Scofield Triathlon Adventures

My friend Lisa & I drove up to Scofield, UT yesterday for the triathlon today. We spent the night in Price and then drove the half hour to the reservoir this morning.

I had never swam in the reservoir, or rode the bike course or anything so it was all new. We drove the course last night but it turned out that what felt like uphill in the car was actually downhill and vice versa. Last month when I did the Utah Summer Games I was planning on that being my last triathlon until the half marathon in August was over and then I would do the Kokapelli Triathlon at Sand Hollow at the end of September. But then I got the flat tire so I decided to do a tri this month to redeem myself on the bike portion of the race (and because I stick to my training better when I have a closer race goal!). Luckily, my friend Lisa was a peach and registered for the Scofield race and made the trip with me since I didn't want to drag Jeff and Elea up to the middle of nowhere to stand in the hot sun for hours.

So last night I was actually able to sleep. It was strange being away from Elea and not worrying about if she was going to wake up in the night or whatever. So I actually slept better than I normally do the night before a race. And it actually started at a reasonable hour- 9 am instead of 7:30 or 8 am. We actually were a lot more relaxed about getting there early to set up our transition area but then once we got there I was worried because there didn't seem to be any space on the racks to fit our bikes and gear. But luckily we found some spots so that turned out okay because I got to sleep in a little, eat breakfast, set up my gear, and get in the water without a ton of down time to get more nauseaus and nervous than I already was!

The water was pretty cold but thank goodness for wetsuits because it makes it manageable (and it makes me float!!) It wasn't a huge group of women so they had us all start in the same wave. I have learned to head out to the front of the group to begin with so that I don't get stuck in a school of fish- there was just a short time after the start buzzer went off that I was swimming over other girl's legs and stuff. But luckily I managed not to get kicked or anything traumatic. It was probably about 50-100 yds out that I was pretty much alone on my way. I could see a couple other yellow swim caps in the water on my right as I headed to the first buoy. I made it around the first buoy and and about 25-50 yds later I started seeing blue swim caps. At first I got confused and then I realized it was the men who had started 5 minutes before me. As I was making my way down the longer stretch to the second buoy (it was a triangle shaped course) I kept coming across more and more men in their blue caps. Some were side-stroking, some were doing breaststroke, I even saw one guy who was either incredibly double-jointed in his shoulders or he was doing backstroke! I was definitely jealous at that point. It would be nice to know that the 2nd and 3rd legs of the race were my strengths so that I could take it easier on the swim!

Anyway, I made it around the 2nd buoy and headed back toward the boat dock area. I kept dodging the guys in blue swim caps doing breaststroke and such and luckily made it throught the 700 yards and out of the water unscathed. As I was running up the boat dock some lady said, "really good swim," to me and then I looked up and realized I hadn't seen a green swim cap in awhile and as I ran up the transition aisle I only saw 1 girl. So that was pretty exciting for me- but I wasn't sure that more women had already made it out of the water and out of transition too. The very first part of the bike course is a very steep hill. They warned us to put our bikes in the lowest gear possible and even then when I clipped in my right foot I couldn't get the momentum to get my balance while clipping in my left foot. So I just got off the bike and ran it up the hill. Once I did mount the bike I started moving, went over a speed bump I hadn't noticed, passed the state trooper car parked on the main road, barely swerving in time to miss a parked car and race mile marker sign on the opposite side of the road. It was awesome. I can just imagine what the state trooper was thinking as I came barreling through. ay ay ay.

After getting myself back over to the appropriate side of the road I said a quick prayer of gratefulness that I didn't completely smash myself and my bike in the first half mile of the race. The first almost half of the race was fabulous. Rolling-ish hills, no crazy steep hills or cattleguards, the weather was beautiful, the road was right alongside the lake, it was pretty perfect for me. I wasn't even feeling the 7600 foot elevation like I thought I was going to either and only 2 girls had passed me on the bike thus far so it was a great improvement. I only still saw the one in front after the swim too so I was feeling good about things. Then I look up as I get past the lake and ahead of me and to the right I see a train. And this isn't a short train. And I am too far away to evil-kenevil my way across the tracks and beat it. So I start to coast hoping that maybe it will pass before I have to stop and completely lose my momentum like the few people I see stopped at the tracks in front of me. But alas, twas not meant to be. I get up there, unclip one foot, and stop. And wait. And wait some more. And then I look back and there are now 10 people waiting. And then some of those 10 people start to walk their bikes past those of us who had been there first. So I started moving forward as well moving over to the inside of the road to have some space. The last time I looked back there were probably 30+ people smashed together- like a stand-still-less-impressive tour de france pack. 30+ people that I had been beating and now my lead from the swim was completely obliterated by the stinkin' train. Awesome.

