my first tri

On Sunday I finished my first triathlon. I participated in the 2011 IronGirl near Atlanta. The race is a fundraiser for Aflac cancer center for children. It was a sprint triathlon, which consists of a 1/3 mile swim, 18 mile bike and a 3 mile run. In hindsight....and to be honest, in foresight, I should have trained, but I really didn't. I only did 2 of those activities in the same day 3 times and with large breaks in between and I never did all 3 activities in the same day. I swam maybe 6 times, biked twice and ran maybe 10 or so times. Before the race I was the most worried about the swim because I have never swam like that before and as it turns out I should have been. The swim was awful. I got maybe 3 sets of strokes in and could barely breathe. People later said that the swim was much worse than it has been the past....something about the current being bad this year. I don't know the reason...I just know it was bad. I finished it without drowning and was on to the bike. Now I don't really like biking. I try to, but I hate biking up hills. As it turns out, however, the bike was my favorite part of this race. I did really well in it, biked it really fast and passed tons of people, which made up for my bad swim time. It was a very pretty bike course, which helped also. I had not done a transition from biking to running ever and when I finished and stepped off the bike in transition I almost fell over. My legs felt like jello. I had to pull myself together though because I was about to have to run 3 miles. I greatly appreciated the people who made that 3 mile run mostly uphill....that was real sweet.
I did finish though and they named me an IronGirl as I passed over the finish line and adorned me with a bright pink medal. Overall, it was pretty fun. My roommate came and was an excellent supporter...cheering us on and taking pictures to update my facebook status, which makes it look like I carried my phone during the entire race to give my "followers" the play-by-play.
Here are some of the pictures. Pictures of my in the swim cap will not be appearing here or anywhere else in public space....they are pretty rough. Below is transition 1 between the swim and bike.
I think this picture is hilarious. Amy didn't mean to take it, but it is after the bike before I headed out on the run. I was eating a GU, which turned out to be nasty. It tasted like I was shoving melted tootsie rolls in my mouth and the last thing I wanted right then was melted tootsie rolls. The face is priceless.
Here is the all done photo. I was very glad to be finished. There are more pictures on facebook of the event.
I feel pretty accomplished this year. Since last May I have completed my first 10k, half marathon, full marathon and triathlon. I never planned it that way, but that is what happened. I've really enjoyed it.