That’s me in the Black with Mount Timpanogos Behind Me

It would be only 12 more hours until the race, race time: 9:00am. I had almost everything I thought I would need. I had my bike, my race packet, race number and my clothing all ready for the morning. The only thing I needed next would be to get some sleep but that seemed to never happen.

Finally around 1:00am I was able to slip into my normal pre-event sleep. I say normal pre-event sleep because every time I have something important the next day I always dream about sleeping in and missing the event. When I went to the state football championships in both my junior and senior years I had the dream that I had slept in all day and missed it. Same with the night before my wedding and my mission. Every time without fail I have the same dream, so It was no surprise when I woke up at 6:00 am worried that I had missed the whole thing.

We got to the race at about 8:00 and I got my bike all ready in the transition area and my cool numbers on my arms and calves. I have always thought the marking looked pretty sweet after first seeing a triathlon race on TV. Tammy , the kids, Mom, Dave, Kelly and Alexa were all there to cheer me on. I was so nervous I thought I was going to puke. After lining up at the start I realized that I had put down a pretty fast time and was in the front of the pack. Because it was still cold in Utah, the swim part of the race was held in an indoor pool. The race numbers were distributed based on the swim time you listed and those with the lowest numbers started first.

I started pretty well and felt great until lap #4 of 6. I started getting tired and my arms were burning but I kept going strong because I didn’t want to look stupid in front of my family. At the end of the 6 laps I hopped out of the pool and felt like jello. My whole body was wasted. Obviously I hadn’t worked out hard enough to prepare for the race. As I ran to the transition area I was second guessing my reasoning for entering the race. I slowly changed into biking shorts and gear and was off.

The first half of the bike went well. No major problems except for the crazy burning of my legs on the minature hills. On the second lap around the 7 mile course my chain came off. I struggled for about 2 minutes trying to get it on not realizing how easy it is to put on a road bike chain as compared to a normal bike. At the end of the bike I was feeling decent but pretty unexcited for the run.

I took my good old time on the run leg of the race. I didn’t really care about my time anymore, all I cared about was finishing. After 1:26:42 I had finished the race. YOOHOO! It felt so good to finish that race. Even though I beat my goal by almost 3 1/2 minutes I didn’t really care. I had finished what I started and I felt great. The best part about the race was the family support. It really did help having them there cheering me on. I really appreciate them for taking time from their Saturday to come see me. This was a great start to what is going to be a long endeavor. To see my exact race results go to Milliseconds Results