I DID IT!

I did it! I finished my first tri! I'm still so excited and happy about it I could burst! I was #168 out of #500 based off of swim time. In the scheme of things, this really doesn't mean much if you are a fast bike rider or runner. Check out the results here.
Yeah, my swim outfit is quite astounding. My swim time was 6:41, which is lower than I was timing it during practice!
I'm not much of a runner, but my bike time was descent, averaging about 18mph-making it about a 39 minute ride. I thought I wanted to hurl by the time I hit the pavement in my running shoes, but still averaged under a 12 minute mile (which is my average!).
My lovely glamor shot. I placed 22 in my age group, and 105 overall in my gender (not including the Athena group). I'm quite pleased with my results! I wanted to finish under 1 1/2 hours, which I did with a total time of 1 hour and 25 minutes! I figure if I want to improve on my overall, my running would be the first thing. I had a lot of fun though! I definitely want to do it again!

Tomorrow!

I can't believe my first tri is tomorrow! I'm totally freaking out, but trying to stay calm. I'm number 168 so I'll have to wait awhile, but still have a whole lotta people behind me. My goals are simple:

Swim: about 7 minutes
Ride: 40 minutes
Run: less than 35 minutes

If I can do the whole thing in under 1 1/2 hours, I'll be happy! Let me restate that; If I actually do the whole thing and actually do it (run the whole time, mainly), I'll be happy! I am excited though! My transitions will no doubt be slow and I'll probably look like a lost puppy, but you've gotta have your firsts to improve on, right?

It's Getting Close!

These pass couple of weeks I've been focusing on my running and I'm proud to say I can now run 3 miles! Tonight I think I did my all time best running a straight up 3 miles in 31.5minutes. I have felt the need to puke since then, but what can you do! I did a practice tri tonight with running, then teaching my spin class, then going to the pool and swimming laps. It's a downer swimming at the actual pool because I was rockin' a 6 min 300m, and now I'm closer to a 7 min 300m which is what my original time was. I did get it down to about a 6 min 50 sec, but I doubt I'll get any closer to my goal. Oh well. At least I know I can hack each event! Jon and I changed my bike tire tonight--an adventure in and of itself. I need to pick up some more tubes. I think I may be out. Well, I should have one more. The race is on Sunday, I pick up my race pack on Thursday, and I'm already nervous! At least swimming I've met a lot of people doing this for the first time too!

Lack of training.

This week has started off bad, but ended okay. I went to the doctor on Monday for my knees because they have been consistantly hurting me. She gave me an Rx for an antiflamatory, which I don't know really help or not because I've been subbing like crazy. Monday I covered 3 classes, Tuesday I taught my two spin classes--then attempted swimming, but my swim bottoms would not stay up, Wednesday I ended up teaching 4 classes, Thursday thankfully only 1 (and then to the beach where I got fried), and Today I taught just one, and then swam some laps. I'm planning on swimming tomorrow before spin and before I officially put in my new swim time. Or maybe I'll just put it in.

Today's times:

6oom take one: 6 min 24 sec
600m take two: 6 min 3 sec

I think I'm going to put my time in as 6 min and 5 sec. Definitely quicker that my 7 min time I put in. If I can stay consistent . . . In other news, I got an email about swimming in the actual pool for the tri. I'm hoping I can pull that off a couple of times to get used to swimming 50m straight instead of 25m. I hope it'll help with my time. Who knows though. Next week I'm back to working on my running. I'm going to make Jon help me change my tire (the tube is basically a dud) and then maybe get some bike time in! I miss my bike and would really like to do well in that area also.

More Running

Today after spin I tried running yet again! I got 2 miles in (about 22 min) and then I walked/ran/sprinted the last mile which ended me at about 34.5 minutes. Really an improvement from my 40 minutes on Monday.

My knees are killing me, and I finally made an appointment for Monday to get them checked out. I'm hoping it's something simple like a shoe fix, or a good stretch. I don't want to give up my life, but I'm sick of the aching.

Improvement

I've only been training for about a week officially, but I've already seen some improvement (or maybe I'm just finally pushing myself a little more!) Today, after my spin class I ran, not a whole lot, but I ran for 1.5 miles in 16:30 (minutes) before I said I was done! This is a great improvement to the 1 mile stint I had on Monday (although I did run more)! Tonight I swam too, and here are my results:

1st 300: 6:17 (minutes)
2nd 3oo: 6:03 (minutes)

I'm hoping I can push that into the 5 1/2 minute range! Running, I'm still just making it a goal to run the whole thing--after that I'll shoot for a 10 minute mile! I'm hoping my knees will hold out! They gave me a lot of grief during the MS 150 and I haven't fully recovered since. My bike is really in need of some love. I took it out on Tuesday night, and realized the front tire is busted at the valve, and so that will need replaced, but I did get into my lower gears, so that's nice. It probably needs oiled up and cleaned up still. I think I'll focus on the tire first! I really need to get some ride time!