Utah Summer Games

The Utah Summer Games triathlon was awesome!  In reality, it was the first full triathlon of the season (given the washouts of the other triathlons due to bad weather) so I was pretty stoked.  The weather was very warm (being in St. George) but very pleasant in the early morning.

We arrived in St. George with our nice tent and when I went to set it up, it was covered in mold.  That was completely my (Ken's) fault.  I had gone on a winter campout earlier back in March with lots of snow and packed the tent away wet.  It is a nice canvas tent and I didn't set it up once I got home so it could air out and dry out.  In my defense, the weather had been very wet around here but that isn't much of an excuse.  Especially when we are in St. George without a tent to sleep in.  Heather was not very happy at all (it was her Mother's Day gift quite a few years back) and after she mourned the loss of the tent, we threw it away.  The kids slept in Jeff's tent with their cousins while Heather and I just slept in the back of the truck on a blowup mattress.  It was actually quite comfortable.

Anyway, Saturday dawned beautiful and cool with no breeze whatsoever.  It was game on!  We got ready and prepped our transition area and then headed down to the beach with our wetsuits on.  After the Olympic distance racers left, Jeff's wave left next.  Mine left about 5 minutes after that.  I had been practicing swimming for quite awhile and I had been feeling really good.  When my gun went off, I headed out at the front of the pack.  I bumped maybe one person but after that it was pretty clear swimming for me.  About halfway through the swim I started catching swimmers from the wave before me so I started to feel really good.  My goal was the complete at a decent time and come out of the water not being winded.  I easily completed that goal as I came out of the water I actually felt pretty refreshed like I had just taken a good bath rather than swam about 1,000 yards.

My bike ride was incredible.  The hill about halfway through is a killer (same bike path as the St. George tri) but I was able to buzz up it and pass a bunch of people.  In the end I averaged about 19.5 mph which isn't too bad given the hills in the course.  I passed a lot of people and I was only passed once.

The run always makes me nervous.  It is far and away my weakest event.  But, I was feeling pretty good after the bike ride and I was able to maintain a pretty steady pace.  The first half mile is down hill while the next mile to the turn around is a steady climb.  I was able to complete it without too much trouble.  After that I cruised to the final half mile and then I was able to keep a very good pace for the last half mile even though it was up hill.  I even passed a few runners going up it.

In the end, I wound up finishing 5th in my age group out of about 25-30 people.  So, I was very pleased.