The car was still very much drivable so we made it to Bear Lake with a little bit of time to spare.

Shortly after finishing the Tour de France orlando area hotel this year, Lance Armstrong was interviewed by Versus TV. They asked him what his racing plans are for the near future he said, "When you ve suffered for three weeks, the last thing you want to think about is Oh, what s my next six-hour suffer-fest?'" Last weekend (Aug 28th) I endured my very first six-hour suffer-fest. That's right folks, I completed the Bear Lake Brawl Half Ironman Triathlon.
Last Friday, orlando area hotel K Jo and I packed up the car, said goodbye to the dogs and headed to Logan, where we stayed at the Anniversary Inn. I little pricey, but it's not often that you do a half ironman, so I figured we could splurge a little. The first night, we stayed in the Lake Powell Suite. A Lake Powell themed room with a loft bed, jetted tub, big screen TV and gigantic fish tank. We lay in bed watching orlando area hotel The Prestige while I drifted in and out of consciousness. The movie finally ended, we turned out the light and the next thing I knew, it was 5:00 AM, time to get up. We finally orlando area hotel left the hotel a little after 5:20. My race started at 7:00 so I figured arriving around 6:15 would give me plenty of time to get ready for the race... Turns out, it wouldn't be... Just before the summit of Logan Canyon, we hit an elk... That's right, an elk... orlando area hotel Well, okay it was only an elk calf, but still, it'll ruin your car not to mention your day. I was supposed to be competing in a half ironman in an hour, I really didn't need this to happen. Lucky for us, not so lucky for the elk I guess, we only kind of glanced orlando area hotel the poor creature so it only smashed the windshield, orlando area hotel ripped off the mirror, caved in the right quarter panel and ripped the headlight off its supports. Well, you can see for yourself:
orlando area hotel The car was still very much drivable so we made it to Bear Lake with a little bit of time to spare. Then we hit the line... The race started at Rendezvous Beach on the southern end of Bear Lake which is part of the state park system so apparently we were supposed to pay to enter the park... So was everybody else, which made for a great big line of cars trying to get to the beach. Glad somebody told me... Oh wait... nobody orlando area hotel told me. I parked the car on the side of the road and left K Jo just as the highway patrol called my phone to talk about the elk. I rode into the park pausing briefly to be told by an ornery park ranger that I had to pay three dollars to get into my race... seriously?... orlando area hotel I handed him my debit card and watched him walk away from his little pay station... c'mon I'm already late dude! I FINALLY made it into the transition area with 10 minutes to go until race time. Now all I had to do was set up transition, go to body marking, pick up my timing chip, tape some GU to my bike and put on my wetsuit. I was just about to sit down and bawl when I found out that the race had been delayed 20-30 minutes because the previous night's storm had blown the buoys to Idaho. Hallelujah. For once the wind was on my side. Eventually I made my way down to the beach, listened to the Race Director's instructions on the race and the half ironman men were off. The swim course consisted of a diamond roughly 950 meters around. Two laps made for a little over 1900 meters orlando area hotel which is 1.2 miles. orlando area hotel we walked out to the first buoy roughly orlando area hotel 50 meters off shore where we started swimming in knee-deep water. Some of the guys walked the first 100 meters or so... I was there to swim. The water was clear, cool and wonderful so the swim was great. I made it back to the beach and ran back to the park to enter transition. The 1.2 mile swim plus the run back took me 42:27. On to the bike.
