Dare I say it...triathlon?

So, last week in a cycling class, the teacher gave a shout out to a group of people in the class who had done a triathlon.  It sort of set off a light bulb in my head that swimming has always come pretty easily, and now I am biking a lot.  The missing piece is the hardest part for me: running.  I am not built for it, I never did it as a kid and I just generally don't enjoy it very much.  I trained and ran a 5k the summer after my sophomore year of college.  Then I stopped and didn't start again until I had Django as a puppy who needed to run off some energy.  So, at my peak, I could run about 7 miles (two laps around Prospect Park in Brooklyn).  That was 2008 though.  I irritated my ilio tibial band during lunges after running and was in a lot of pain, even months after I stopped running.

So, this weekend I thought, what the hell.  I am going to try to run.  I know I could get back into swimming easily, and the biking is going well.  I got on the treadmill and said to myself, I will stop running when I can't do it anymore.  The goal was 5k, but I thought I might only get halfway there before I had to slow down and walk. 

I made the font bigger on my Kindle and started reading the complete Sherlock Holmes which I downloaded for free.  (Booya.) 

I did it.  I walked .25 kilometers to get warmed up and then ran 5 kilometers.  Hot damn.  I was tired and I wanted to quit all through the first mile or so and then the story got good ("A Study in Scarlet").  I think this has everything to do with cycling. 

I was in a fair bit of muscle pain on Monday and Tuesday and I took a cycling class last night (Tuesday) and I was hurting.  But, the possibility is there. 

So now I am trying to decide if this is worth it.  The Music City triathlon isn't at a good time for us, but the Race the Bridge Triathlon is.  I would do the "sprint" length, which is 750 meters swim, 20 k bike, 5 k run.  The swimming is in the river! 

I like the idea of having this tangible goal to motivate me and by which I can measure my progress.  But, I feel like maybe I am taking on more than I can handle.  I have until May to get the current registration rate, so I am going to think it over.  I only have 3-4 days a week to "train" so I don't know if that is enough.  I think I could easily do any of those things by themselves, but perhaps all in a row is too much. 

We'll see.