Hero to Zero? Or Zero to Hero?!?

Saturday, was my first fully completed triathlon. First fully completed meaning that, if you remember, about a year ago, I trained for the Yuba Lake Triathlon, and got into a bike accident a day or two before the race. Well, I thought I would once again give it a try. And let me tell you what, it was the saddest attempt ever.
In January, I started having a sharp pain in my left knee, but decided to ignore it. Well the pain got so severe that I was not able to run more then 1 to 2 miles, which is a big deal for someone who runs 6 miles on a daily basis. In April I finally made it to a orthopedics spectialist who told me I had IT band syndrom, and I needed to take time off of the running (Ya Right!). After a few weeks without running in large quantities (may I add), I was feeling better and decided to go for a 6 mile run. Well on mile one of the 6, I sprained my ankle and finished the remaining 5. I was out for another 2 weeks after that. In the mean time, I was swimming once or twice a week and biking on my parents stationary bike.
I decided to sign up for the race anyway because I knew I could do it, even if I hadn't trained. The sunday before the race, I got this terrible head and chest cold. I could not stop coughing. I kept thinking "the force is against me."

So I raced. Before the race I said a prayer asking Heavenly Father to suppress my cough during the race. And guess what, it worked! I coughed all the way up until the whistle blew, then nothing until the finish line. Amazing right!
The race was the hardest thing I had ever done physically. The swim was definitely the hardest. I thought I was going to drown the whole time. I was doing breast stroke, but the weat suit was not cut for breast stroke and was not allowing my neck to bend backward. I was thinking that I should just turn around now and save me from possibly downing. Or that I should not do my second lap, and call it good after number one. But I finished. My time was 34 and 58 minutes for .9 miles.
As soon as I got out of the water, I raced toward my station, and changed out of the weat suit, got on the bike and left. The biking didn't seem to bad, at first, and then after checking my timer, noticing I still had not passed the half way point after 45 minutes, I got worried. Not mentioning that the chain to my bike came off multiple times. So many times during the bike portion did I tell myself "quit, it is okay, if you cheat and turn around, no one would ever know." But I didn't, I pushed though it and finished with a miserable time of 2 hours 3 minutes and 27 seconds (24.8 miles.)
Then, my final task the run. My legs felt like they were jello. It was so hard to keep myself going in a forward motion. But I made it. My dad was so cute, he was running beside me for part of the run to help me keep going. I finished the run in 42:39 minutes for a 4 1/2 miles run which was suppose to be 6 originally (portions of the run got flooded the night before.)