The bike portion started at the state park, went out to SR-30 (coming soon to a blog near you) then up the east end of the lake. At the north end of the lake we turned west for about 7 miles where we turned around and headed back the way we came. I was feeling pretty good after the swim so I was not surprised when I was averaging around 22 mph on the first half of the bike. About 5 miles into the ride, I realized that I had left about half of my perpetuem (race fuel) in transition. I figured I would be okay because I could use it during the run... riding 56 miles gives you a lot of time to think. I tried to prepare well for this race by bringing plenty of fuel: GU, granola bars, and perpetuem. As I went to grab one of my two granola bars at mile 16, the other one fell out. I didn't really want to stop and turn around, but I didn't panic, we were riding an out and back, I could grab it on my way back. Around the 18 mile mark, there were two girls handing out bottled water so I grabbed one and stuffed it into my race singlet. I figured I would use this bottle for my perpetuem on the run. We finally hit the north end of the lake and started heading west when I realized why I had been rocking the bike. If you have been following my blog for long, you will know that I have a mortal enemy. It's the movement of air from a high pressure system to a low pressure system commonly known as wind... duh duh duh! Sometime while I was riding, the wind had picked up... ferociously... I rode to the turnaround point and back, then turned south... into the wind... *sigh* I hate wind... The first half of the bike took me somewhere between 1:10:00 orlando area hotel and 1:15:00. The last half, around 1:45:00... orlando area hotel I hate wind... Eventually orlando area hotel I made it back to the water girls and they filled my water bottle for me while I took another bottle and stuffed it into my singlet. Remember when I said riding 56 miles gives you a lot of time to think? Sometimes you start to think about quitting. As I passed the point where I dropped the granola bar, I spotted it... in pieces... all over the road... I thought about quitting. I had trained for 5 months and now because of the stupid wind, I wanted to pack up and go home without even finishing my race... I hate wind... I eventually pedaled into transition, dismounted amidst K Jo cheering me on and found my spot. I finished the 56 mile bike portion in 3:04:28. I hung my bike on the rack, took off my helmet just as K Jo got there to talk to me. I told her I was exhausted orlando area hotel and didn't really feel like continuing. K Jo told me she thought I was awesome for even trying and she knew I could finish. Like I said, I had trained for five months and thought about this race for even longer, so I decided to persevere. I grabbed two more GUs, mixed my bottled water with perpetuem and ran to the transition exit. On to the run.
The run was... well, it was supposed to be 13.1 miles. It follows some rural roads in Laketown, UT in a loop that is 12.7 miles long. Knowing this, the race director decided to add a spur on one of those roads that goes out and back to add the 0.4 miles to get to the full 13.1 mile distance. Happily, there were aid stations every two miles. Sadly, there was nobody to man them. Remember the cantankerous park ranger? Apparently he scared off 30 volunteers orlando area hotel from Logan the night before the race, add to that the storm and only 20 of the registered 90 volunteers showed up to the race. There was again wind during the run... did I mention I hate wind? so much so, that I actually cursed the wind... out loud... using swear words... After the windy bike ride, I was spent. I also didn't eat enough during the bike (leaving perpetuem in transition will do that to you), and I dropped one of my GUs somewhere during the run. Around mile 10, I broke down and had to start walking. I tried to walk as little as possible knowing full well the faster I go, the sooner it would be over. I finally made it back to the park and it was still packed with spectators cheering me on. I felt pretty emotional running the last 100 meters. I looked orlando area hotel everywhere in the crowd to see my darling wife, but never found her. I crossed the finish line, knocking out the run in 2:18:30. I put my hands on my knees while they took my timing chip off my ankle and put a finishers medal around my neck. I stumbled over to a picnic table and laid down where I overheard some people saying the run was actually 13.8 miles. Remember that little spur I was talking about? I think the people placing the turnaround cone didn't orlando area hotel really think this through. I think they figured, that's about half a mile, so we need to go down this road for about half a mile, which added more distance to the run... that's just cruel... orlando area hotel I downed some water and an orange slice and made my way to transition where I packed my stuff. I found K Jo watching a movie in our car on the portable DVD player. She had missed me running in, but I can't blame her, she had been waiting for seven hours for me to finish the race. Overall, orlando area hotel with transition times, I finished in 6:11:31. Good enough for 35th place out of 96 racers. I was mad all weekend long because of the elk, the wind, the lack of volunteers, the ornery park ranger and the longer than expected run. I was also upset that I didn't finish in less than 6 hours like I had hoped. Just as Lance said he wasn't looking forward to his next six-hour suffer-fest, orlando area hotel I never wanted to do another triathlon again. Monday night I was getting ready for work when it hit me... I completed a freaking half ironman... WOO HOO! Can't wait 'til next year when I will break that 6 hour mark!
I have been training since April for this one event so it was nice to finally get it over with. Along the way I have done other races like Fourth Street , South Davis , Salem Spring orlando area hotel , and Strawberry Fields . I also did a couple of half marathons, but I never really felt like I could go all out on those races because those were only preparation for this race. Now it's over and I only have one race left. Xterra Utah. I did this same race l ast year , and I am looking forward to competing again, hopefully to cut oodles of time off last year's results, is it okay to say oodles without saying noodles right after? I WILL be going all out on this race, hopefully so much so that K Jo has to carry me back to the car. Once that is finished, I have two week