My Tri Try

I've shared bits and pieces or maybe chunks and parts of my "magical journey" (wink wink Dave) from major funkiness post Ruby's birth back to happy healthy Megan.

Quick recap of steps:
1.  Decide to be "healthy"
2.  Get Healthy physically
3.  Work out mental issues
4.  Get in shape
5.  Complete a triatholon

Thanks to encouragement from my sister and a good friend willing to train for and do the triathlon with me I found the courage to sign up for a the Women of Steel triathlon.  Its a women only sprint distance tri right in my back yard.  Literally, the course goes right around my neighborhood.

Training
Training was key.  In a triathlon you swim, bike, then run.  Running was my weakest point.  I HATED running.  My right leg is 1/2 and inch longer than my left because of scoliosis and so running has always hurt.  But I was tired of being afraid of it and I knew if I wanted to do the tri I had to overcome my running issues.  So I started running last fall.  It took me a couple months to get to where I could run a mile consistently.  Yep, just 1 mile.  I would get shin splints so badly that I'd have to stop for a week or two.  So it took a couple months for my leg muscles to get built up enough to run a mile a couple times a week.

Then I slowly added distance.  I'd run 1.5 miles for a month, then 2 miles, etc.  It took me nearly 6 months to build up to 3.5 miles.  But that was enough to get me through the race. 

Next I focused on swimming.  I knew how to swim but not how to swim fast.  In fact I've always been quite slow.  So I signed up for a swim class at the local rec center that met at 5:30 am.  Yep.  I just about died.  I'm so lucky my friend decided to take the class with me.  She was the reason I actually went, otherwise I'm sure I would have slept in more than half the time.  We'd get up at 5 to get to class by 5:30.  The rec center pool was in a giant bubble because it was still winter.  The first few times I went I felt like I was in some sort of nightmare.  I'm NOT a morning person.  And to get up at that unholy hour, in the cold, and go in this weird loud bubble into a sort of cold swimming pool just to swim for an hour solid was kind of a nightmare. 

But I loved the teacher and I had my friend to commiserate with.  And after a couple weeks it started to be kind of fun.  Lets not get crazy - it still was torture at times, but it was bearable.

Finally, I started biking when it warmed up enough and discovered that I love to road bike.  I love the speed and the distance you can cover.  I was riding Dave's bike and planned to ride it for the race.  But Dave and kids surprised me with my own road bike for mothers day.  And its even nicer than Daves!!!  I've since named her Penny, and together we can fly!  The biking has come easy, and for that I'm grateful as running and swimming did not.

The Race.
Was really fun.  The training sucked.  But because I trained the race was fun.  It was exhausting but I performed as I hoped I would.  The swim was slow and I probably could have gone faster but I got stuck behind a slow person.  The swim was in a pool so it was very difficult to pass.  I got 105th in the swim out of 160 in my age group.  The bike was so fun.  I passed people the whole way and got 42th in the bike portion.  The run went well.  I was hoping to finish it in 30 min when I basically did.  Overall I came in 84th.  Wahoo!!!

I was happy with that.  The feeling of completing a physical challenge like that is awesome.  Would I do it again?  Yep!  But I haven't wanted to jump right back into training.  I'm hoping to maybe do another in the fall.  

Here are a few pics: