My biggest takeaway: I need to swim a lot more. A LOT MORE. The swim portion was far and away the most difficult thing I have ever done. I have been through military bootcamp but that in no way compares to the half mile swim. Or, should I say, doggie paddle / backstroke. I was embarassed; I was tired; I was slow. On the plus side, no one kicked me or swam over me. There were multiple moments when waves washed over me and I felt like I was going to drown. It was so bad that there was some 16 year old in a kayak floating alongside me and I convinced myself that he was recording me on his phone and posting to Youtube. That's completely irrational, but that's where my emotions were in the moment.
I'm really not sure what happened. I can swim a half mile in the pool, no stopping, without any problems. I don't do it so quickly, but I can do it in 20 minutes (stop laughing, I never swam before February!). At the triathlon I probably clocked in at 35 minutes? My watch read about 25 minutes when I was near the last buoy, so I think that's pretty accurate given my overall time.
What really, really hurts my pride is that I KILLED the bike and the run. I was not passed by a single person on the bike ride and only one person on the run. My average biking speed exceeded 20 mph, and at one point I even hit 38 mph! My average running pace was somewhere around 10 minutes per mile.
And the hill?
Nailed it. I rode all the way to the top. This was definitely the hardest part of the course for most of the participants.
So, I finished. Yes, it was bad, but I finished.
On to the next one, August 18. There's a run through this Sunday, and I think I will be hitting up the water BIG TIME with a leisurely bike ride and walk through on the run course - the run is a double loop. Wish me luck and give me all your open water swimming tips.
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