Spudman 2009

I am so excited to blog about this :) What an amazing time it was. On July 25th, me and the girls were able to race in SPUDMAN 2009, in Burley, ID. This race is such a popular one that last year, registration (in January no less) filled up in 17 minutes (over 2,000 athletes), so this year, they decided to make it a lottery. Athletes had until April 15th to sign up and then were informed a week or so after that if they had been selected or not. When I got the email, I started jumping up and down and hollaring. My daughter thought it was hilarious. This is the race I most wanted to do the last couple of years but wasn't able to (since I was doing more important, better things, like having beautiful babies!).

Daniel was also selected, as was my friend Debbie. Torrie had an auto entry since she wasnt able to swim last year because of the tragic drowning. However, Tammy and Hidee did not get in, so we were discouraged. We had wanted to race it as a group.

A few weeks after we got our results however, Tammy and Hidee got an email saying there were more spots available and they had been selected! We were so excited that all of us would be able to race!

Daniel decided to sit this one out since he hadn't been training, so us girls headed up on Friday morning. We took Hidee's trailer and parked right on the course with all the other trailers. This was the way to do it, I tell you! We will never drive clear from Twin because that's the only place we could find a hotel-again!

We had a great time on Friday. Ate, got checked in, set up transition one.....

Saturday arrived and we were ready to go! We were all in the same wave except Tammy, who was in the wave starting 10 minutes after us.
Debbie and I heading down to the water.....


And...off we went....

The swim is current aided so it's fast and fun! It went rather smoothly except that I thought my timing chip was coming off, so I stopped moving my legs, trying desperately to keep it on. However, in a wetsuit, I dont feel like it slowed me down all that much. I did the 1 mile swim in 19:43. When I got out of the water (I always expect to be last out of the water of our group since I am the slowest swimmer), I was surprised to see everyone else still in transition, meaning I wasn't as far behind them as usual :) I had a relatively smooth transition and off I went....


Coming out of T1 and heading into the bike....

About mile 4 of the bike, I caught Torrie (I could see her thanks to our matching shirts. I just looked for the pink circle on the back and knew it was my girls!). About mile 14 I caught Debbie. The bike was going well and I think we all felt good about how well we did. It was a 25 mile bike. I finished the bike in 1:15. I got into transition and Debbie and Torrie were right behind me. I handed off some chewies to Debbie, changed out of my clips and into my running shoes and took off....


Me going into the run.....

By the time we hit the run. IT. WAS. HOT. We don't usually train in the heat since we have to go early morning. I have also been dealing with the knee injury and had not been able to run really in 5 weeks or so. The times I had attemtped to run, it had been really painful and I hadnt made it very far. I had (and still have been) doing physical therapy 3 times a week for it. I was still hoping to do a really good time on the run. But with the heat, my exhaustion by the time I got to the run, and the knee, I wasn't moving as fast as I would have liked. That's the bad news. The good news is apparently everyone else was in the same boat, and as usual the run is where I really made some progress and started passing so many people. About 2 miles into the run, I spotted Hidee's back. I didnt actually think I would even see her. She is a much faster swimmer and a faster biker than I am, so I figured she would be so far ahead of me that I wouldn't even see her. She was the only one I hadn't caught up to yet. It's always so fun to race with your friends and it was awesome to be able to spot them-loved those shirts! I caught up with Hidee about mile 4. That's about the same time I wanted to die ;) It was so hot. And I was so slow-or so it felt! But I kept on movin' along for all 6.2 miles. My goal was to finish the race in under 2:40 and when I crossed the finish line, I came in at 2:34:30! I was thrilled with that time. My knee held up surprisingly well! I'm not sure what did the trick but it was better than it had been for a couple of months!

Me crossing the finish line.... I was in wave 5 so that time is off by 40 minutes.

It was just 2 minutes before Hidee came through and finished in about 2:36.

Here we are sweaty and dying of heat. Then we waited for everyone else to finish. Tammy actually came through just 10 minutes after I did (and she started 10 minutes later) meaning her time and my time were almost identical, even though we didnt race together. When all was said and done, she came in just 2 seconds after I did! Crazy that we were that close and didnt even know it since we didnt start together!

Debbie came in just after that, and Torrie just a few minutes later. We all beat our goal times by quite a bit.

The husbands (except Daniel) had come up late the night before to cheer everyone on and they were kind enough to take lots of pictures.

Here we are in the outdoor shower. I seriously cannot explain just how good this felt. We were totally overheated, sweaty, stinky and covered in all sorts of bodily fluids. I don't think anything has ever felt this good- ever.

And here we are showing off our....matching circles on our backs :)

The whole crew- Torrie, Debbie, Hidee, Me, and Tammy

I had an incredible time! I am so thankful for my girls! Training with them every day is a blast! Racing with them is even more fun! They are a light in my life and I feel so grateful to have this group of women as friends and training buddies! Don't know what I would do without them!

I honestly can't wait for Spudman next year. It's an amazing race! I hope we all get in once again so we can do this at least one more time!!!! Thanks Team We Tri! I love ya!