"training" for my first race

By the time I decided I wanted to do a triathlon it was late fall, so all the races for the year were over.  So I continued to do my workouts, running, swimming and biking a few times a week, but with no real goal in mind.  I researched to see if there were any local races and was delighted to find that there was an entire local series (http://somersault.ca/triathlons.htm) as well as numerous other independent races.  

After reading the rules and doing a bit of research an the types of races and training, I was fully committed on doing at least 3 sprint distant races the next season.  By late December I signed up, for some extra motivation and to save a few bucks on entry fees.  It was decided, 3 races.  Now there were a few hurtles to overcome.  The first, I didn't have a bike or really know much about cycling in general and second, I wasn't sure how to train.  

Over the winter holidays I went to a local bike shop (http://www.fullcycle.ca/) and asked about how to get an entry level road bike, and I was hoping for some sales.  They guys there were very informative and very honest, they told me to come back in the spring when I could try the bikes out and could get a deal on the previous years model.  So after the excellent advice I decided that would be exactly what I was going to do.  

As for my training plan, I decided that I would train to at least twice the distance in each event, so I wanted to be able to swim 1000m, bike 40km and run 10km without any problems.  I wasn't sure how my knees would handle intense training, so I figured for the first season I would just gain some experience and decide if this is something I like doing.  If I was committed to this I would amp up the training, body permitting, next year.  I also wasn't comfortable running in the winter, so my winter training was swimming 3 times a week, and going on our spin bike 2 times a week.  

Within no time I was able to pound out 2km swimming without any trouble and could easily maintain a 2 min/100m pace in a pool.  The spinning was a little harder to judge, since I stationary the entire time.  Luckily we had an early spring and I was able to get out jogging fairly early, mostly with our dog Kali.  She came dread our morning runs, but once she got going she was much better.  I went back to Full Cycle and was able to pick up a great bike on sale.  The sales guys there were excellent and helped me out a lot and still do to this day.  I took it pretty easy on the bike at first, just getting used to the different riding position shifting and what have you.  After a few weeks my confidence was building and I was able to build to 40km in a fairly short time.  For running I was able to build to 10km without much of a problem, I had accomplished my goal training goals with about 3-4 weeks to go into my first race.

With all the training, and admittedly sloppy technique in the pool and inexperience on the bike, I did end up tweaking my neck/shoulder about 3 weeks before my first race  I had to take some time out of the pool and limit my rides to try and get healthy for the race.  I really worked on alternating breathing, and trying to do shoulder checks less frequent and use both sides.  Combined with lots of stretching, heating/icing and a steady diet of Advil I made some good improvements.  Coming into race day my shoulder didn't feel 100%, but I felt it was "good enough".  Given my little bit of taper I had plenty of energy and was ready felt ready to go.