My name is June Kobayashi, which by my name might be obvious that I am Japanese but actually I was born and raised in Canada. In my youth I had no fear, much to the distress of my parents. I skied like I had no bones to break, rode motorcycles like I was on a race track and drove whatever car I had at the time like it was a Formula One race car. I’m glad I’ve kept that part of me because it allowed me to run 26.2 miles at the age of 40 for the first time. Then after deciding to make it a “fun” activity I did my first marathon race in Hawaii a few weeks after that. I can’t believe I used fun and marathon in the same sentence since endurance was never my forte. Ballet for 18 years and short distance track during high school were not good preparation training for a 1-mile run.  Living in Los Angeles for many years you would think I would have found Triathlon there, but it took a move to Manhattan and some crazy inspiration in the middle of winter, January 2012 to start training. I did my first Sprint race that May with my brand new bike, that I clipped in for the first time 2 weeks earlier, sporting the scar on my knee from the obvious, I came in 4^th in my age group and I was hooked. As well, having worked with Stan Lee, the creator of Spider-Man for almost 18 years now, being around super-heroes dressed in their spandex, the familiarity of triathletes in spandex provided me comfort in times of pre-swim anxiety.  My work as an “executive-for-hire” brought me to Florida where the weather was perfect for #sufferfest training. I’ve done a bunch more races since then; got a couple of place medals, 2^nd in a sprint and 3^rd in an Olympic. I even joined the BRT Circus for Ironman Canada 226km (140.6 miles for us here) in July 2015, which will forever live in the depths of my memory as the race sent up from the Underworld. Having met the exuberant Boca Tri family, I realized the sport brought more than just the racing. The community that is created by the mutual respect of all the people who take time in their busy lives to share their experiences with others was much different from any other community I’ve experienced. Triathletes want to spread their crazy but in an encouraging yet competitive way. We are not afraid to shout out our successes and we are not afraid to ask for help. We know that we will be acknowledged for our efforts and given tips and guidance from even people we’ve never actually met.  I’ve been trying to get my son (12) and daughter (10), both of whom are superb athletes to even just dip their toes into the TRI waters but that is not to be. So instead, I took a couple of ladies under my wing to share in my crazy. Last year they both completed their first Sprint tri and we are now training for their first 70.3 in June at Raleigh. That inspiration encouraged me to go after the Ironman Women for Tri grant for which we were successful. The next part of my journey begins.