The BIG Race!!

Well, it has come and gone. The big day. The race we've been training for several months now.

We drove down to St. George on Thursday and met my parents so we could set up camp. That same day we went for a small swim to try out the water and make sure we could still fit into our wetsuits. The water was FREEZING. We swam out to the island and back and I could not warm up the whole time. I felt like I was hyperventilating. That night, even though the day was pretty hot, turned out to be cold too. We didn't have enough blankets on us and we didn't put the rain guard on because it had been so warm. So we didn't really get much sleep. (It didn't help either that we were sleeping on a hill and the mattress was way uncomfortable.)

Anyway, the next day we met Jessica and Chris and went to get registered. It's always fun getting registered. We get our goodie bags, get our numbers marked on us, and spend way too much money at the booths. We went back to camp and got our gear all set for the morning. The race started at 7, but my dad seems to want to get up way way early for these things so we planned on getting up at 4. (am!) Well, I spent the first part of the night awake because our mattress was so uncomfortable. As soon as I switched places with Pyper and got comfy, the wind came. Wow!! It was like microburst wind and it lasted pretty much the rest of the night. I thought our tent was going to blow away with us in it. I really don't know how the girls slept through it. Well, so, Bry and I didn't get any sleep at all. Four o'clock came and we were already awake. We already had our stuff pretty much ready so we just sat in the warm car till everyone else was ready.

At the transition area we hung our bikes up and got our gear situated and put on our wetsuits. I started earlier than everyone, because I was doing the Olympic distance (1 mile swim, 24.8 mile bike, 10k run), and everyone else was doing the Sprint (1/2 mile swim, 12 mile bike, 5k run.) I started the swim and it was going pretty good till we (the girls in my wave start) went around the first bouy. Then we were going against the wind. It started getting really choppy. I had to turn all the way onto my back to breathe or I'd swallow tons of water. Even then I sometimes had to do back stroke to even get through the waves. Every time I looked up there was a wave in front of me so I had no idea if I was even going the right way. I just prayed that the people ahead of me knew where they were going. When I got back to my transition I saw Bryant and a whole bunch of people walking towards the transition. I asked him what was going on and he said they cancelled the swim for the Sprint. I guess they were bringing in boat loads of swimmers that couldn't make it so it was too much a risk. The Sprinters ended up starting at the water like they were coming out and went straight to there bikes.

The bike (for me) turned out to be really good. I was really nervous about it, but even with the wind beating against me it was good. As soon as you get over THE HILL, everything else is pretty easy.

The run is hard because most of it is in dirt, hilly, and some is in sand. Kinda like running on the beach in tennis shoes. (Not fun.) But I ran the whole time and didn't stop and that was my goal. I finished the whole thing in 3:34. Not bad for my first Olympic.

The highlight of the trip was my dad winning the big raffle prize. A brand new Felt racing bike. What are the chances?