First Post - my ramblings :)

Okay so I found this bloggin site and here I go.
In 30 days from today I will be racing in my first ever Olympic Distance Triathlon. I am doing the Accenture Chicago Triathlon on Aug 24 with Team In Training. I hav been fairly consistent with my training, with the exception of taking vacation last month and getting the flu :(
We had a mock triathlon last week in which our coach had us swim some unknown distance (1/2 mi?) and then we rode 9 miles and ran 4 miles. Needless to say it was hot, but not too difficult. We are swimming every Saturday for around 60 min and Sundays we bike about 30 miles and then run 4 miles afterwards. Someday I will get back from the bike ride with everyone else and get to run the full 4 miles, but who knows when that will be.
Did I mention that I am one of very, very, very few people on my team that has not done several olympic distance tri's? Yes so us 2 or 3 people (depends on who shows up) always end up lagging the group coming back.
My swimming: I would like to think that my swimming will not be an issue. I feel pretty strong in the water, my pulse stays relatively low and I feel pretty efficient. I would like to swim faster, but with a mile swim before my other 2 events, I am thinking it is better to be a little slower and well rested, than gain a couple minutes and be spent!
My biking: So right now my average bike speed when solo is about 17 mph. With the group I can usually hang around 20 mph, as long as I am drafting. Distance is not a problem, as I have recently done a 75 miler, a 50 miler and we normally do 30 milers every weekend. These are no sweat.
My run: so this is where things go badly for me. Yes being overweight makes me a horrible runner. I consistently am close to last as far as run times go. Now I have been making progress. I am running sub 14 minute miles at the gym now and averaging 16 min miles on our post-cycling training runs. Last year I could only manage about a 17.5 min mile and that was straight out of bed. So progress is happening here, just not as quick as I like. Now I did run for a whopping 1/2 mile straight last night. Yes I know, small steps.
Well guess that is all for now. Stay tuned for more pain tomorrow and this weekend. I am on the fence about doing a sprint tri on Sunday. I really need the time in training with the team, but I could really use the race experience too. Well time and weather will tell :)