Terra's 1st-Ever Triathlon

Around the time school started my friends told me about a triathlon some of them were doing out in Tucson the first weekend of October. Years ago when Andy used to do triathlons I said I'd like to try one someday, and this one seemed like a good start because it's all women and several of my friends were going. I'd never swam even 25 meters before, though (in my life), so that was the part I was nervous about. I joined our local gym and practiced a couple times, and determined that putting my face in the water to swim 400 meters (1/4 mile) was not something I was going to be able to do in such a short time, so I tried using backstroke, and that went fine, so I decided I'd just do that for the triathlon this time.

Before the race we got our bikes and shoes set up in the transition station.

I agonized over what to wear because you had to have your number pinned on your shirt for the bike and run, and there was no place to change your clothes, but I didn't want to have to bike and run with a full wet swim suit on either. Andy finally convinced me that I should just swim in my sports bra and shorts so that I could pre-pin my number on my shirt and just throw it on over the top of everything when I got to my bike. One I saw how many other people were doing the same thing, I felt a lot better about it. I had self-reported a slow swim time though, and they started one person every 10-15 seconds in the order of swim time, so I was way at the back of the line and it was a chilly morning! I kept my jacket on as possible and then tossed it to one of the husbands at the last minute.

I feel like the photo below shows the pre-swim emotions pretty well. All of us in the back were the weak swimmers, and the girl in front of me was also doing her first triathlon. We were super nervous! The race photographer caught a good photo of how we felt as we moved closer and closer to the front of the line.

My swim was slow (about 16 minutes compared to most people's 9-12 minutes), but I figured I could make up time on the bike. When I first started out though, something was wrong with my gears. I hit the first downhill section and my bike wouldn't shift into a harder gear. My pedals were just spinning because it was too easy. For a few minutes I actually thought I might have to quit because I was stuck in a super easy granny gear and my gear shifters were frozen. I might have shed a few tears. Then I got really mad and hit the right side shifter with my fist, and it popped into a harder gear. I then determined that I would just  not switch gears at all for the rest of the approx. 15 mile ride. I ended up passing a ton of people and made up a lot of time.

The scenery on the bike ride was actually really pretty. There had been a lot of recent rain so things were very green.

After the bike all that was left was a 5k run. I hopped off my bike and switched my shoes, and then started jogging. As I was leaving the transition area I got super dizzy, and started feeling like I might barf. I kept going though. About 1/4 mile in, I was for sure going to barf, so I stopped on the side of the road and barfed in the bushes. As I was barfing my right leg cramped up so bad I almost fell down. I wasn't willing to quit though, so I started limping down the road, determined to finish even if I had to walk the whole thing. After about 50 feet my cramp went away, so I started jogging again. I had no idea what my time was, but I just figured if I did my best that was good enough. In the very last 1/4 mile I started feeling like I was going to bard again, but I could see the finish, so I just kept pushing. As I crossed the finish line it was like my body gave up, and I had to jump over the flags and barf in the grass again, and started wheezing really bad. One of my friends ran to get my inhaler from the husband whose backpack it was in, and I ended up taking 4 puffs as I sat in the grass feeling like death. Luckily, after about 5 minutes I felt a lot better and got back up to go cheer our friend who was still coming in.

When I was thinking about doing this, I had calculated out my times and figured I could do the swim in about 15 minutes, the bike in about 60-65 minutes, the run in about 30-35 minutes, plus about 5 minutes of transition time, so I figured the whole thing would take me anywhere from 1:50 to 2:00. So I decided my overall goal was to finish in less than 2 hours, and my "wouldn't it be nice if..." goal would be to finish in under 1:50. Between the bike gear snafu, the puking, and the cramping, I thought I had probably missed my goals, but I was super proud of myself for finishing it. Then they released the results, and I learned that I had completed the whole thing in 1:44:40. I was amazed! My bike time was only 52 minutes even with the gear issues, my transition times were crazy fast, and my run was one of my fastest even with the stop to puke and cramp. This was really hard for me, but I'm so glad I did it!

Andy wasn't able to come because he had work, but one of the husbands who was there brought us bouquets of flowers, and then our team ended up getting 2nd place in the team category (our combined times were 2nd fastest out of all the teams), so we got awards for that, too. Our matching shirts this time said "Not Dead Yet" (our team name), and we felt it was very applicable.

We later took a picture that was a recap of how we crossed the finish line. Our friend Mel (who got a time of 1:40), was feeling great and happy; Sheri (who got a time of 1:43) was puking like me, but she won 2nd prize for her age category; Jeni (who got a time of around 1:50) was crying from pain; I was puking; and Laura (who got a time of just seconds under 2:00, which was her goal), was cramped so bad she crossed the finish line and then collapsed on the ground and rolled under the flags and the medics came to check on her. Our recap photo is one of my favorites because it shows the effort it takes to do hard things!

