SpudMan 2014

As SpudMan quickly approached I would get butterflies in my stomach every time I thought about it. This would be my first Olympic distance Triathlon. Consisting of a 1500m swim, 25 mile bike ride and a 6.2 mile run. So pretty hefty. Not IronMan hefty, but more than I have ever done. But I knew that unless I attempt to do something beyond what I've already mastered (like the Sprint Tri's), I'd never grow! So this was my time to grow! 

My friend, Donna from work was the one who talked me into signing up for the race. And I am ever so glad she did. There was another girl from work (Jessica) that was going to do it too, but she found out she was pregnant and felt that she shouldn't do it.

Donna and I wanted our husbands to come along so we could have a support crew with us. But her husband (Rick) had to stay home to help with Donna's mom. And Jesse couldn't get his shift covered, no matter how hard he tried. I'll be honest on the day that we had to leave I cried to him that I was really sad he wouldn't be there. Something about having him there would give me security.

But Donna and I pulled up our big girl panties and we ventured up to Burley, ID to get our SpudMan on. It was a 2 1/2 hour drive from my house. Not bad at all.

We arrived at the golf course where the starting line was and were they were doing packet pickup and body marking. We had to get our packet before we could go put our bikes in Transition 1.

I knew this was going to be different because it was a longer distance. But I didn't realize how out of my element I felt. It took Donna and I awhile to figure out the system. But after asking a lot of other people for advice we figured it out.

We put all of our bike stuff in T1 and then we went to T2 to put up our running stuff. To mark your place in T2 they gave you a bag with a potato inside and your bib number on the outside. Then we tied it to the racks. (See what I mean by different?)

In T1 they also gave us a garbage bag that we were suppose to put all our swimming stuff into and hand it to one of the volunteers as we were leaving T1 to ride our bikes. (Again something new we had to figure out).

Once we got things all set up in our Transition areas we went and set up camp. We were able to camp right on the golf course which was within feet of the starting line. Quite the adventure right? Especially when you don't have any men there helping you set up camp. So I had to test my skills to see how well I knew how to put up our tent. Thankfully it came really easy and I felt so proud that I was able to get it up. I sent Jesse this picture (below) to prove I did it without his help. Donna assisted but I was instructing it all.

Then we went and ate dinner. They provided a "CARBO DINNER". Yikes. I actually brought along some chicken so I wouldn't feel totally carb loaded. As much as people say it's a good thing to carb load the night before a race, it is all a hoax.  It really isn't a good idea, it doesn't give your body enough time to digest all that heavy food. So I ate my chicken with only a little bit of the "Carbo Dinner".

We were then ready for bed. But had to wait for it to get dark and everyone else around us to quiet down. As we were setting up our bed I realized I forgot my blankets. Crap! It was suppose to get down into the 50's during the night. I was going to freeze my buns off. But thankfully Donna had an old quilt just in the back of her car that I was able to use. That was a blessing sent from above.

We didn't sleep super well through the night and a matter of fact we slept through the alarm and woke up 45 minutes later than we wanted. So we were feeling rushed to get ready for the race that started at 7:00am. We woke up at 5:45am and we had to visit for transition areas again, eat breakfast, change into our tri clothes, visit the porta-potties, get our wetsuits on in an hour and 15 minutes.

I took a picture of T1 in the morning because I couldn't believe all of the bikes. So crazy to see that many bikes in one area. The Sprint Triathlons I've done usually consist of about 400 participants. This one consisted of over 2000. Crazy huh?

They started the swim in waves. Each age group got to go out every 10 minutes. So that meant I was in the second wave. That gave me an extra 10 minutes to get ready, but I was frantically getting all my stuff on. All the while the others are in the water waiting for the horn to blow. I jumped into the water right as the count down finished and just went for it. It was crazy at first because everyone was crowded together, swimming over top of each other. But thankfully I didn't feel panicked one bit. I think the mastered swim class I have been going to has helped with that. The best thing to do during a swim is to stay calm.

I finished the swim and came out of it feeling great! Totally pumped! I even said to myself once I got riding my bike "That was Awesome!".

