First, an introduction to this blog. Sometime during the summer of 2013 I read an article about a young teacher who became the youngest female to complete 100 marathons. At the time, I had a friend who had written a book about his first 100 marathons and the idea of 100 of something really drew me in. At that point in my triathlon career I had completed around 30 triathlons and I had been doing 8-9 triathlons a year and had been loving it. Also at the time I was 32 years old. I realized that if I continued doing the sport that I loved and raced 8-9 times per year I could reach the 100 benchmark for triathlons before I turned 40 so I set a goal. 100 triathlons before I turn 40. It had all the hallmarks of a SMART goal. Very specific, totally measurable, completely achievable, very realistic and definitely time based. Since then I have done 7-11 triathlons a year and I am well on my way to achieving this goal. This blog is my way of documenting all that I have done for myself and my posterity. An online journal. If you happen to stumble upon it in your perusing of the interwebs, welcome. I hope you find my musing entertaining.
And now for a little background. When I was 11 or 12 years old I remember watching the Ironman World Championship broadcast and being completely blown away that anyone could complete something so amazing in one day. I remember gauging the distances and secretly thinking how amazing it would be to some day be able to accomplish something so grandiose. 112 mile bike ride would be like riding a bike from my house to grandma's house (really closer to 150 miles, but still). I was a boy scout and had grown up swimming in the lakes of the Manti-La Sal National Forest and had even once swam a mile but swimming 2.4 seemed unimaginable. That planted a seed. Fast forward 7 years. I served a mission in the Washington Seattle Mission. 10 of those 24 months were spent in bike areas where I rode my bike 10-15 miles a day. At the time I thought it was impressive. I have since been re-educated. The last 4 months that I served in Seattle I served in a bike area so I built a pretty good bike base. When I went home, I figured I would never ride again so I gave my bike to another missionary and thought nothing of it. I had been home a grand total of 4 days when I missed the sweet allure of being astride a saddle with lactic acid creating that familiar burning in my legs. I purchased a mountain bike and started riding again. Around that time, a new bike mechanic named Fuzzy (yes, really) had moved into the Price area and started building trails. I started riding them and the next fall I attended college and signed up for a mountain biking class. It sucked. We hardly did anything. The next semester, Fuzzy started teaching the class and it got so much better. We rode once a week as a class and took trips once a month. We went to Moab, Fruita and even to Deer Valley to ride the lifts up the mountain and careened on our bikes back down again. I got married, my wife, Kathy Jo, joined the class and borrowed her sister's bike and rode with us. She hated it. On our first trip, she rode a trail too advanced for her, crashed and decided to give up mountain biking. We moved to Salt Lake and I convinced her to buy a mountain bike and to ride with me. I promised her I would be gentle and take her on easy ride. We took trips to Moab and didn't do anything too scary and she slowly started to embrace the twin wheeled machine that I had come to love. I had scaled back my riding while attending the University of Utah but still rode my bike to school but I hit the trails very rarely.
I graduated from college and for Christmas 2007 Kathy Jo surprised me with a brand new mountain bike. I took the knobby tires off my old mountain bike, put on some slick tires and started riding it on the roads during the winter of 2008. I fell in love! I remember the joy I felt at riding 30 miles in one day. I wanted to continue riding. About this time, for one reason or another, it's been so long ago I can't really remember why, I thought about that Ironman broadcast I had seen so long ago and I got it in my head that I should do a triathlon. If you know anything about me you know that I am a planner. I like to know before hand where I'm going, where I need to be, when I need to be there and I need to have a really good feel for how I'm going to accomplish whatever it is I need to accomplish. I do not do spontaneous very well. I read about triathlon, I read about training I researched to know what to expect. I found a triathlon in Emery County where I grew up called the San Rafael Classic. It was close to my parent's house so I knew we could stay with them before the race. I signed up and started swimming and running along with all the riding I had been doing. I called up Fuzzy to ask him about how to make my bike a little faster and he informed me that if I was going to do a triathlon I really ought to consider getting myself a road bike. On our way home from a mountain biking trip in May we stopped in Price at Fuzzy's shop so I could ask more about road bikes and he happened to have one for a good price that would fit me. He attached some pedals that would fit with my mountain bike shoes and gave me a quick run down on how the shifting and brakes work on a road bike and off I went. The feeling I felt as I pedaled that bicycle was about the same as the feeling I got when I first flew on an airplane. Speed, gravity, exhilaration mixed with just a little bit of fear. When I stood up and mashed the pedals, the bike leaped forward. I felt like I had never gone faster in my life. I was instantly hooked. When I returned to the shop, I bought the bike and we brought it home with us. A few more weeks of riding, running and swimming would bring me to late June when I would take on my very first triathlon. Stay tuned for a recap of the San Rafael Classic Triathlon 2008.
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