It seems that for some reason all the triathlons this year are getting harder. Maybe it is because I have only done 2 so far this year and that they are a lot longer than the sprint tri’s I did last year but Saturday was no exception. The St. George tri was top 3 hardest I have ever done.
Top 3 hardest so far
1) California Ironman 70.3 – March 2008
2) Xterra Mountain Sport – August 2007
3) 2008 St. George Olympic Triathlon – May 2008
It was pretty windy in the morning but I did not expect it to affect the race that much. I had never had a windy triathlon before so I didn’t know what to expect.
SWIM: The swim started off like normal: freezing waters, fighting for a spot and getting knocked around in the mean time. Once I finally got into a rhythm I had to turn on the buoy and bam!, we had to start swimming against the waves. Holy cow was that tough. We had 2 to 3 foot waves that we had to swim into and it didn’t get any easier the rest of the swim. I think I drank at least a gallon of the water and thats no joke. Everytime I would come up for a breath I would get a mouthful of water. It seemed like a never ending swim. I actually thought one of the buoys had blown away because I could never get to it. I ended up about 6 – 8 minutes off what I should of got on the swim. I found out later that after we finished they canceled the swim for the people that did the sprint tri because the waves were just too big.
BIKE: The bike was like the swim. We had to fight against the crazy wind about 3/4 of the ride. At times I was tilted sideways just to keep me from being thrown off the bike. One time the wind was so bad that I was going 12 miles an hour on a downhill that I would normally go about 30 miles an hour. Even though the wind was tough I felt pretty strong most of the way. The hill wasn’t that bad at all especially compared to the hill at the California Ironman. I started feeling real good at about mile 13 and came up with a decent time considering.
RUN: I was not a happy camper during the run. For those of you that don’t know about the St George triathlon, what makes it “special” is that the run is basically in sand dunes most of the way with a big hill that you have to basically climb (2 times in the Olympic distance). With the wind, the sand dunes, my burning calves and a poor attitude I was feeling pretty sorry for myself. The first 3 miles was brutal but I finally pulled out of it after that. The last 3 miles was definitely not a “breeze” but it was somewhat enjoyable.
I ended up finishing with a total time of 3:18:24. Who knows how much better I would have done if wasn’t sick. I figured that everyone was about ±10% slower overall because of the wind so my adjusted time would have been 2:58:04 which beat my goal of under 3 hours. Too bad it doesn’t count.
Dave also ran his first Olympic triathlon with a time of 3:30:51 and adjusted time of 3:09:01 which is pretty darn awesome. Tammy, the kids and my mom where also there to cheer us on. Thanks you guys, It really does help us when you are there to slap our butts and tell us, “Good Job!” We love you for it!
All in all it was a good day. No one died, Dave and I both finished and the St. George Triathlon lived up to it’s history of being one of the best if not the best triathlon to do in the state of Utah. Good job Brogg, you Rock!
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