Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Salem Spring Triathlon- May 30th 2009

Finally, it is that time of year again- race season- YAY!

We had our first triathlon of the season this past weekend, and it was a blast! Daniel, myself, Tammy, Hidee and Torrie all traveled to Payson, UT for the Salem Spring Triathlon. This was my first time doing the race (although my friends have done it before) because prior to this year, I kept gettin' pregnant before it ;)

Last year, I vividly remember when all the girls headed out for this race. I was 8 months pregnant and I dreamed that I decided I was doing to do the race anyway. I was out there running in all my pregnant glory, thinking it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be! lol...

Anyway, so back to this year...we got down there the night before and decided to brave the water. We didn't have open water up here yet. The week before, we took our wetsuits to our gym and swam in the outdoor, unheated pool. Oh. My. HECK!!! It was sooo cold and miserable! That's what we were expecting when we got to Salem, but lucky for us, the water was beautiful! We swam justa bit the night before to get used to it.

The next morning, it was race time. The weather was perfect! It was warm, but not too hot and not windy. Storm clouds were threatening but they held off until after the race.

Now to the race- the swim portion was about like I thought it would be. I'm pretty slow. I got stuck behind someone frog leggin' it and couldn't get around her. I don't know what was more pathetic- that she was frog leggin' it the whole time or that me, freestylin', was behind her ;) But anyway, it went fine and I finished in about 18 minutes, which is pretty much what I expected to do it in.

On to T1. This is where my problems began. You don't care to hear what the heck I was doing spending 4 1/2 minutes in T1 when most people were out in 2. All that matters is that I was doing a whole bunch of things I should know better than by now! I wasted a bunch of time I needed since I came out of the water already behind. Phooey.

On to the bike. The bike was a really fun course (minus the potholes). Lots of ups and downs. My only problem was since I came out of the water slow, I was behind some slow people. It's a narrow course which makes passing difficult. But all that aside, I really did like the course and rode it in about 46 minutes, which is a respectable time, although nothing amazing.

Then came T2, where all the problems I left at T1 picked right back up and took off. I had it in my head that I wanted to run with my MP3 player, but my MP3 player was having issues and I spent an eternity messing with it, to no avail. So off I went without it only to have the best run I've ever had in a triathlon, without it! Note to self: Don't waste the time in transtion fussing with an MP3 player you don't need anyway.

I completed the run in just over 25 minutes, which was a really great time. I was beyond thrilled with that time, coming after jello legs from the bike.

All in all, I came in just above the middle of the pack, and I can see that had I been smarter about my transitions, I actually would have had a really good race. So lessons learned. But I had a blast and can't wait to do this race again next year.

Dan raced also. He chose to race Clydesdale which is with the men over 200 lbs, instead of with his age group. Dan had a really good swim, coming in just under 15 minutes. Dan biked the course in about 48 minutes and rain it in just over 28. His transtions were far better than mine. We finished in close to the same time. Dan swam faster, I biked and ran faster, but since he had better transitions, he came in a minute or so faster than I did and came in 15th in the Clydesdale division.

All my friends had a good race also and we had a realy enjoyable weekend. What race would be complete without a little shopping and some really horrifically unhealthy food? ;)

Next up I have a 10K race on the 20th of June and then an Olympic distance triathlon- SPUDMAN- July 25th!


Torrie Miller, Hidee Beddes, me and Tammy Mobley before the race.


Daniel and I before the race.


Me running, waving to Jason, Torrie's husband, who was kind enough to take pics for all of us.



Stinky, sweaty me and the beefcake after the race ;)

4 comments:

Kendra said...

Great job! I'm so impressed by all of you!

Mel Bernard said...

Way to go! That is just amazing!

Torrie said...

you are awesome, loved doing the race with you, You make me laugh about your transitions, you are going to be smokin by Spudman

Jeff and April said...

Wow, I can't pretend to know what that's like. Good job! Remember how amazing we thought we were when we could run all the way down the hill to the gas station in Castle Dale? Yeah, I'm still on that level (maybe).