Tri's

After trying and liking them last year, I've continued doing triathlon this summer as well. There have been 3 so far: the St. George Tri in May, Salem Springs in June, (best tri website I've seen), and the Bear Lake Brawl, also in June.


Here are some pickies, starting with the St. George Tri:


I love this course. It's actually in Hurricane, not St. George. I guess they changed it because St. George Tri is more impressive than Hurricane tri, just as the skydiving outpost we're going to calls themselves Skydive Zion instead of Skydive Hurricane. Can't say that I blame them.


Poor Hurricane. The red-headed stepchild of obscure, Southern Utah towns.

Anyways, it's kind of a special place for me. The first tri I ever did was here, back when I didn't know if I could do one without dying, and some of the feeling of triumph I got from that first victory still pervades the place today. On top of that, it's a beautiful course set in a man-made reservoir in the middle of a red, rocky desert. Very picturesque. Almost like a mini Lake-Powell. But without all the urine and house-boat sludge in the water.





The course has with an absurdly long, steep hill I call "The Beast". It's also the earliest Utah triathlon, so something like 1,400 people come down to participate.



Even though it's only May, and even though it's only about 10:00 by the time you get to the run, right around the 2nd mile it gets so hot (most of the course is on the sandy desert where the sun reflects off the red sand) that you wonder why you were ever stupid enough to do this tri in the first place.

The obligatory Katie-being-cute photo. I don't know who she's waving to - all that was over there was a wide, empty lake. Unless she's seeing the leprechaun again...

Next up, Salem Springs.

This may be my favorite tri location so far. Despite the fact that I grew up about 15 minutes away, I had no idea this place (Salem) existed, nor that it was so cool. Seriously, I'm thinking of retiring out here.

Anyways, the half-mile swim is in a large pond in a park redolent of the wonderful parks we saw in London. The 12 mile bike ride and the 3 mile run is through the surrounding neighborhoods, which are relatively hill-free. The Salem has been going for 6 years now and is increasing in popularity, though still small enough to not feel overcrowded like the St. George tri.

Pre-race action shot.

So about 20 minutes before the race I was pumping up my bike tire when I heard the one sound every triathlete dreads.

PPPPPPPPPPFFFFFFFFFFSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

And it wasn't just, pppppssssshhhh, like a small leak or something. It was an all out, 'there-is-now-more-air-in-the-dark-reaches-of-space-than-there-is-in-your-tire' kind of PFSH. The entire nozzle had blown out.

I was pretty bummed. 20 minutes wasn't enough time to get an entirely new tube, and I didn't bring one to begin with. I had just resolved myself to a DNF when a helpful fellow racer came up and told me a vendor was selling them just up the hill. Long story short, I was able to buy a new tube, pump up my tire, and finish race prep just in time to start. It was awesome. Thank you random triathlete-man.

A lot of tris have free massages at the end. You just have to wait in a long line. This time I decided to do it and found it was definitely worth it.

They also had a chiropractor there. It was my first time for that too. It would take very little for someone to convince me that he was legitimately trying to break my neck.

We met our good friends the Bod's there. Here are said Bod's.

Now for Bear Lake.

The Bear Lake Brawl was pretty fun. By far the smallest tri I've done. I'm used to having to show up 2 hours before they start to get set up because of the crowds. This one had less than 200 racers, so I could have shown up 20 minutes before and been all right.

The fun thing about Bear Lake is that it's super shallow. They started the swim a good 50 yards into the lake, but my entire torso was still out of the water. For the entire first leg of the swim you could actually walk on the lake bottom (and quite a few people did), the first time I've ever seen anything like that.

The fam came out for this one. Including the dog.

Here I am in my wetsuit, or "the Batsuit" as I like to call it. These things are uncomfortable. Though not as uncomfortable as hypothermia would be, I'm sure.

Mom and baby on the beach.

Baby being all cute on the beach, again. Not sure what she's looking at. Again.

So that's my tri update. I've got two more left this year: the Kokopelli in September, and the XTerra Mountain Sport in Ogden this weekend. Long-time readers of Blog o' Mickel (both of you) may remember XTerra as the tri in which I expelled electric-blue vomit all over the bike course last year.

That's right - I'm doing it again. Wish me luck.