Newbie completed first Olympic!

Congratulations!!

I'm sure you're going to get plenty of ideas on what you should/could be doing.  But honestly, with a 2 and 5 year old to deal with, and that being your first Oly,  I'd just keep doing what you're doing.  Your fitness will improve, you'll enjoy it more if you aren't worried about hitting specific workouts, and your next time will improve if you pick a flatter course.  In other words, as a newbie, you have plenty of time to let triathlon make you crazy.....enjoy the ride right now. 

Consider this.....back in the 80's when we trained for triathlon we just went on rides and runs.  Sometimes we swam in master programs at the YMCA, but mostly we just swam.  There were no coaches, no websites, no garmin watches, blah,blah,blah......maybe a book or two that nobody read, and TRIATHLON magazine.  My point is this.....we just swam, biked, and ran as much as we could put up with.....not a single plan.  Everybody who stuck with it got faster, and it was a hell of a good time.  I eventually got a plan, and had kids, and worried about getting my workouts in and what I was doing wrong so that I could try to get faster.....but I never had as much fun as when we just did what we did and then raced.

I was right where you are 5 years ago.  Now I have a 9-year-old, a 7-year-old and a 5-year-old and have cleaned up the messy run at the end of my races.

My first triathlon I was 63 rd out of 90 people overall, 48 out of 65 males, and 7th out of 8 people in my age group.  I had trained for 8 months and was in the best shape of my life on race day.  My swim was what I was most worried about and I actually was 5 minutes under my goal time on that leg of the race.  I would have probably done okay on the bike leg if I didn't get two flat tires, but the run was brutally hot.  The race was in April and was done on the first day of the year in the 90's.   I was 25% over my goal time on the run.  It took me about 2-1/2 years before I could get my run under control and like you, I came from a running background.  

After my first race season, I did a 16-week bike-focused training plan when I did four hard bike work-outs a week.  They were all done outside on hilly terrain.  The hills didn't ruin the quality of the workout.  I felt that if anything the hills improved the quality of the workout.  During the bike focus, I did really really slow 5-mile recovery runs twice a week on the days that I didn't ride.  At the end of the 4 months, my run was terrible and my bike was about where I had started.  After adding regular running workouts back  I was running better than ever in about 8 weeks.  My second season my bike time didn't get much faster by and my run times didn't either.  I kept at it though and in my 3rd season seemed to turn to lightning on the bike overnight, and I while still not where I wanted to be on the run I was only about 5% over my goal times instead of 25% over.  In my 4th year, I saw more improvements on the bike and started to hit my goal times on the run.  

One of my running coaches told me that from coaching distance runners for 25 years he had learned that it takes about 3 years from people to peak in endurance sports.  So... don't get frustrated if you don't see immediate results.  For me, I was doing all the work for 2-1/2 years and didn't see much better results from what I saw after 8 months of training for my first race.  Then it was like a light had been switched on and all of a sudden all the things that I had been struggling with in races all can together at once.

The recommendations that I in my first year or two all said to focus on the bike.  I did that but after do a bike focus between my 1st and second season, then a swim focus between my 2nd and 3rd season I considered going back to the bike or back to the swim since my run was still by far my strongest leg.  I instead had a coach put me on a run focus.  I was happy with that because running was what came easiest to me.  looking back I think if I would have put more into my run in the first two years it probably would have been a good thing.    

There you go......Excellent!!  Carry on!

Remember, you already won when you completed your goal of an Olympic triathlon.  First or last, it makes NO difference.  I get the idea of wanting to be faster and finish higher, but just be careful.....it comes with a price tag in money and injury of you get too crazy.  You're not going to the Olympics, and neither you, nor anyone else, will end up being more impressed if you finish faster.......your time doesn't even mean anything to anybody but you and a very small handful of people who show up on the same Saturday, and those folks will understand your accomplishment no matter your finish, or how expensive your gear is.....you ran an Oly distance triathlon, 99% of the population will never be able to say that!!  Enjoy the accomplishment.......or you'll miss all the joy of it.

Good luck in your next race!