I could do a half ironman. It didn't seem like that big a deal. I mean it didn't seem like it was something I couldn't do. I couldn't swim when I started. I never biked over maybe 20 miles, that was like a huge, huge bike ride. But I didn't think 56 miles was that big a deal. And since I ran I didn't think 13 miles was that big of deal either.

The running was the hardest of all of it to actually get my volume up. Which was interesting since running was the one I could do. You just make the decision and you to do it.

And I like inspiring people. I like getting people going.