To give you an idea of my first tri experience, when I wrote the race report I called it "The bad, the good, and the ugly".

I decided to do tri in a "if she can do it, so can I" kinda way. I was already biking seriously and had the winter to learn to run and swim. The running came along great but I needed to take lessons to really learn to swim. My first tri was a pool swim 300m but I was barely at the point of being able to do it all freestyle. 6 weeks before I sprained my ankle racing a 5k so by the tri my running was barely up to distance again.

Race day:
The swim was a "snake swim" where we were started in 10 second increments from fastest swimmer to slowest. As soon as I was in the water I had issues with slower swimmers ahead and faster swimmers behind and lost my composure. The swim ended up taking me far longer than I was capable and it wasn't pretty.

T1 was a bit slow, but not bad for a first time.

The bike (12 miles) went great and I set a PB for speed at that distance (a nice flat route really helps!)

T2 was faster than T1 but still kinda slow.

The run (5k) quickly turned into a mess. I was really hurting and started walking within the first mile. At the turn-around point I started running again, hoping to run the whole way in but later tripped and fell and started walking again. I did manage to run the last 1/4 mile or so but I could barely lift my legs.

Although I was thrilled to have finished my first tri I was initially hard on myself and depressed because I had done so poorly compared to what I thought my potential was. It took me several days to correct my "rectal-cranial inversion" and truly appreciate what I had accomplished.