In July I went to Bryce Canyon with my friend Natalie Slemboski and we ran the Bryce Canyon half marathon. I got a personal record with a 1:34. What a beautiful race...I highly recommend it, especially if you like downhill!
Post race with my super fast friend NatalieAll of this was just leading up to what I had seriously been training for all summer...the biggest event I'd ever tried to tackle...the Utah Half Ironman! That's a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride, and 13.1 mile run! And yes, the swim was in Utah lake! People's reaction to that gave me a stomach ache all summer!
It ended up being a super fun girls get away weekend. We headed up to Provo Thursday night, Trisha, Jamie, Natalie S. and I. We enjoyed a yummy dinner at P.F. Chang's! Natalie's brother in law had a nice home in Springville they weren't using at the moment so we had a great place all to ourselves!
Friday we got a private swim lesson and triathlon nutritional training from Natalie's coach. Then we drove the bike course so we wouldn't have any problems on race day. After packet pick up we headed to the movie to see The Time Travler's Wife! I had been anticipating this for weeks, after reading the book in July, and was definitely not disappointed!
One of the best parts of the weekend was phone calls from husbands who were realizing how hard our jobs as mom's really are! This text I got from Ty Friday night says it all....
"Ya so went to the river and we got home i had all the kids hop in the shower i stripped down linc and left him alone for 30 sec and he decided to take a dump on the floor, then he smeared it up and down his arms and he was about to put a piece in his mouth when i caught him. He thought it was pretty funny. Do u miss him!!?"
Race morning we got up early and headed to the lake! After a pre-race meeting we were all walking to the water to start the swim and the wind came up! We were going to swim in the enclosed portion of the harbor and it was pretty nasty. You could see out into main part of the lake and it was even worse with humongous waves! After post-poning the start for a half an hour they announced we had a small window before another storm came in and they would allow us to do half the swim!
trying to keep warm and happy while waiting to hear if we got to swim or not!A few minutes after the women started, the wind picked up really bad again and I was having a hard time keeping my face in the water. There was a kayak right in front of me. People were grabbing on and lots of people quit. It took all the will power I had to keep going...I had trained to hard to quit at that point, it didn't matter if I doggy paddled for an hour, I was not going to quit! So I was on and off side-stroking and swimming for 25 minutes and when I got out and got on my bike the whole thing seemed surreal - like it hadn't really just happened!
transition and off on my bike ride!!
The bike was a blast...for a little while! Being one of the last people out of the water I got the rush of passing a lot of people! About mile 15 It started to get really windy! One part of the course took us around the lake and I felt like I was in California looking over the ocean, the waves were so huge! At one point the wind was coming in so strongly from the side I felt like I was going to get blown over! I had to hold tight to keep my handle bars straight! With about 15 miles to go it started hailing! I was riding with a girl I knew and we were just laughing and saying owe, owe, owe! We had to be a little cautious because the last part of the ride had a lot of turns and the ground was very wet! I still finished the bike in just under 3 hours so I felt pretty good about that!
While we were out on the bike the finishing area got completely blown down!The run made up for all the other stuff with perfect running conditions! It was overcast, cool, no wind, lots of shade trees, and some occasional sprinkling! Plus I had Jamie to run with me, she hadn't done the whole thing so she was fresh and full of positive things to say! She was taking lots of phone calls cuz people were checking on how we were doing and it kept the runners around us laughing and asking her to order pizza and stuff! It's so strange how your legs just don't run like they normally do after you've biked. 1:52 was my half marathon time, and overall time was 5 hours 22 minutes!
I got really emotional at the end. I had trained so hard, it was so fun, it was almost over and it had been one of the hardest things I'd ever done...and I did it! I had to control myself so I could breathe down the finishing stretch. And I needed every breathe I had to complete this sprint finish!
To see how this sprint finish ends click on this link to the professional photographers at the race! They took about 9 pictures of our finish and the ending is hilarious!!!!http://www.zazoosh.com/events/searchPhotos/227?evtId=227&query=48
Once the finish was over I was able to get emotional again. It's crazy how the physical strain brings your emotions to the surface! Then when Trisha finished and was emotional, it all came back again! I love these girls and I'm so proud of us!!!
And now for a glimpse into Tyler's crazy life...have you all heard about or seen his ultralight? It's a power propelled hangglider! He and his buddy Sam have been taking lessons in Vegas and are certified to fly. After Tyler luckily walked away from a crash in May that practically totalled their first ultralight, they bought a pretty sweet yellow machine complete with cruise control and emergency parachute!
The view in Zion before he crashed in May! It may be crazy but this makes it worth it...Beautiful!!
Ty's leg from the barb wire fence he crashed into, he also had a small fracture in his wrist! I hope he has more lives than a cat cuz he's burnin' through them quickly!
Sam has also gotten certified in skydiving so last Thursday morning Tyler took off from his "runway" behind our house. He picked up Sam in Hurricane and they flew over Zion. On the way back to St. George Sam Jumped out over the Hurricane airport and Tyler flew home! Enjoy the video....Sam being scared is just a great acting job...He's totally stoked and he really wins the crazy award in this post!
On Saturday Tyler took the kids to Richfield with some of his hiking buddies and their families and they floated down the river a few times on this boat and some kayaks. I loved hearing the kids describe their day! They had a blast!!!
While Ty and the kids were in Richfield I did my first century ride in Panguitch! I hadn't ever gone farther than 67 miles on my bike and I wasn't quite recovered from the half ironman the week before but it was amazing! The first 80 miles were awesome! We got in some fast groups and it was mostly downhill or flat and awesome weather! At mile 80, half our group stopped at a rest stop and about 6 of us decided to keep going. It wasn't long till my overworked legs couldn't hold onto the draft anymore and all of a sudden it turned to a gradual climb in a headwind and I was all alone! 26 miles usually seems like nothing on a bike but these were going by so slow and I was so happy when it was finally over! 106 miles...woo hoo! Even with the really hard ending I still averaged just over 20 mph :) And if you're wondering how bad the end REALLY was I heard a guy say...
"If HELL is anything like that last 26 miles, I'm going to start going to church!"
Staci took this pic of some the beautiful scenery!
So still to come on my racing schedule is a 180 mile 12 person relay that I'm really excited about, the St. George Marathon in October, and the New York Marathon in November! Time to switch to running mode! Ty is still in flying and canyoneering mode and the kids are just hanging on for the ride!
