Two weeks after Miles was born I signed up to do the Spudman Triathlon as motivation to get back in shape. Over the next 6 months, however, that motivation didn't seem to kick in the way I had hoped. Maybe it was the business of 3 kids, or maybe it was working all night 3-5 times a week, or maybe it was just all the fun stuff we were doing whenever I wasn't working. Whatever the reason, I wasn't in as good of shape as I wanted to be, but I was still excited to do my first Olympic Distance Triathlon. The Spudman is in the small town of Burley, Idaho, but there is nothing small about this race. It is such a fun environment. We drove up with my parents on Friday and camped out in tents on the grassy banks of the Snake River, along with many other triathletes. I love how family friendly the whole set up is. The kids loved swimming in the river, sleeping in a tent, and running around. The race started bright and early with a 1.5K swim down the Snake River, followed by a 40K bike, and finished off with a 10K run. I knew I wasn't going to be setting any personal records so I decided from the beginning of the race I would just find a comfortable pace and enjoy myself and that is exactly what I did. My times are nothing to brag about, but I like to keep record of them. I swam in 22:51, biked in 1:27:12, and ran in 1:01:17. Add in my transition times and my finishing time was 2:58:12. This was good enough (or bad enough) to place 30th out of 75 in my age division. Hey, at least I wasn't dead last, right? I had such a blast and can't wait to do this race again.
Me, my Dad, and Stephen Stubbs (Scott's brother-in-law) before the race.
My Dad wasn't in peak shape either and got his slowest time out of the 5 years he's done this race, but still managed to beat my time. Not bad for an old man :)