At the Rec Center where the event was held they had this wall painted, and we felt it was applicable. All of us push each other to do things that are harder than we've done before, but it feels so great to accomplish things we've always dreamed of doing.

 

Ride to Hatch, Quarantine, and Random Nonsense

When we built our house I purposely designed it with 5 bedrooms PLUS office so that each kid could have their own room. It seemed like such a good idea at that time. But as it turns out, these three hooligans almost always just sleep in Skyler's room together. I keep telling Andy we might as well turn two of the rooms into something else!

My friends and I rode our bikes out to Hatch one day and then went out to lunch. It was only about 32 miles and wasn't a bad ride at all. The weather was great and the road wasn't too busy. We did get chased by a couple of dogs, but overall it was a lot of fun! Apparently the plan is for this to be an annual thing. We wore the shirts we had made for our 1/2 marathon because we figured if cars saw us all wearing matching stuff they'd be more kind about sharing the road.

At the border patrol station they had a really creepy Halloween doll, so we took a photo with it.

The restaurant we ate at has been on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, and apparently is also a historic building. It was fun to watch all the chili roasting places in action, and to see all the old buildings and things.

One day Kylee decided to make emjoi macarons, and they were delicious!

For one of her YW activities the girls decorated super fancy cupcakes. If you zoom in you can see how beautiful Kylee's turned out.

A kid in Skyler's class got Covid so the whole class was out for 10 days. I was training for my first-ever triathlon, so I made Skyler ride his bike with me while I went jogging on a couple of the days. He didn't love it, but he did great!

He also got to go with me to Jack in the Box one day for lunch...

...and Chic Fil A another day. I'm not sure why this was the toy in September -- it looks more like a New Year's party hat to me -- but he loved it!

Park City P2P

Over Labor Day weekend we made a super quick trip to Utah for Andy's bike race - the Park City Point 2 Point. We drove up on Thursday (12 hours), then on Friday Andy had to go to Park City to pick up his race packet and sign waivers and stuff, so grandma crammed the rest of us in her car and we went to hike the Grotto in Payson Canyon.

On Saturday at the crack of pre-dawn Andy, Kylee and I headed up to Park City for the start of the race. Grandma Roxy and Grandpa Bruce had agreed to bring the other kids up a bit later. We met Richie and family up there as well. The temperature was in the 30s, but Andy was just glad the race wasn't cancelled. They had been watching it closely due to wildfire smoke, and it barely made the "safe levels" cutoff.

And they're off! Andy hadn't done this race in about 6 years, and besides not being as young as he used to be, he also isn't used to the smoke, the elevation, or the massive hill climbs this race includes. 75 miles was feeling like it was going to be brutal.

After the racers took off there were a few hot air balloons that launched from the park.

Each racer received 2 lift tickets to ride the Deer Valley ski lift up to the first rest stop at mile 29 of the race. Richie ended up giving us his so we had 4, and then as Kylee and I were walking up to the lift some other people who were there supporting racers overheard me talking about seeing if we could buy a few more, and offered us some of theirs, so we ended up with enough for all of us. I quickly called mom and Bruce and told them to drive fast and we would wait for them at the bottom of the ski lift. When they finally arrived he hopped on and rode up. It was a LONG way up the mountain, and the whole time we were thinking how glad we were not to be biking up!

We arrived at the top just in time to see Richie heading out of the rest stop. We knew he'd be a little bit ahead of Andy, so we were just in time. Andy arrived a few minutes after we got there. He was way ahead of his planned time, and he was totally dead. He started off too fast, and the smoke and elevation was not helping.

He ended up sitting on the ground for about 20 minutes with his head between his knees, and one of the medic guys even came over to see if he was okay. Then he dug deep, found some gumption, and hopped back on his bike to keep going because he wasn't willing to quit at Mile 29.

After Andy headed off, we went to Wendy's to grab some lunch, and then headed over to Park City ski resort for the next rest stop at mile 58. By the time the racers get here they've been up to the top of Deer Valley and back down, up to the top of Park City and back down, and are preparing to head up to the top of The Canyons. Richie came rolling in and headed back out, and then we waited, and waited, and waited some more. Eventually the cutoff for being able to continue from this point came and went, and I started to get super worried. Bruce had binoculars and every rider who came into view wasn't Andy. Finally Andy called me to say that he was about 2 miles out and was mostly dead, but was still coming, slowly. I was super relieved to hear that he wasn't dead on the mountain somewhere!

When Andy came rolling in he was so exhausted he had to give up. He almost cried with relief at being done, and then promptly started planning his training for next year. I was amazed that he'd made it almost another 30 miles from the first rest stop, because I had never seen him so dead at that one. I wasn't sure he'd even keep going from there. He gave it his all though, and we're calling that a win!

On Sunday we drove back home for another 12 hours. I drove because Andy was still recovering, but he doesn't regret it!