About five years ago Dr. Danny Grisaru, a Tel Aviv gynecologist, returned home from Toronto and concluded he had to lose weight.

"I weighed about 100 kilograms, I was approaching age 40 and I could hardly move," he says. A friend gave him an American guidebook on how to walk ("That's how out of touch I was").

Grisaru began walking and then running, and then running a bit more, "until I discovered I was running 10 kilometers every workout. A friend of mine suggested that if I was already running, why not bike? I said I hadn't ridden a bike since my bar mitzvah, but then someone at the university offered to sell me his bicycle - he had bought a new one - so I bought it and started riding.

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"Then, a neighbor of mine who works at the Ramat Hasharon Country Club said: 'Hang on, if you're already running and riding, why not do a triathlon?' I told her that I couldn't swim - I'm originally a Jerusalemite, I never learned to swim and I am certainly not going to swim in the sea for a triathlon."

She put him in touch with the director of the country club anyway. "I told him I'm not a very good runner, I'm not a very good cyclist and I don't swim at all. He wasn't alarmed and said he had a trainer who would suit me perfectly, and that's how I became a triathlete."

Grisaru competed in his first triathlon four years ago, and since then he has participated in another three or four. One year ago, he took part in the Half Ironman competition in Beit She'an.

"Now my friends also have decided to train for the Ironman. I decided that by age 45, I want to participate in a full Ironman competition," he says.

How was your life before you started training for the Ironman?

"I work as both a doctor and a researcher, so my routine was to leave for the hospital in the morning, come home for some family time, and then go back to my research. Every time I approached the kitchen, I would go to the refrigerator and empty it. Apart from going to and from the car and walking from my study to the kitchen, I didn't move at all. When I drove somewhere, I always looked for the closest parking space."

And today?

"I have two training sessions a day, but I try to do them back to back in order to have some free time. I wake up in the morning, have some coffee and head to my morning training (running and riding, swimming and riding, or running and swimming).

"I start training at 5:15 A.M. When I don't manage to do both sessions, I do the second in the evening or in the middle of the day. This comes at the expense of the family, work to some degree, and usually at the expense of sleep and personal time.

"Now I'm a complete fanatic. Today I'm a different person - my daily routine and my priorities are organized around the various training sessions. Maybe I've crossed the line a bit between a hobby and a devotion, so I recommend that people keep themselves within the reasonable range of activity. But I'm the type who takes everything to the extreme."

Tirza Tal, 46, a computer programmer from Tel Aviv, started running two years ago after her brother was killed in an accident.

"My brother Daniel's death caused me to do things immediately, instead of waiting until later, and that's how I found myself signing up for a marathon," she says. "My aim was to do something impossible. I felt I needed to do something that would challenge me. Since running was my weakest point, I was paradoxically attracted to it," she says.

Tal began to run gradually and one day, "a relative who had already participated in a marathon gave me an American guidebook, 'The Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer.' I started to follow the book, and also read material online. When I entered the marathon and triathlon forum, I saw an announcement about someone training a group for the Paris marathon, so I signed up. We met - the trainer and the trainees - formed a group, and that's how I started to train formally, both with the group and on my own."

Tal's daughter Shira, 13, says participating in the Paris marathon changed her mother. "Now everyone in the neighborhood knows my mother. She is open and she talks to everybody. She wasn't like that before. She also used to say 'I shouldn't eat this and I shouldn't eat that' a lot. Now she eats whatever she wants.

Tal adds: "This has given me a lot of self-confidence. Training for the marathon and the running itself were a Sisyphean self-improvement process that helped my running and other facets of my life. This strengthened my desire for achievement and fulfillment. Today I am certain I can do anything I want."

Rinat Reina, 40, a former lawyer from Ramat Hasharon, is currently a yoga teacher. She says she was drawn to yoga slowly but surely.

"As an attorney, I worked in torts. This is hard daily work, and it requires many court appearances. I was stressed and irritable, I had a short fuse, I was a fighter and a smoker.

"By chance, a friend of mine told me about the yoga classes he was taking and about his teacher. He demonstrated the downward-facing dog position for me and explained how to breathe, and somehow this felt really right and good for me. I went to a class with him, and I've been there ever since."

Reina continued to attend classes, and then completed a workshop with Australian teachers. Her progress was slow but significant.

"Things changed in me," she says. "I left the law firm and practiced yoga in my free time, and I also participated in another workshop. Then I found another job as a lawyer, but I didn't stay there either - I realized the work no longer suited me.

"I left and took a teaching course. Then I started working as an assistant to my first teacher, until he sent me to teach on my own," Reina recalls.

Today Reina gives group and private lessons and leads advanced workshops. "When I got out of the army, where I had served as an instructor, I said that the last thing I would do in life was be a teacher. The experience had been that bad.

"But this time, teaching feels like the most natural and appropriate thing. It has changed my life. I'm no longer an irritable person with a short fuse - I'm a fuller, serene person who can handle life better.

"Learning yoga also has been very satisfying. I feel more comfortable with myself, more whole, and this is already a big relief. I want to transmit this gift on to others."