Cathi here. I liked the Ogden Triathlon more then the Echo Triathlon. It was prettier. The swim was mostly done on my back this time. I did backstroke for 95% of it. I would do about 100 strokes and then turn on my stomach to see where I was going, scope forward, and do breaststroke for a couple of stokes. Then back to my back. It seemed that the entire swim was with women in white swim caps all around me. We were running into each other left and right for most of the race, although it was much thicker for the first half. We were swimming in a counter clockwise triangle. It was very choppy water. Man! After we had passed the first big orange buoy in the water and were headed for the second, I thought the buoy in the middle was the one I turned around for. It was not and I had to keep on going. I liked how in this race they split up the competition into different colored swim caps. I was in the white cap category. It was easy to know when to start and which group you were in. Gordon was in the red swim cap category and he says he was the first red cap out of the water-pretty impressive. The swim was pretty good but tiring. 1000 yards. Maybe about 19 minutes.
One mistake I made on the transition was that I left the goggles around my neck and as I was leaving with my bike I noticed that my goggles were still on. I had to take my helmet off and take the goggles off because I knew they would bug me on the bike. Ooops. A guy from some Ogden newspaper was standing there asking people questions and he said to me, "With your slow and easy pace, you're sure to win" (ha ha ha). I laughed and kept on going.
The bike is never my favorite part. I don't know if it's because there are about 100 bikers that pass me like I'm standing still or what. I don't have a road bike and Gordon thinks that makes a huge difference. So many racers in a triathlon seem to be heavy duty bikers (fanatics) with the whole tight outfit, etc. I am just a chubby girl in my biker shorts (that don't look very good on me). So the whole bike is a little intimidating in the first place.
An interesting thing happened on the bike this time. I was riding close to the white line. We were riding around the Pineview Dam which is very pretty. I was cruising along at what must have been around 15 mph (Wow, that's fast, right??) All of a sudden I feel a big hit on my left leg. Someone ran into me on their bike. I cried out because it mostly shocked me. The guy that hit me fell off his bike and laid on the ground. I stopped and watched him for a minute, quite a bit up ahead. As he was getting up I kept on going. A guy that biked past me then said, "Don't worry, that was all him." I was wondering if the guy that got on his bike from the accident was going to cuss me out when he got near me again, but he never did. I was wondering if he was thinking, "Why do total amateurs do races like this?" So I finished up the bike at less then an hour for 15 miles. I was glad to be onto my specialty.
The run was very hilly and the second half was on a trail. The trail was very narrow so anytime you wanted to pass someone, you had to say, "On your left". Unlike on the bike I do the majority of the passing on the run. I probably passed about 15 people on the run. I felt good about it. There was one guy in front of me on the run who was wearing long black/white striped socks who was a teenager. The guy behind me nicknamed him "socks" and would say, "Let's go socks. Let's finish hard" (because our pace depended on him because we didn't want to pass). I don't like when on a run it's out and back and you can see near the finish as you are running out and wish you could just jump the fence or whatever and hop to the finish, and pretend like you did the whole thing. Oh well. I did 4 miles in about 35 minutes.
I was near dead by the end. I was so glad to be finished. I don't know if I will ever love triathlons. I like marathons better for some reason. For some reason it's a better sense of accomplishment. Gordon wants to increase to Olympic distance next year but I don't know if I'm "on board" for that. Overall a good race for me. Here are my timed results.
When I got past the finish line I forgot to stop my watch, but when I looked at it after about 30 seconds it said 2:00:05. So I just did it under 2 hours. The official results showed quite a bit faster. Gordon said it's messed up.
I passed a girl in a shirt that read "All you have to give is all you've got". That pretty much sums up the race for me.
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