But before that I had to get all the swim gear into this garbage bag. Once I did I was running with my bike in one hand and the bag in the other out towards the road. Kinda crazy, but it works. We would later pick up these bags at the end of the race.

The ride too was awesome. About half way though I felt like my brakes were rubbing in the back. So I stopped and loosened them up and I was able to keep my mph up higher that last half compared to the first half. Too bad I didn't figure that out sooner.

Then came dreaded run. I have had issues with my IT BANDS for a few years now. I always roll them out and I just can't seem to figure out why they get so bad after I run long distances.

So around mile 2 I could tell they were starting to feel uncomfortable (especially the right side) then by mile 4 my right side was screaming at me. Oh Man it was PAINFUL! But my competitive self doesn't want me to stop. I keep thinking if I keep running it'll be over sooner. Haha. I did stop for like 10 seconds to stretch it. But that's all. I just wanted to get it over with.

When I crossed the finish line I was filled with so many emotions that it overwhelmed me and I just found a spot on the ground and I berried my face in my knees and just sobbed like a baby. For quite some time.

I calmed down enough to walk over to our campsite to get my cellphone and give Jesse a call. But then I sobbed to him on the phone. He was probably thinking, what the heck is wrong with you? Haha. No but I think the adrenaline, endorphins and all the pain in my knee just consumed me and the only way to get it out was CRY.

Donna's swim wave left 40 minutes after mine. So I patiently waited at the finish line for her. When she finished we had to get a picture together with our finishing medals.

So my goal was to finish in about 2 1/2 hours and my official finishing time was 2:31:57. Not too bad for my first Olympic Distance. I didn't want to put pressure on myself to place in my age division because of how big of a race this was. But I was 8th in my age division out of 81. Top 10 finish? I'll take it.

I literally can't wait until next year. I learned so much this time and will know what and how to improve for next time. In the mean time I have gotta get to the root of this IT BAND issue.

Bountiful Tri



About 2 months ago some girls from the salon signed up to race in the Bountiful Triathlon. They asked me to do it with them, but I already had clients booked that morning.

 

As it got closer one of the girls (Jessica) found out she was pregnant. So she no longer felt like she should participate in the race. :( She was really bummed about it.

 

I was trying to get Jesse to take Jessica's entry. But he couldn't get work off.

 

 

Then like 2 weeks before the race my first client scheduled on the day of the race had to reschedule her appointment to another day. So that opened up my morning and I decided I would race in place of Jessica. :)

 

So I was excited to have a little race to prep me a little more for the SpudMan Triathlon I'm doing on July 26.

 

That morning I set my stuff up. It was a little weird not having Jesse there or someone from the Top Gear team. But I was nice that I had this opportunity to race. I do love it so much!

 

This tri was a reverse one. So 3.2 miles run, 11 miles bike and 350m swim. I had never done it in that order before. I didn't know what to expect, but I did know that I would just do my very best!

I started out with the first wave of runners. I knew I could keep a good pace, but I know I wasn't the fastest runner. And that's ok, I just thought I would start out with a steady pace so I wouldn't die out in the end.

It was so freaking HOT that by the end of the run I was so ready to be on my bike. So when I got on it I was just thrilled and wanted to ride fast. The wind felt so good.

I had past a few girls on the bike ride, but I just wanted to continue with a good pace. I was loving the bike ride.

I am almost to the transition area when I hear someone yell to me "You're the first girl"

What? Really? How is that possible?

So I transitioned as fast as I could into the swimming, ran to the pool and dove in. Which I wish I wouldn't have done because it broke the seal on my goggles so there was water filling up on them. And since I'm too competitive to stop and fix them. So I just swam with water in my goggles. It wasn't my best swim, but I did it.

I got out and saw my time up on the screen and it was 1:07: 37.

As I'm trying to catch my breath I see two more girls come out of the pool and they come up to me and say...."This is it. We are podium".

It wasn't until that moment that I realized that I had just taken first OVERALL in the females! Say what?

Still I had to check the print out to see for certain. And here it is! FIRST OVERALL!!

