And She's Off!

Just a quick update: Glacier is fine. After a few very tense days, his stomach returned back to normal and he is as happy as ever. We've also added a new member to our family. Her name is Aria and she's itty bitty, but I'll fill you in on her later.
It was just over a month ago that I decided that I was going to complete a triathlon. It was a thought I had been throwing around ever since I retired from swimming, but the massage program was way too intense for me to be doing anything other than study.So now that I was done with school and I have to wait on my practising license anyway, I figured now was as good of a time as any. So I began looking for triathlon coaches. I emailed a few and only got a response back from one. I figured that it was better to do something like this under the guidance of someone else. I know about elite sport, but I was a sprinter and swimming is only one discipline-a triathlon has three. I had no idea where to start training. There is also a lot of information available on the internet of course, but I wasn't sure what was actually legitimate or not.
After the coch and I emailed back and forth a few times, we established that he would be able to coach me. He lives about an hour and a half away from me, but we agreed to correspond every day via email and the phone. As needed I've also emailed him photosand videos of various things so that I can get some of his feedback. He also gives me direction on nutrition. I am pretty good with what foods are good for what and what foods are not good for anything, but a triathlon requires a very high number of calories and I wanted to ensure I was feeding my body the best fuel possible. Anyway, a long story short-sort of-I have a coach and today will be my tenth day of training. We've definitely run into sme glitches along the way that I hope will be rectified.
For example, I need a guide to actually compete in races and as of right now, I am guideless. I do all of my workouts on my own inside on a treadmill at a friend's house and on a road bike that we mounted on a "trainer." I thought I could build up my fitness on my own while I was in the market for a guide. For those of you who don't know, a guide would be teathered to me during the swim and run portions of the race and they would be in front of me piloting a tandem bike for the cycling portion. The guide needs to be in as good of shape or better than me so that they can keep up and also be able to focus on keeping us safe. I don't really know where to start looking for a guide. I'm currently trying to sign up for a YMCA membership and thought that maybe I could put up a notice on a bulletin board there or something. This leads me to my next problem.
This issue isn't as big as the no guide thing because I can pretty much fix this myself: it will just take a bit of time. Getting to the pool is proving to be a problem. I live in kind of a rural area and finding a local pool is difficult. Not to mention, pools are expensive. I'm trying to get a membership at the YMCA in order to have access to both the pool and the gym. I am worried once I get to the pool, my workouts will be disturbed by other swimmersand I will disturb their workouts. I'll be swimming on my own and won't know if someone is waiting on the wall resting. I may accidentally run them over, or just never fully swim into the wall so that I don't run anyone over. This all means that I won't get as much out of my practice as I need to. I also don't want to hurt anyone or annoy anyone for that matter. I was thinking I could ask the manager of the YMCA if I could use half of a lane to myself. That way, I can use the lane rope as a landmark (or water mark) and trail along it. That way, I can stay out of the other swimmers' practices.
The gym membership would be also helpful for the days when I have to do both running and biking on the same day to practice transitions. Monday of this week, I had to do a practice where I biked and then ran for ten minutes afterwards. It wasn't worth the hastle of getting my friend to pick me up to take me back to his place to use the treadmill, so I tried running on the spot. Do you have any idea how hard it is to run in one spot and actually try to get some kind of aerobic fitness from it? Plus, I kept running away from the spot I was on. :) If I were a sighted person, I could have done my bike workout and went outside and done the tenn minutes around the neighbour hood, but alas, Glacier doesn't guide while running. :)
Despite some of my dilemmas, I am thoroughly enjoying my new adventure. It's nice to workout and not have to do the same thing every day. One day I may run, another I may bike and then another I'll do both or a core workout. Once I get a better fitness base, I will be doing two workouts a day-at least I think that is what this is all leading up to.