So I am a cat3 rider and haven't swam in many years but my parents forced me through 10 years of competitive swimming that i absolutely loathed. I am sure I will get something from that. I am not that big of a fan of running either but ran XC and track all throughout HS and my1 year in college. I thought I want to try something new. I am getting a little sick of the USACycling grind and overall really enjoy a self paced race more than one set by the pack. I don't know anything about the tri scene, like for one where I find out about good triathlons (active.com??). Trying one seems like it would be the place to start... what to wear and how to train of course is another question. What is a very solid (like the cat3 equivalent) olympic tri time? I'm guessing around 2 hours give or take?

The pro men finished the Chicago Accenture Triathlon in just under 2 hours.
That's a 19-20 minute swim, a 55-60 minute bike ride (26mph avg) and 32-33 minutes of running (5:20 per mile). 25-30 seconds per transition.

The pro women were right at 2 hours, 5-10 minutes behind the guys.

Most of the top age groupers were around 2:10:00 for men, and 2:30:00 for women.

I'm guessing if you can do a 2 hour olympic distance tri, you probably don't need anyone's advice on this board.

I doubt I can do 2 hours then!!! In my head, I can't think of doing a 40km tt in more than 1 hour, but I am not in the mindset of thinking of this as 1 big event but individual events which clearly will not work.

I looked, and all of the upcoming tris, all distances, are sold out. This will have to be a 2009 thing I think. I just am trying to figure out where to even begin thinking about all of this!!!

A little far away but if I were you I would consider this for my first race... https://www.nyctri.com

Good sites to answer a lot of your questions:
www.beginnertriathlete.com
https://www.trinewbies.com/

I'm a non-racer serious cyclist (centuries etc. with a bunch of vert), and I did my first sprint tri a few weeks ago with very little preparation, and it went fine. I think you should start at a sprint - it will probably seem very easy (especially the 12 (ish) mile bike leg), but that let's you figure out how things work. You are also less likely to hurt yourself running, which is a big danger for you. Your aerobic capacity will allow you to run far enough to hurt yourself pretty badly.

I also did competive swimming when I was a kid (though only 2-3 years). You will need to get back in the pool a bit to get back into it, but you will have no problem at all on sprint distances (1/2 mile), and could probably do Olympic pretty easy (I'm on perhaps my 10th pool session after no serious work in decades, and 1500s are simple). For most triathletes, the swimming (especially the open water part) is their big hurdle, a lot of it mental. It was a non-event for me, so I guess all those early mornings weren't totally wasted.

The only specific pieces of equipment I got are tri shorts (which you swim in and then ride in), and a number belt that you put on for the run. Wetsuits are optional depending on the temperature of the water in your area.

You're absolutely right about having to think of it as one big event. That's part of the challenge. You have to be able to save enough energy on the swim to do the bike, and then you have to save enough for the run. But you have to expend enough on all of them to do well. Just because you might be able to do all 3 separately doesn't mean you can put it all together.

2+ on www.beginnertriathlete.com. They have a great forum and a lot of articles and training schedules to get you started.

www.trifind.com has a list of triathlons of all lengths around the US.

Couple of things to keep in mind about time. First of all, you have to run a 10K after your 40K bike. So where as in a TT you want to be completely spent by the end or you didn't go out hard enough, in a tri you need the energy to perform well on the run. In fact, you usually loose more time by going too hard on the bike and not having enough for the run than holding back a bit on the bike so you can go faster on the run. This is more and more true the longer the distance of the race. Avoid trying to win the race on your bike. This is important since you are coming from a cycling background. Do a solid bike split, but save plenty for the run. I'd do plenty of bricks (workouts with both bike and run training) at LT before your race so you can get a feel for running off the bike.

Second thing is your transition times are included in your total time. This is the time from when you get out of the water to mounting your bike (T1) and the time from your bike dismount to getting onto the run course (T2). Depending on the course and transition area layout, this adds anywhere from 3-10 minutes to your time. As a newbie, you'll likely be on the longer end of this. Keep that in mind when thinking about your time goals. Pros and many dedicated ager groups spend time leading up to races practicing transitions so they are done as quickly and efficiently as possible. It really is free time, so if you can do quick transitions, it's a real plus.