I definetly didn't expect for that to happen! (left to right: 1st, 2nd, 3rd)

I still can't believe that I did it. Even days later as I think about it I'm shocked at myself. Did I really do that? Holy Freak!

It's exciting at the same time! It makes me feel so grateful for my health and fitness. It also gives me the motivation to be better and try harder.

 

With SpudMan coming up this will be a great way to carry me into it. I'm anxious and excited for SpudMan. It'll be my first Olympic Distance so my goal is to just finish! It'll be a great one to start out with! 

Garden Up-date

Ok. Taking down that tree and building these garden boxes for our yard is working out beautifully. Look how well things are growing. When we tried to grow a garden in summers past they never go this big.

 

It's a beautiful site to see when we walk into our backyard.

It is also a very rewarding feeling to see fruit growing.

Gardening is a trade that must be learned. And I know we still have a lot more learning to do. But we have learned so much the past few years and we are starting to see the pay off of that knowledge.

So much fun!

Thank you Jesse for building these beautiful boxes! You are amazing!

It's not over yet.

4th of July was over, but our little Stay-cation wasn't. Sunday was a good rest day and Monday was the usual clean up the house and run to the grocery store, swimming lessons and gymnastics kind of day.

 

That night though Chantel came over around 5:00pm to watch the boys so Jesse and I could go on a bike ride. I hadn't been on my bike since the relay and it was killing me to get out and ride. But since it was SO hot, we decided we better go Mountain biking instead where it would be cooler.

 

Jesse loves mountain biking and I love road biking. But I do enjoy changing things up and being more rounded. The thing with mountain biking is I can climb all day! No problem. I can actually keep up with Jesse on that part, maybe even go faster than him. But when it comes to downhill I turn into the biggest GIRL. Not going to lie, it freaks me out quite a bit to go down hill.

 

Jesse on the other hand LOVES it and is REALLY good at it. It's quite impressive. So I start to feel bad that he goes down a ways and then waits for me to catch up. Then goes again, then waits. He's being nice because he doesn't want to go too far ahead just in case I get hurt or something. But I feel bad holding him back.

 

Anyway, besides my downhill chicken-ness we had the best time together. I love that we can do these sorts of things together. 

 We made it home around 8:00pm and it was a rush from that point to get ready because we were taking the boys to the drive in theater that night. YAY!!!! So I packed up some dinner in the cooler, popped a bunch of popcorn and put it in a big paper bag.

We grabbed the blowup mattress, bunch of pillows and blankets so we could be all cozy in the bed of the truck.

I don't know who was more excited about this, me or the boys. I was loving the fact that we had a truck and that the boys were getting old enough that we could do things like this.

 I snapped this picture right as the movie screen turned on. They were in such awe by it. Haha. I was just loving it.

 I was seriously loving this moment with my little family. I mean look at the boys faces? Cy is in hog heaven with his big bag of popcorn. Ryker was thrilled with the fact that he got to have all three of his blankets with him.

Memory Making Moments is what this is called! I can't wait to do this again!

"Stay"-cation

4th of July landed on a Friday this year. Which makes for a nice long weekend. I decided to take that Friday and Saturday off for the holiday celebrations. And with me not working Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays I got 5 days off in a row. The best part about it was Jesse's 6 days off landed on this weekend. So we got 5 whole days together. Giddy is the word that comes to my mind when I would think about a FIVE DAY STAY-CATION with my little family.

 

To start things off we were invited to go watch the Eaglewood Fireworks at our friend Brett's house. His back deck looks out over the golf course and is really close to where they would shoot fireworks off.

 

While we were waiting for them to start shooting off the fireworks we got eat dinner and watch the sunset. It was pretty awesome. I told Jesse that one day I would love to have a deck like this one and we could sit out there every night to watch the sun go down. 

I was so excited that I got to spend 5 whole days with this guy 24/7. Sometimes it's nice to take a break of the everyday "stuff" and just be together. Having fun! And that's exactly what we were planning on doing. 

We were spoiled being this close to the fireworks. Watching them from Brett's deck was awesome! Every time one of the big loud ones would go off, we could feel the deck shaking. Pretty awesome.

