So, we recently went on a backpacking adventure in southern Utah. Matthew is in the process of writing a day by day account. However, I still haven't posted about my triathlon-or team triathlon!
So-here we go! Sadly I don't have any pictures.
The team consisted of my sister-in-law Sophie-swim, myself-bike, and my mother-in-law-run. Last year Sophie did the whole triathlon by herself and I swam and we let Matthew bike for us. Okay-we made him. We kicked him off the team this year and Sophie was a competive swimmer in high school-so I moved to the bike. Serious bikers are amazing! I'm not one of them. Sophie let me borrow her road bike and a friend in the ward let me borrow her clipped riding shoes. More about that later.
We participated in the Rush Triathlon that takes place in Rexburg. We did the sprint distance. Sophie started us of with the swim in Rainbow lake, swimming a half mile in 20 minutes 47 seconds. (okay-somehow I just deleted everything I wrote after this-argh! I'll rewrite a condensded version) We transitioned nicely and I was on my way. I finished the 14 mile bike in 57 minutes and some odd seconds. I just closed the website with exact times. I made my goal of under an hour-but got passed so much that I realized how under prepared I was for this race! Oh well-I was wheezing after I finished-so I figured I must have given it my all. The transition to run was a little rocky, but Janean was off and blasted through the 5K under 23 minutes! There was only one other team participant that went faster than her! She's fast!
So-the rocky transition. I had just gotten the clipped shoes for the bike the night before the race and was out practicing with them at 11pm. I felt pretty comfortable gettting clipped in, but only managed to get one shoe out. I figured I could just undo the strap and run in with one shoe off. Well, as I approached the dismount area, I clipped out my left foot, and then clipped out my right foot! I was so excited that I'd be able to run in normal. I think this is what happened next-it was all a blur. I put all my weight back on my left foot to swing my leg over and get off the bike, and I fell! The only thing I can think is that I accidently clipped my left foot back in. Suffered minor scratches and bruising, and minor humiliation. Sophie eased my wounds-assuring me that I wasn't the first, nor the best fall to come in. That did make me feel better. Matthew got to the race about 15 seconds before I rode in-not enough time to get a picture before I fell. He did have the camera ready when I fell-but showed mercy and didn't take a picture. We didn't ever take a picture with the three of us-so no pictures. I did get a cool silver colored plaque thing.
Overall it was a very fun experience. Next year I'm thinking of tackling the whole thing by myself. We'll see how training goes with three kids!
That's all for now. Matthew will post our Paria canyon trip before too long.