I just
listened to a podcast, or "program" for us older folks, on the
mormonchannel about storytelling.
It
reminded me that I need to tell the story of the Triathlon that I did on August
25. Here is the link to the men overall results
Here is
the link the men age group results
In this
race as in last years, one of the competitors was Lacey Nymeyer John.
She is
L.D.S., swam for the University of Arizona, won NCAA individual and team
championships, was NCAA 2009 woman of the year, and was Olympic silver medalist
in a relay in 2008 Beijing Olympic Summer Games. She married a man from the
Gila Valley, who was also in the race. I remember her from last year and was
interested to see if she would be in the race this year. I saw them in the line
to start the swim. So that was kind of in the back of my head the whole time.
It is not every day you get to measure yourself in competition against an
Olympian, much less an Olympic medalist.
Swim
625
yards. 12 minutes 31 seconds 28 place among men. I knew I would be slower on
the swim than the previous year because I simply did not swim as much as I
should have. I spent about 45 minutes just waiting in line because they only
have 12 lanes. If each person does the swim in 10-15 minutes, well, you do the
math. I did stop once to clear the fog off my goggles but it was really to take
a couple of extra breaths, about ten seconds worth. They took six normal width
lanes and devided them in half to make twelve to I kept hitting my right arm on
the line lane, going both directions. That tells me that I have a tendancy to
drift right when I swim. Maybe it is because I breath on my right side. The
pool is only 25 yards and so you do a lot of turning. I don't do the flip turn
so I am sure I wasted time at each turn compared to someone doing flip turns.
Coming out of the swim my arms were pretty tired and I was breathing pretty
hard. I hoped that I could get my breathing back to normal on the bike.
Bike
15 miles.
57 minutes 23 seconds 28 place among men. First I have to thank my Willcox Dad
and Stake President for letting me use his bike. He was going to
do this triathlon as well but in relay format. His bike and run teammates
didn't come through though. My primary goal on the bike was to finish without a
flat tire which happened last year. I was able to do that so it was a moral
victory. Barring a flat tire, my goal was to stay in the "aero"
position as much as possible and finish the bike with some energy for the run still
remaining. The "aero" position is basically putting your hands and
arms forward on two bars that stick out forward from the handle bars thus
getting your upper body in a more inclined flat angle to be more aerodynamic. I
feel like I did fairly good at that. I was able to save some energy for the
run. Only one person passed my on the bike. By the speed that he passed me I
knew that I would not be able to keep up with him. He passed me about mile
marker five or so, right in the same area that I had the flat last year. As
that person passed me I saw another guy up in front about 400 yards that I set
my goal to pass him. It took my what seemed like forever to pass him. In
reality is it was about five to seven miles, but I finally did it. I had two
bottles on the bike, one with gatorade and one with water. I was going to use
the water to spray on me to keep me cool and the gatorade to re-fuel. I did
good about re-fueling but I really didn't use the water until the last five
miles. At that point I realized I was carrying this extra weight for nothing so
I started spraying it on my helmet, back and chest profusely. Anybody at the
bike run transistion must have thought I was working really hard!
Run
5K or 3.1
miles. 22 minutes 18 seconds. 5th among men. Going into the run, my attitude
was that this was my specialty, nobody passes me, and I need to really push the
pace. The first half mile is always really hard because your leg muscles just
feel really, really weird. Long steps are quite difficult so you end up taking
little mini-steps quickly. On this course the first half mile is slightly
uphill and so any enthusiasm you have about really taking it out fast is
totally destroyed and reality sets in that you have been exercising at a high
rate for over and hour and your body just wants to stop. In fact during the
whole run your body is telling you to to stop and you have to use all the self
discipline that you have to not stop. If you an amateur athlete like me you
will come to a compromise with your body and you will slow your pace at least
and pick it up later. That is kind of the narrative going on in my mind the
first two miles. Keep an ok pace, and we will pick it up later. Then the last
mile or so as I pick up the pace the mental talk changes to "how long can
I keep up this pace and how much do I have left." Coming out of the
transition area in the first hunderd yards of the run, I saw Lacey Nymerer John
coming in on the bike. I have to admit, one of the big motivations I used to
keep my pace up on the run was not to get passed by Lacey. I know it may sound
silly but anything I could use for motivation was needed. I knew that she ran
the 5k last year in 23 minutes so I had my work cut out for me. At mile marker
2 or so you go up a steep hill the the Safford cemetery. I looked behind me at
the bottom of the hill and didn't see her so I was supper happy about that. As
I went up the hill and as I passed people going around the cemetery I made the
requisite jokes about being in there with them if I had to do any more of this.
At the top of the hill you can see the course behind you because of a
turnaround and sure enough there she was behind me. So I had to really start
kicking it into gear. I felt much better on the run this year than last year
when I was totally and completely anihalated (sp?). This year it was super hard
and challenging but I had the ganas this time.
Post Race
My support team/fan club were there to greet me at the finish line which meant a lot to me. An
award should be given to Team Leader of the support crew for getting everyone ready and motivated and in place. It was hot because it was August in
Arizona. I was able to talk with Lacey and her husband Chandler and that was
fun for me. They are both really friendly, nice, and humble. We went to eat at
our favorite Chinese restaurant in the Gila Valley, Magic Wok or something like
that on Highway 70. There I met and talked briefly with Lacey's grandparents.
They said the volunteer counting laps for Lacey miscounted and made her go down
and back an extra time. We laughed at that because Lacey could probably count
laps in her sleep and the poor volunteer was probably people watching and not
paying attention to what was going on. After that we wanted to go swimming at the Safford pool because they have two fun slides. It was not open,
nor was the Thatcher or Pima pool. We ended up going to the Willcox pool.
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