Last year I set the goal to do a triathlon every year, but when my tri partner, Stacie, decided to go and get pregnant I wasn't sure who I was going to do it with this year. So when Karli called me up about a month ago and told me she had been training for her first tri and asked if I wanted to join her in the Provo Tri I jumped at the opportunity. I was a little overly confident that my Ragnar training would be sufficient to get me through without any swim or bike training. When race day came I did it, but let's be honest, it was far from a personal best. Karli on the other hand was a superstar and blew me away with how great she did.
So here's the race story.
The swim was 800 meters in Utah Lake. The water was a chilly 55 degrees so wetsuits were a must. Because they weren't using timing chips they started all 300 swimmers at once which was totally insane. Usually swimmers are started in heats of 20-30 people at a time, so it made for a very interesting open water swim. From the start I felt really uncomfortable and was battling with some serious claustrophobia due to my wetsuit, the opaque water of Utah Lake, and hoards of people around me. I've had a handful of experiences in my life when I got horribly claustrophobic to the point of sending me into a panic attack. This was one of the worst and at a most inconvenient time. I was able to struggle through it by keeping my head up while I swam for about 1/3 of the swim but hit a point where I felt like I was on the verge of freaking out if something didn't change so I did the only thing I felt like I could do and unzipped my wetsuit and pealed some it off creating some really nice drag for the rest of the race. I then just flipped on my back and swam backstroke the rest of the way which really helped. Needless to say this was by far my worst swim ever. I'm not at all disappointed that they did not provide a split time for the swim.
I transitioned smoothly onto the bike and felt great the entire 12.4 mile ride, although I did feel like everyone was flying by me. It wasn't until that night when I returned my mom's road bike to her that she informed me I hadn't pumped up the tires and the tire pressure was at 40 when it's supposed to be at 100-110. Once again, not too heart broken about not getting a split time for that.
I haven't mentioned that until this point Karli and I had been about even and were even able to ride some of the bike together, which was fun. She transitioned to the run faster than me and so I was about 100 yards behind her. She took off flying and I was never able to close the gap during the 3.2 miles. The run was the one leg that went smoothly and I felt good about. We both crossed the finish line at 1:34. Overall I had fun and am way proud of Karli and how awesome of did. Hopefully this won't be the last race we do together.
Me, Karli, and her mom who also competed after the race.
This is a pretty scary picture s we'll leave it at that.
