Sarah Groff was born to run...and bike...and swim.

Groff, who was born in Cooperstown and set the record for the fastest swim of Otsego Lake as a 14-year-old, is currently a professional triathlete with dreams of making the 2008 Olympic team.

According to her new website, sarahgroff.com, she is a self-proclaimed tomboy who participated in a number of sports growing up, finally settling on running and swimming by her teenage years.

After attending Cooperstown through middle school, she left for a private school, Deerfield Academy, for her high school years, where she was a standout runner and swimmer, earning All-New England honors in both sports.

After living in Valencia, Spain for a year after high school, Groff, now 24, attended Middlebury College, a small liberal arts college in Vermont.

While at Middlebury, Groff was a member of the swim team and competed in middle distance and distance freestyle events. Constantly improving throughout her four years in school, Groff was named to the All-NESCAC and All-American teams for her successes.

Groff said she dabbled in the triathlon in college, but it wasn't until after graduation that she decided to become serious in the sport.

In January of last year, she moved to Boulder, Colorado to train with Siri Lindley, the former World Champion-turned coach. Groff said she and Lindley are working together with a long-term focus in mind-molding Sarah into one of the top triathletes in the world.

Sarah's website, sarahgroff.com, went live on Dec. 28. The Town Crier interviewed her through e-mail last week. Following are a list of the questions and answers.

Just to be clear, you're trying to make a living at this, right? Is there decent money to be made?

Yes. This is my full-time occupation. As this was my first year, I had to work on the side to make it work and rely on some funding from USAT (the nat'l tri governing body), but the goal is to be making money solely through racing/ sponsorship by 2007. While not as lucrative as a sport like baseball or golf, there is good money to be made.

Can you describe your training regimen and what the races will be like? (How many competitors, how long each leg is, etc.)

Training: In season, a day of training can include up to 6 hours of training in a day, although I average probably 4 hours per day. We swim 5 or 6 days a week, run 4 or 5 days a week, bike 4 or 5 days a week.

The training is changed according to the race season (between April and November) i.e. after 2 weeks completely off in November, I do light training for 6 weeks followed by an long, aerobic period (long, slow distance). As the race season draws closer, I will do more intensity (faster, hard sessions) in combination with the long aerobic. Training also includes strength and core work year round.

Racing: I race Olympic distance (1.5k swim, 40k bike, 10k run), primarily draft-legal format (drafting allowed on bike) but also do non-drafting racing. This year I'll do a couple of half-Ironman distance races to increase my endurance.

I race both domestically and internationally and hope to do more international races in the World Cup circuit. Doing well in World Cup will earn me both points and money ($75,000 prize purse split between men and women at most World Cups, more than domestic races).

The more points I have, the greater my world ranking and the greater my world ranking, the more money I'll get from USAT. Also, my qualification for the Olympic Trials depends on world ranking. In 2004, you qualified for US trials if you were in the top 125 in the world.

What is your goal for this year and your career, and how long do you plan on doing this?

This year's goals: make the team for World Championships (6 per country), increase world ranking, stay healthy and have fun. Career goals: at least reach Olympic Trials in 2008, podium at major events, constantly reach my limits. I want to end my career knowing that I did everything to be the best athlete that I am capable of being. I plan on doing this as long as I love it.

Do you rely on sponsors, and is that what the website is for?

Sponsors provide both money and product. Product is fantastic and I save thousands of dollars by getting free equipment. Half of my diet consists of Powerbar products, for better or worse! Money helps out with travels (competitions are worldwide) and with living expenses. While I've had an easy time with getting product sponsorship, money is much harder to come by, understandably. The purpose of the website is to keep both friends and sponsors (current and potential) updated.

I think that I am incredibly lucky to be able to have this lifestyle. I am trying to make a living out of something that is a hobby for all but a very few! Who wouldn't want to travel the world and meet interesting people? At one point, I realized that my training group consisted of athletes from across the US, Brazil, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong.

Of course, there are some aspects that are admittedly difficult. In season, all aspects of my life center around one thing. Every decision I make, from diet and sleep (I have 5 a.m. swim training in the summer!) to my social life, must be weighed in consideration to how it might impact my training.

I also have to constantly remind myself that this is a building process. For most people, the full benefits of intense training are reaped after 3 or more years.

You have to constantly remind yourself of this when you put your body through pain day in and day out without seeing major results in races.

I dealt with this frustration almost every day this past year, but I am lucky to have a coach who has been there, understands the sacrifices that I am making and knows how worth it it will be in the long run.