Most Significant Accomplishment

So, Admission Process, part two.

This entire concept of limiting these great things you have to say about yourself to 250 WORDS, I find it ridicolous. In any case, not like you have a choice, they decide what you write and for how long, sooooooo...

My Most Significant Accomplishment. Voila'!

Tell us about your most significant accomplishment. (250-word maximum)
I have always been a couch potato. I have always been the one for whom the workouts were a punishment, not a reward. Until one bright February morning when I realized that in order to drag myself out of bed everyday, I needed more than just my job. I remember my thought process, the conversation going on between my neurons:

"You should do something."
"But what?"
"I don't know, something completely out of your league."
"Like what?"
"Something crazy, something different... a triathlon!!!"

February 20, 2002, palindrome day, was the day my life changed. I got out of bed, researched the Internet, and found it: Pacific Grove, September 14. I signed up for my first triathlon. The task ahead of me was enormous. I had never run before, and I did not even own a bike! At least I could swim - or I thought I could! Day after day, I had to persuade my body that I was really serious about going through with this. I had to loose at least 20 pounds in order not to hurt my knees, and I had to find the time for the workouts around my busy work schedule. I was more hungry, more exhausted, and in more pain than ever before, but I was not going to give up! On the day of the race, I was number 1933 very intensively: marked all over my body, the sign I was going to win my personal challenge. I was the proudest person on earth when I crossed that finish line. I had made it, against all odds, and also against my parents wondering whether I had hit my head! I crossed the finish line and felt like I could do an Ironman next! Well, not quite. Maybe in another year...