There were other people there at the house. Most of them were Brett's little sister's friends. They all were down on the grass while we stayed up on the deck. But Cy insisted laying on the grass with the young adults. He had his blanket all laid out on the grass and was right in the middle of two girls. We tried to get him to come up with us, but nope.

After the firework show we heard the girls saying how cute Cy was during the fireworks. I guess he kept saying "Oh that one is my fave-wit...no that one is my fave-wit."

I wish I could have heard him saying this, but it was cute to hear it coming from this girl because she thought he was the cutest thing.

The next morning we packed up the truck with all our bikes, camping gear and food to go spend the weekend with the Smith's.

First on the agenda was a bike ride in Provo. The trail was called Rails to Trails. Apparently it's where the railroad tracks used to be and so it's nice and flat with a slight downhill. Nice and easy bike ride. Which was good because we had a variety of experienced bikers. Tayler hadn't been on a bike since she was a little girl. Andrew was carrying Sterling in a little bike seat....

...and Jesse was carrying Cy in the backpack...

...and Ryker was on his own bike. I love this picture of Ryker, he was having the time of his life. He was really impressive that day. All of us have the option to shift our gears to make the pedaling easier or harder. But he doesn't have that option. So he just pedals and pedals and pedals. Several times he mentioned to me his legs were hurting. I just told him that he was building muscle and then he would ride even faster. haha. Our total distance was 11 miles. And Ryker rode the whole way. That is honestly so impressive because I remember a few years ago when I started riding a bike again and thinking 10 miles was a long ways on a bike. And here is my 6 year old doing it! He's awesome!

We stopped around mile 9 to have a little lunch break.

LOVE LOVE LOVE this photo. I had to balance my camera on the fence with the self-timer. Usually when we take pictures like this it takes several attempts to get a good one, but we got this one on the first time.

It's been awhile since we have been able to get a picture of the whole family together. It seems like we always have someone missing. So it's a good one!

After we made it back to the house we all had some down time. The little boys took naps and some of the adults took naps too. Tyson and Tayler left to go back up to Park City to spend the remaining weekend with her family.

When everyone was done resting we started to prep for dinner and get our campsite ready. We had a delicious BBQ that everybody contributed something to. And then for dessert we roasted marshmellows for yummy smores.

I love this tradition of camping out in their backyard. It's so much fun.

Once it got dark enough we had our own pathetic firework show. All the neighbors were lighting up the big arieal fireworks, but we just had the cheep ones on the ground. 

But that didn't matter to us and especially to the little boys. They were totally into it.

We attempted to go to bed when we were all done with our own firework show. But the boys were still to excited. Well I really should just say Cyrus was still excited. Ryker went to bed because he was sleepy, but Cy was hyper. I'm sure the combination of the excitement and smores made for a wired boy. Plus the neighbors were lighting up fireworks consistently until midnight. So we fell asleep to the sound of the booming sounds of fireworks.

 Saturday morning we (the women) made a scrumptious breakfast! Mmmm I love breakfast food. Eggs, waffles, mini German pancakes and berries! We all ate like Kings and Queens. So freaking good.

Then it was time to go to the pool. Usually we would go to the pool that Mike and Heidi own with 6 other families. But I guess it was under construction. So we walked to the public pool in their neighborhood.

Ryker was all about jumping off the high dive.... until we got there and he saw how high it really was. I wanted him to jump off of the high dive SO BAD because I knew once he did it he would love it.... but he wouldn't. He's such a cautious kid.

 Cy on the other hand isn't so cautious. I think I gave birth to polar opposite boys. Cy is almost scary how NOT cautious he is. He isn't afraid of the water AT ALL. He even jumped off the lower diving board (which I wish I would have taken a picture of).

 After several hours of playing at the pool, we walked backed home.

We were all pooped, so the little ones napped while the adults watched a movie and napped as well.

Before dinner we packed up our stuff and headed home. I don't remember exactly what we did that night. I'm sure just bummed around the house and got everything all put away.

It was the perfect way to spend the 4th of July. And our stay-cation wasn't even over yet. YAY!