August 22nd. The day I have been working towards all summer. My very first half distance triathlon. 1.2 mile swim. 56 mile bike. 13.1 mile run.
Here I am in the water at the Utah lake state park preparing for the in water start at the end of the boat ramp. Nice warm water. No wetsuit for me. Look at all those suckers with wet suits.
Here we go! The swim was…interesting. It was super shallow. I could touch the whole way and there were many times when I was basically grabbing the mud on the bottom to propel myself or standing and diving back in. I was so dirty when I got out. I don’t think the liner of my shirt will ever be white again. The water was so dirty that when I put my face in the water it was complete blackness.
The bike ride was great. It was an out and back around the south end of the lake. I cruised along pretty good. On my way back I lost my legs, my speed dropped from 20 miles an hour to about 16 and I literally could not make myself go any faster. That lasted about 15 minutes and then I was able to get my legs back. (After the race when I grabbed my bike it had a flat tire…a lot of people got flat tires on the ride. I must have had a slow leak towards the end, I’m hoping I didn’t actually ride on it completely flat!)
The run was pretty good. It was really well supported so that was nice. My right foot was hurting quite a bit for the last 5 miles or so, but I just tried to ignore it. I started to get a rash under my arms. The last mile I pushed hard and passed a lady in my age group which bumped me up a place…which ended up being awesome because….
(The time on the clock is from when the first wave started.)
Much to my surprise, I place 3rd in my age group!!! I was shocked when they called my name. They said the time first and I thought I had barely missed it but then they said my name! WAHOO!!!! 5 hours, 38 minutes. I kept my run time under a ten minute mile and my bike time around 19 miles an hour. My transitions were just over a minute (took me two minutes at spudman). And my swim was decent. Overall I am super pleased! And although I was tired, and filthy dirty from that nasty swim, I felt pretty dang good for having gone 70.3 miles.
Now I think I will do nothing. For awhile. Then I’ll think about maybe doing another triathlon, maybe.
Thanks for watching kids for us Julie and Ted! And thanks for cheering me on ALL summer and ALL day for my race NICK!!!
