Provo Tri and Business Trips

Ok - business trips and triathlons really don't mix very well.  Last year, I had to go to Orlando for a P&RO Solutions convention and I came back on Friday only to race the Provo tri the next day and I just absolutely bonked on it.  I knew 100 yards into that swim that I was going to be in big trouble and indeed I finished the tri but I was coming in towards the very end of the pack.  Not a big ego booster.

This year, I had the same business trip to Orlando right before the Provo tri.  I booked my flight, though, so I would come home on Thursday (instead of Friday like last year) and I was determined to get more sleep while I was in Orlando (last year was a mad house and I slept probably 8 hours total across 4 days).  I did sleep more this year (although I still had some long nights).

To add to all the fun, my entire family came up from Nevada and Arizona.  Jeff and Julie, of course, were competing but also Russ and almost his whole family and most of Jeff's family were competing as well.  We all went out to dinner on Friday night at the Spaghetti Factory and I got to bed at a decent time.

Saturday felt good, too.  I was really excited to be competing so I could show the Provo tri that I could indeed compete in it.  The course changed from last year and the swim started in deep water so we swam out and treaded water while we waited for the gun to go off.  I decided to start just behind the front line of swimmers and I think that was my first big mistake.  As soon as the gun went off, I was kicked, butted, and abused in so many ways that all my energy was taken up just trying to survive.  I couldn't put 10 strokes together without getting pummeled from some direction or other.  When I finally got to the turn around buoy, I was so tired I wasn't sure what was going on.  At that point, I headed out to the fringe and started swimming.  From that point forward, I was able to finish the swim without too much trouble except that I was tired coming out.

I got to the transition area and sure enough, Jeff, Julie, Cody, Brent, and Trevor were all gone ahead of me.  That made me mad.  I got changed, got on my bike and took off.  I was feeling sick by this time, too - just like last year.  I really wanted to throw up.  But, I was able to keep a very quick pace on the bike and unlike last year, I was able to pass up a lot of people on the bike ride.  I quickly passed up Brent and on the second loop I passed up Trevor.  In the end, I averaged right at 21.5 mph which is a nice little clip.

But, I was shot at that point.  I knew my run was going to suck.  And, indeed it did.  Trevor caught me pretty quick on the run and that was the last I saw of him.  I couldn't keep any kind of pace at all.  I was so happy when I fell across the finish line (not literally but it felt like it) and disappointed that I such a bad race.  One interesting note on the run portion - I passed up this guy who was HUGE.  And I mean fat.  Not that I want to be disparaging to the poor racer (I am always impressed with anyone who takes on a triathlon) but since the race started with everyone at the same time, I had to wonder how fast this guy swam and biked and I didn't catch him on either of those events?  That was one of the events during the race that made me scratch my head right then and there.

My next triathlon isn't until September.  But, I am signed up for the Tour De Donut (21 mile bike ride with donut breaks every 7 miles - each donut takes off 3 minutes of time) here in Utah and I am also going to be running the Provo River Half Marathon on August 9.  So, I am getting prepared for those races now.

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.

Salem Triathlon

Saturday (June 7) was the Salem triathlon.  The weather around here in Utah has been unseasonably cool (that is good) and also unseasonably wet (not so good - at least not for triathlons).  So, for the past week I have been keeping an eye on the weather report and just hoping all turned out well.  The forecast had been changing from chance of showers to partly cloudy and back again.  Friday had turned out to be a beautiful day - the wind had really been blowing in the early afternoon but by the evening it had died down and no storm had rolled in so I went to bed Friday night thinking we had good weather ahead of us.

About 5:30 am I awoke to the sound of rain pattering.  My heart just sank.  I got up and checked and sure enough - it was raining.  I figured they would probably cancel the bike ride if the rain kept up but would go ahead and let us swim and run.  I went ahead and prepped my bike anyway trying to maintain an optimistic attitude but as the morning wore on, the rain just kept coming down.  About 7:30 am my brother, nephews, and their friend came over and we just all sat there watching the rain come down.  At 8:00 am we went down to the pond and as soon as we got there we could see people leaving with their bikes and other racers were telling us that the bike portion of the race had been cancelled.  The rain continued to come down.  There were a lot of dejected people.  The race organizers were still determining if they were going to let the swim portion of the race go on or just turn it into a 5K race.  I don't know why the swim was being questioned - the rain is definitely wet - but so is the water and the water temperature, while cool, was certainly not freezing.

At about 9:00 the rain finally stopped.  The decided to shorten the swim to about 500 yards (I'm not sure why they decided to do that, either - why would it be anything other than all or nothing?) and then run the 5K race.  Jeff and I had decided that we would just skip the triathlon altogether and come down later that day and run the course ourselves.  As a matter of fact, he and my nephews left and went home.  I just wanted to stay and watch and I was still contemplating whether or not I should race when they all showed back up and decided to go forward with the race.  So, we hustled down to the beginning of the swim and lined up with the last wave of older women and made it out in time.

My swim was OK.  I got battered around during the first 30 seconds and got to swallow some delicious Salem pond water.  But, then I was able to settle into my pace and started stroking out.  But, my arms felt like lead around 150 yards into the race.  I had been practicing swimming all during the week and I felt really good going into Saturday but for some reason or another, I just lost all my steam.  I still turned in a respectable time (11:00 minutes for ~500 yards) but not as good as I had practiced during the week.

I hustled into the transition area where I saw Jeff, Cody, and Trevor.  Jeff was just leaving as I got there and Cody was shortly behind him.  I put my shoes on (sans socks) and Trevor and I left for the run at about the same time.  He quickly out distanced me, though.  I saw Julie at the beginning of the run but I was able to overtake her and get a good running pace going.

In the end, I placed 197th out of 414 racers (there were 859 racers signed up so less than half stuck around for the abbreviated race) which is not very good.  Way below what I wanted to do.  Of course, the bike is my strongest event by far and I would have gone up several spots had there been a bike portion of the race.  So, it tells me that I have to start improving my run (I averaged 8:46 min/mi - not too bad for me but bad when considering the competition) and also that my bike is really good.

Utah Summer Games is this coming up Saturday and Provo is the following Saturday.  I'm anxious to get my run times down.  That will be a combination of more running during the week and also dropping some more weight.  While I have lost a lot of weight so far (about 80 pounds), I still have about 30 pounds I need to drop to get into competitive running.

Thanks for reading.  I love doing the triathlons - they are fun.  It continues to motivate me to keep training and keep in shape.  Russ and Christi are now going to run the Provo triathlon as well and Russ seems to have gotten the bug.  He'll know after the Provo triathlon.