"On your left"

I finished my first triathalon today! Matt was in good form documenting the whole thing.  I was nervious, all week I was stressed out about it.  I tried to calm myself that this was just my "practice" tri, because I am only halfway through my training program (I have another tri in october). 

We dragged the boys out of bed at 5:00 am, but the sunrise over the lake was worth it.  Between the sunrise and a quick warm up in the lake, I calmed down and was ready!

A friend of mine gave me some advice: get in the front of the pack, so you don't have to swim through everybody or get kicked, however, in order to be in the front, I needed to be in the water (but I couldn't reach the bottom) so I had to tred water for 5 min before I swam. 

The swim felt great. I'm glad I was at the front of the pack, I even passed up some of the earlier wave. 

I was a pretty fast transitioner, just had to throw on some socks, shoes, helmet and glasses (I need glasses - bugs love to fly into my eyes)

Off I go! The bike was nice, the scenery was so beautiful.  I discovered one problem, being a fast swimmer put me ahead of the pack, but I'm still new to biking and not that fast. So it was a little depressing, I heard 45 minutes of people saying "on your left" because they were passing me!  Also the road was clearly marked 20mph, but I have it on good authority that some of those ladies were going faster then that!

Part 3, running!  Yikes it was hot, who in the world thought it was a good idea to do a race in August in Houston! My run/walk wasn't great but I finished strong.

Overall it was fun, and a really great learning experence. I know where I need to improve and where I just need to push harder.  Overall time 1:30.51, I was 252nd out of 480.

I got home and my suit was muddy from the lake, I had twigs and grass in my socks, I was sweaty and gross, but I had a smile on my face.