Here Comes the...

We did it again! Saturday, November 7, 2009, Dad and I participated in the Telos Turkey Tri in Orem. It's a Spalsh Distance race in reverse order consisting of a 3 mile run, 10 mile bike, and 350 m swim. Zach Collins' work is the company that puts on the race (Telos) so he was there also. Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of him. When we signed up for it in September we were positive that there would be snow on the ground and we almost didn't sign up because of it, but we were very lucky to have a warm, sunny Saturday in the 50's.

We got to the race at 6:45 and the gun went off at 8:30. Everyone all started at the same time, so Dad and I decided to start at the very back of the pack. We don't think there was a starting line to cross over that started our timing chips and I was waiting to start my watch until we crossed it, but we never found it. So we think our official race time started when the gun went off, which stinks because we started last, and my watch was off because I didn't know when to start it. Anywho, the race took place in a residential area, so we had to run and bike on the street with traffic. We also rode around the UVU campus. I finished the run about one minute before Dad and then about 2 minutes into the bike Dad zoomed passed me and I didn't see him again until after the Finish Line. Yup, he totally smoked me!! The swim was in an indoor pool and completely packed. Dad and I had to walk/doggy paddle most of the time because of slow swimmers ahead of us or there being 4 people traveling down a 4 ft wide lane as one solid mass.


The official times aren't posted yet but I finished with a time of around 1:15 and Dad came in a few minutes before that. Zach said he finished at 1:05 and we're all pleased with how we did. It was a lot of fun...except for a couple of things (both of which have to do with the blasted bike portion).


When I run/bike outside my nose runs almost as much as I do. I brought kleenex but left them in my pants, which was a big mistake. I was okay during the run but by the time I got on the bike, I was really struggling. I'm not very comfortbale riding a bike through traffic so I was very apprehensive to unglue my hands from the handle bars and effectively blow my nose (into my shirt). So I tried wiping my nose on my right humerus, but that only moved everything to my right cheek. So then I tried to push it back by wiping in the opposite direction on my left humerus, which was only slightly effective. This lasted for a couple of miles until I was sniffing so frequently and violently that my head was stuffing up and starting to hurt. So I did what I had to do. I just turned my head to the right and blew forecefully into the air. Apparently whatever muscles required for blowing snot rockets have not been adequately strengthened inside me because I just had crap hanging out of my nose...just dangling there. So again, I wiped once to the right and once to the left. At this point my lips were getting all dry and pasty too. So when I dismounted my bike and walked it back to the rack, I literally had to scrape snot and boogers off of my cheeks (I did this while passing a woman with a camera, I hope she was not the official race photographer) and those white crusties off my mouth. It was nasty.


Also while I was biking, I heard a loud crack. I got super scared that something had fallen off of my bike and I ran over it. I pictured my bike just toppling over or crumbling beneath me and then imagined the horrible road burn I would soon feel. I heard some woman behind me yell, "I think you dropped something!!" I looked around to see what could possibly have fallen off, but I know nothing about bikes so I had no idea what to look for. But then I noticed my pump was gone, so that must have been it.

(This is after the race. He doesn't even look tired!!)

Anyway, so we finished! And da da da da!!!! Dad finished second in his age category and got a silver medal!! Wooh!! Unfortunately, I had to leave early so I couldn't get a picture of the champion, but I am so proud of him! He did amazing!