Sherry is a tri-athlete (again)

You may remember that a couple of years ago my eldest child talked me into this and because I was training for that my "friends" talked me into this.

Well I'm at it again! Since starting back to work I've had a LOT on my plate and one of the things that had fallen off and gotten thrown away with the dirty napkins was my commitment to myself and my health. Back in February I decided enough was enough and I needed to commit to myself again - since then I have run two 5K's, one duathlon and finally today my first tri (of this season). Tomorrow I will be running in another 5K. Sadly I'm not where I want to be physically yet but I know that this is the way to do it and I'm on my way. I already have a partner for the kid's tri this summer - sweet K (any suggestions on our team name?). So right now I'm trying to figure out if I can commit to doing a couple more tri's this season including... wait for it... gasp an open water tri! I'll keep you posted!
For now here is my story about today!

#1 I put myself too far back on the swim. When I saw people actually walking in the pool for part of their swim and I still had 30+ people in front of me I knew I had sold myself short. Alas what was done was done so I just had to make the best of it. I set my watch, jumped in and promptly stuck my head (without goggles) into the water! First cause of panic, I freaked! I grabbed my goggles got them on only to realize that they were full of water! Double panic. I finally got them on but couldn't shake the feeling and began to swim (or some semblance of swimming) and couldn't get my breath so I stopped to gather myself and realized that I couldn't touch - triple panic!!! Needless to say the swim wasn't good as a matter of fact I ranked 18th (out of 20) in my age group in the swim. Not a good showing!

#2 Bike - I love my bike! It's so pretty and fun and FAST! I love my bike. I zoomed through the course twice and would have preferred doing that one more time over running two miles. Oh well we can't always get what we want! My bike rank was 9th (out of those 2o lovely 35-39 year old ladies)! Whoop!

#3 I wogged! I started off running but quickly reverted to a walk and then kept trying to go back to running. After the one mile mark I did it! I jogged most of the last mile but my jogging is pretty slow because I ranked 20th (yea - same 20). See I should have biked that!

Here is the rest of the story - I did it!! I got out there and convinced myself that it is NOT about what my body looks like. It is about what my body can (and did) do! It swam, biked and jogged - I finished and for that I am proud of myself. The sad part was that my friend got messed up on the bike and only did the bike loop once (not the twice that was required). She finished ages before me, kind of funny but sad too. This was her first tri and she did a great job, considering how tricky the bike course was (lots of turns and corners - easy to get lost).

I swam, biked and jogged this race today on my son's 5th birthday and tomorrow he will be competing in his first fun run. My prayer and hope is that by being active I will be a good role model for my children so that they too can go out and do things that they never thought they would do.