Que Sera Sera: Naperville Triathalon

I have always wanted to do a triathlon. Not a real Iron man one, just a small sprint one to test the waters. My friend from work, Holly, and her sister-in-law Michelle and I decided to sign up for the US Women's Triathlon Series in Naperville IL. The event was scheduled for June 14th, a Sunday. I had a difficult time with the training due to my getting bronchitis halfway through. This put a bit of a damper on my training, but still I was psyched to complete this. Considering I already signed up and couldn't get any refunds, there wasn't an option! The course was a 1/2 mile swim, 15 mile bike, and 3.1 mile run. Now, I am an exerciser to begin with, but just that. I typically would work out 3 times per week, and usually run and lift weights. The swimming was going to throw me, but I would muddle through it. My normal swimming is this...I don't! But since I was going to have to swim a 1/2 mile, I figured I'd better practice. So, I went to the WAC about 1 or 2 times each week and just swam my half mile. This usually took me about 25 minutes or so. A week or so before the tri, Holly and I looked at last years times for each event, and noticed that nobody took longer than 30 min to swim....WHAT?????? SERIOUSLY???? I was a bit worried, but would somehow have to swim faster than that. On top of that, we were "highly suggested" to wear wet suits, since it had been like 60 degrees out for the past week and rainy.
Jeff and Maddy came with to cheer me on, that was the best part. It was fun to look for them at each transition. Overall, it was an awesome experience. I did SOOOO much better than I thought...and now am compelled to "tri" another sometime down the road. I guess I should better wait until I feel better. I now am stuck at home with mono, that SUCKS!

This is a picture of the day before the event. We had to pick up our race numbers, get our arms and legs marked with our numbers! It was fun.