Finished my first Triathlon! It's likely that I was the only person in this race who had never done a Tri. The reason I picked it is because this weekend is when I wanted to do one, this race is 20 min from my house, and looked like a fun course.

I don't see the results posted yet, but my brother told me I finished at 3 hrs and 2 min.

Swim:
The jump off the boat was about 5 ft until you entered Lake Erie, so everyone's head disappeared as they landed. I stepped to the edge and waited for heads to come above water, then found and open spot to jump at and swam a few feet away so nobody would land on me.

When I turned to swim toward shore, I realized that I was so excited, I couldn't hold my breath to put my head in the water. After floating on my back for a few seconds, I calmed down enough to start swimming. Even from the boat it wasn't possible to see the spot we were headed toward on shore clearly, so with goggles on, it was impossible. I tried to use a boat to keep my direction that looked halfway to shore, but usually I couldn't see it either, so I just followed the swimmers when I could see them. The swells were so deep, it was very difficult to see swimmers, boats, bouys. The rain was so bad, it was hard to see shore.

For the last half of the swim, I was pretty sure that I was the last person or close to it. I'd see 2-3 swimmers in front of me, but not a single one behind me. When I got to the transition, there were a lot more bikes on the racks then I expected. After the race, my wife said I was in the top 3rd of swimmers.

Bike:
According to my Garmin, it took 1:28:52 (16.8 mph average) and 73% MHR. According to me, I really need to improve. Most of the ride I couldn't see anyone in front of me. When someone did pass me, they blew by so fast and got out of sight so soon, it was embarrasing. About 2 miles from the end of of the bike, I saw someone talking to the police with their bike on its side, a bent wheel laying somewhere else, and a limp tube in their hand. I felt bad for him and was glad I didn't crash on the wet pavement.

Run:
51:59 and 83.7% MHR. They call it "The Crawl" for a reason. There is pavement for 100m past the transition area, then it's soft sand, hard sand, mud, and some grass. I averaged an 8:37/mi pace. With .9 mi left it was all grass (water over the ankle in areas, but it wasn't sand), so I tapped the lap button on my Garmin to see what pace I could hold with better footing. I had a 7:49/mi on the last stretch. It was good enough to prove to myself that I wasn't totally exausted at the end.

Overall:
It looked like the entire field was 150-200 people. It made the bike and run pretty lonely.

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For anyone out there that is nervous about trying an Olympic distance Tri (I know I was), here is my athletic resume as an example of someone that can finish.

I'm 5' 7" and 29 years old. In June I was 191 lbs and thought "damn I need to do something, and running road races doesn't keep me motivated." So I went on a spending spree:
$500 road bike
$50 tri shorts
$200 kid cart to pull behind bike
$250 wetsuit
$90 registration
$90 3 month membership at university rec center for swimming
Now I'm 175 lbs. If my calculations are correct, it's costing me $66 for each pound I lose. I should of just did Weight Watchers with my wife, but oh well.

Resume

Running:
1995/1996 - CC and track in high school
1997- one 5k
1998-2005 - nothing
2006 - 26:30 5k
2007 - 24:09 5k, 38:40 5 mile, 83:00 10 mile

Biking:
1997 - bought a mountian bike to go to college classes.
9 days before race - bought a $500 road bike and road it twice (20 miles total)

Swimming:
June - started swimming during my lunch hour. Able to average 100m per 2 min from 30-45 min without any trouble. Additionally, I love being in the water and swimming.