Mountain Man - TriathlonOlympic

This was a fantastic swim... for me. Tons better than my Soma swim. It is particularly impressive seeing as when I got to transition I realized there was a bunch of dead grass on my wetsuit, hmmm what could that be from, oh yea the last time I wore my wetsuit was for Tempe International! Yipes, but despite my lack of training the swim went really smooth. My strength was actually sighting. I stayed right on the buoy line... so much so that I smacked my hand on two of the hard buoys and almost swam on the wrong side of one of the green buoys.

Swim more... meh whatever.

Love the new tri tops, strip of the wetsuit, throw on shoes, helmet, glasses and I am off! Much better than putting a shirt on. If I had the energy to run it would've been real fast.

Bread and butter of the course for sure. Beautiful hilly course winding around two lakes. Ended up being a LOT more climbing than I expected with the hills after Mormon lake and on the out and back. My good bike deeds of fixing a bunch of peoples shifting came back to bite me though in that I couldn't get in my two easiest gears so I really had to hammer up the hills. On top of that I performed my ultimate bike ninja in ride maintenance though. Going down a quick downhill I lost my chain over the outside of my cranks. There was an uphill coming up and all I could do was stare at my chain and think "Sh*t I am going to have to stop at the bottom of the hill" I decided to try and lift the chain back onto the crank with my foot and shift at the same time, Voila! Chain on and crank up the hill.

The last 6 miles were tough because they were into a stiff headwind and with about 3 miles left my behind the seat drink holder flys off the back of my bike so I got the pleasure of holding my water bottles for the last 3 miles :) Being a pacer for Jen worked great because it forced me to maintain a lower HR which ended up saving my butt on the run.

Longer bike rides before and a bit more focus on bike maintenance.

Walked/jogged into transition, threw on the running shoes and race number and was off.

Super tough run. Started out ok, getting off the tri bike and running is miles better than off the road bike. Once we hit the hill it was walk time though. Well let me clarify after we decided to run hard as Paulette cartwheeled by and Dave ran by we walked. Had to at least pretend like we were cruising to our BT buds ;) Jen got some back spasms at the top of the hill so we stretched out a bit then headed down which got Jen straightened around.

At the bottom of the hill I think we both thought it would be prudent to do a 4:1 run walk ratio as it is a LONG way to the turnaround and the course is a bit more... uninspiring at that point as the road is open to traffic and rather busy. The 4:1 gave us a great way to break up the run. A ways in Sally biked with us which was a great distraction and gave us some motivation to keep going strong.

After the turnaround we were in the homestretch and really excited to get back. Unfortunately the rain god decided to have a little fun with us. The rain started out as a light rain and both Jen and I pretended that it felt nice. Cooled us of we said, but it was only 65 degrees out. Then the rain picked up a bit. We still tried to pretend it was nice, "This will be something to remember" we said. Then is started to F*CKING pour, the kind of rain where you run to your front window to watch pour. The kind of rain you pull over to the side of the road when driving because you can not see pour. But still we, or just Jen at this point pretended it was nice, "Well it sounds pretty" she said. I just said my feet felt like I was lifting cement blocks. If there was one good thing with the rain it was that it gave me motivation to never stop moving. I wasn't walking in those conditions.

As we came close to the finish the sun came out and the race venue went down ;) HAHA but our spirits were high and Jen and I had a wonderful time doing this whole event together.

Bring a climate change machine and a new pair of legs.

So many people stayed to watch us finish, it really meant so much to us that we have so many great friends who are all so supportive. Chatted with everyone about their race experiences then packed up and headed to dinner.


My inspiration to compete and complete these types of events comes alot from my Dad. I know that this is one of those races that he would love to have heard about and the whole town would know about. It was an amazing, inspirational experience to take him with me on this one, made even better by the fact I got to do the race with Jen.