Did my first tri yesterday!!!!

Wow!!!! What a day! 

My first tri... a sprint... 500 yd swim, 16 mi bike, 3 mile run.

I got there early and got all my stuff set up and kinda just soaked everything in.  Surprisingly, my nerves never really got to me too bad.  The morning was warmer than expected (probably low 60s by the time we swam) and the water wasn't terribly cold so that was good.

My wave (novice) had 20-25 people in it.  We got and treaded water at the start for a few minutes so that gave me time to get used to the water temp.  But oh.... my swim was DREADFUL.  Worse than I could have imagined.  LOL  I started out trying to my freestyle with bilateral breathing like I've been training.  HAHAHAH!  Yeah right.  Couldn't do it.  Everytime I put my face in the water, I kinda started sucking in or something.  So I ended up swimming the whole thing with my head out of the water.... did a little back stroke, a little weird breaststroke and some "crawling".  There was a girl next to me and for the first 150 yds or so we were just chatting and laughing about how hard it was.  So that was nice.    I never really panicked in the water, but I certainly was questioning if I could do it!  I think the swim took me about 11 minutes or so (not 100% sure on time).

T1 went well.  Couple minutes and off on the bike.  The bike was alright.  It was windy and that really sucked.  The last 5 miles was a very slight incline with wind blowing directly at me.  UGH.  Where I've been riding my bike is soooo flat.  So even the slight inclines on the course were hard for me.  I knew going into it that I had not spent enough time on the bike... and yes, I paid for it.  It was hard!  But I did finish a slight bit faster than I expected (I think around 1:01).

The run was fine.  I walked my bike to T2 and by the time I went off running, the wobble was already kinda gone from my legs.  The run was the easiest part- that's what I've been doing the longest so that was expected.

I didn't finish last, but I was close.  It was definitely harder than I expected!!!!

The best part of the day was that my boyfriend, mom, dad, sister, bro-in-law and twin niece and nephew were there to cheer me on.  It was such a great feeling to see those little not quite 3 year old kids, running next to me cheering for me.  It helped me sooo much!

Thanks to all of you for all of your support and help over the last couple months!!  You really helped me sooo much!!  This place is a great support.


Getting ready with the boyfriend looking on...