Wait. Was I or wasn't I doing this race to vindicate myself after the flat tire on my last race? Well I guess that just wasn't meant to be. So finally the train was coming to an end so we start to move forward as it passes the right side of the road, just in time to look up and see all the olympic-distance men racers coming at us on the left side of the road! In case you don't remember, I was practically on the left side of the road, at the front. So all of a sudden it felt like I was a little bug swerving to miss the rocketeers coming at me the opposite direction. Did I mention they were mad rocketeers? How none of us had predicted that if there was 30+ people on one side of the train, there would probably be 30+ people on the OTHER side of the train waiting as well, I do not know. So anyway, I then preceeded to get passed by more and more cyclists as we came to the turn around point and back around. Although, I was surprised at the number- it was smaller than I expected it to be. I had talked to Lisa on the ride there about how hard she pushes herself-- whether it's an "I can do this all day" pace or a "okay this is painful but I can hold it for the next x number of miles" pace. She said she aims more for the latter so that's what I worked for this time around because she always kicks my trash. She caught up to me with about 3 miles left of the bike course instead in the first 3 miles so I knew that I was doing better than in the past.

So after making it to the end of the bike course and slowing down enough to dismount on the downslope of the steep hill into transition without completing biffing it- I tried to walk my bike more than run through the transition aisle to my spot but it was a steep enough grade that I couldn't stop the momentum well in my slick cycling shoes so I just went with it. I managed to get through the transition pretty quick and then headed down the transition aisle and then back up a hill to the main road again. I was tempted to walk up that hill but I just kept thinking, grandpa shuffle, grandpa shuffle, and made it up the hill. The run was on the same course as the bike, except instead of 6.2 miles before the turn around it was just 1.5 ish miles to the turn around point. I completely missed the 1st mile marker sign so when I looked at my watch and it said 11 min 30 sec I was thinking that my run was really sucking. But then I looked up and saw the turn around point not very far ahead and realized I had missed the mile marker somewhere back there. At the 2 mile mark I was at 17 minutes and 30 some odd seconds. So I was excited because that was definitely faster than any of my previous times. I figured that if I pushed it I could make it to the finish in about 10-11 minutes and beat my last 5k time by a 2 minutes or more.

I pushed harder at the end then I ever have in the past. I caught up to some random guy about 100 yards from the finish line and we raced in. At that point I couldn't really feel my legs and so there was a moment where I felt like I was gonna completely trip onto my face but managed to make it across without any drama. So I honestly was more relieved about that than anything else the first 30 seconds or so after finishing. I made it through the run in the 28 minute range but they haven't posted the splits on-line so I am unsure.

Supposedly the race organizers had signed a deal with the train-people so that there wouldn't be any trains during the race time. Somehow that got messed up and so there was the train. But so there wouldn't be any more drama, the race organizers decided to just go with finish times for the placings. I heard some people say that they took 5 minutes off of everyones finish times but I am unsure if they did or not. I don't really see the why they would, but my point is that my posted finish time was 1 hour 32 minutes and I don't remember the seconds. But if that was after they took 5 minutes off because of the train then including the train my time was 1 hour 37 minutes, etc. Either way, that means that I finished today's race about 15-20 minutes faster than my previous races. Yay!

It's amazing what some consistent training and a bike course without a giant hill can do for a girl. I found out when they posted the results that I really was the 2nd girl out of the water and I placed 3rd in my age group. Granted, there wasn't near as many people competing as there have been in the other triathlons, but my goal was to be in the top 50% and I beat that so I'm happy.

Okay, let's be honest, Scofield is my new favorite course.

Train or no Train.