Triathalon

I did my first sprint Tri today. My brother did one with his nephew in Tennessee last month. I have always wanted to try one but never known all the in's and out's of the whole thing. Every time you ask people they make it seem like a really big deal. Which is usually their need to feel like they a major and important in some way. Most of the people that I have found that get really into it and buy ALL the stuff turn out to be pretty average when it comes to the actual race. I suck at swimming and I let it freak me out. I am a strong runner so no worries there. The biking part I feel is lame. You can buy a $1500-$2000.00 bike and do decent but I don't ever want to spend near that much!. Ever! So when my bro called I thought I need to just give it a try. I used some coupons and points at dicks (sporting goods) and got a pretty low grade Hybrid bike for $100.00. A helmet and a pair of bike shorts. That's it! If I did what others suggested I would be in the hole a hell of allot more than that. I had so much fun and loved it. I hated the swim part cause we were in a pool and you have to swim down the lane then go under the rope and swim down the lane next to it. People were pushy and tried to climb over you when it came to transitioning lanes. I was more than happy to move back and let them go. So I lost time there. I also am slow when I transitioned from one leg to the next. After the swim I had to run in dirt to my bike so I sat down and cleaned my feet off. Obviously not too efficient. Overall I did pretty good. I finished 5th overall for the women. The chicks at the top had much nicer bikes than me and were able to cut off 2 min there. Plus they were much better swimmers. I sucked at my swim! I am just really bad and its hard to undo what you have been doing wrong for so many years. But I will keep working on it. My time was 1:09:15 One hour and nine min! Not bad. The 400 meter swim I did in 12 min... The bike 32 min and the run in 21 min. I could have run faster too just didn't push myself cause I have to teach tomorrow. Plus these sort of things are only fun if you can walk and don't want to throw up when you are done. I will probably do a couple per year and that's it. Like I said I am not willing to sink the kind of money I would have needed to spend on a bike to be very competitive. But I had a good time. I even got to run with my brother for his leg of the run. And eat brunch with my nephews!