October 14 - The Pumpkinman

After a week full of training, travel preparation, and catching up at work and school; we left on Friday afternoon for The Pumpkinman Triathlon in Las Vegas, Nevada. We spent that night in St. George at Ryan's condo after eating at the Pasta Factory. We woke up Saturday morning and after grabbing breakfast, we continued the drive to Vegas. None of us are big Vegas people so we decided to get a hotel in Boulder City which is where the tri actually was. We checked in and then made our way over to the tri site to check in and get our swag (I dig the shirt). We then set up our run gear at T2 - this tri was a little different in the fact that there were two separate transition areas instead of one that you simply return to twice. We then took some time to go down to Lake Mead, get in the water with our wetsuits, and just get used to it all. That afternoon we relaxed - we went to a movie (Across the Universe - I wouldn't recommend it, but it wasn't the worst way we could have spent our time) and then had dinner at Tony's Pizza and Pasta in Boulder City. We were all excited to have some small town pasta the night before the race. Let's just say that the excitement did not last long. We were greeted by our server relatively soon after we sat down so we were not yet ready to order. We did not see her again for another 20-30 minutes. At which time she quickly took our order but neglected to ask what kind of dressings we wanted with our salads, so when they did finally come we were just given ranch. The salad and the dressing was gross. It included huge chunks of onion and even the foot of the head of lettuce. It was at this point that we knew we were really fine dining. Our pastas came out eventually - Ryan's a good 10 minutes before mine and Stacy's. It took everything we had to just get over the taste and eat this stuff simply because we had no other choice in town that was not fast food. I, for one, can't wait until next year when we get to eat at Tony's again and experience this again. Back at the hotel I tried to show Stacy how to change her tire if anything were to happen, but it was so difficult to deal with that I ended up doing all the work anyway. We just got to the point where we were just hoping nothing would go wrong (not the best position to be in). We went to bed early and woke up around 5:30 the next morning. We got our gear together and made our way down to the lake. We were there in plenty of time to get T1 taken care of with time to really prep for the race. Ryan and I were competing in our first olympic distance event (we tried to do this a few weeks ago at Kokopelli) which is 1.5k swim, 40k bike, and 10k run. Our began our swim at 7:10. My swim was the best I had ever had. I felt really strong and only came in like 2 minutes after Ryan. I passed him a lot earlier on the bike that I thought I was going to. After doing so I figured I would not see him again for the rest of the race. The first 20 miles of the bike was hard. It wasn't the hardest thing ever, but it had its share of hills. The final 5 or so miles were all just straight uphill. By this time I was having a hard time even just sitting on my bike seat any longer because my butt was so sore. I definitely could have gone a lot faster, but my mind was not in the right place at that time. Ryan passed me with about 1 mile to go on the bike and I arrived at T2 just behind him. My transition was fast and I exited before him at which time I passed Stacy also beginning her run. I was feeling good and was confident in the rest of the race. When I reached the turn around point for the Sprint course I was feeling good and was sure I could go strong for twice that, turn around, and run back. I have to be honest and say that I never once ran more than 5k in training. It may have just been my inexperience or it may not, but that did not feel like 6 miles. It felt more like 10. I wondered if they had mixed up the miles and kilometers and accidentally had us run 10m instead of 10k. Either way, I did walk a little on the run. Not a ton, but some. I crossed the finish line 3hrs 29min and 41sec into the race with my sweet wife yelling for me having finished the sprint course in 2hrs 25min and 22sec. Ryan was not far behind me coming in at 3hrs 35min and 31sec. I have to say that I was rather surprised when we figured out that we had taken second and third in our age division. Yes, that is right. We were back on the podium - where we belong (it wasn't until the day after the race that my suspicions were confirmed that there were only 3 competitors in our age division). We had a great time this weekend, and we are looking forward to doing this again next year. This marks the end of my first triathlon season and I feel good about it. I feel like I set and accomplished some good goals. It was hard and fun at the same time. I will certainly be doing this again next summer. Now it is time to get out on the skis! See you on the snow.

Day 1 - Monday Oct. 8 - Hooray For Fall Break!

Today was the first possible day for skiing for the season (for me at least). I disregarded the fact that the storm was two days ago and yesterday was really warm, and I met up with Dave Whittaker, Matt Kline, and Has. We met at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon at 6:15am. We then drove up in two separate cars in case some wanted to stay a little longer. Dave and I listened to The Arcade Fire - Funeral on the way up (I don't have Neon Bible on my iPod just yet). The skin up was nice. It was great to be back out in the snow. Yes, I may have been skiing over the summer, but it is just not the same as being able to actually skin up a mountainside in some actual snow. I felt like I was in pretty good shape, but not exactly where I would like to be for the remainder of the season - but I am sure that will come. The ascent did include one foray across a small stream where some of us decided to go across with skis on, others went without, and still one other had one ski on and one off (I am not sure what advantage this gave). While skinning up, however, we discovered that yesterday's warmth and last night's cold did not exactly present us with the most ideal skiing conditions. There was over a foot of snow just about anywhere you went, but there was a layer of breakable crust about 2 inches thick on top of it all. When we finally did get to skiing down, we found this difficult to navigate. Basically, the snow did not want you to turn, so you usually ended up falling or having to jump all the way out in order to swing your skis around. It was fun, but I am sure the skiing was much better yesterday. Oh, well. We will get ours. Don't worry. It was fun to get out and skiing again. I look forward to more and more of it. It may be a few weeks until you see another ski blog entry, but get excited because they will all start rolling in. Peace.