Burley Triathlon 2014

We live a little over an hour away from Burley, Idaho where they hold the annual Spudman Triathlon.  It is a pretty popular event, and we had to sign up right away on January 1st when they opened registration.  ALL of Derrik's siblings and some of the spouses did the race, and that is what made it so fun!  Right when we signed up, we started looking into hotels, and they were already sold out for that weekend!!!  We found out that a lot of people camp right where the race takes place so that's what we did, with kids and all!  I think we all agreed the next morning that we would not do that again.  The night before I got maybe 20 minutes of sleep due to a thrashing toddler in between us on a blow up mattress!:)

 The race started at 7:00 a.m. and it was a little too chilly for my liking!  We were worried about jumping in freezing cold water, but the water was actually warmer than it was outside so we slid right in with no problems!  We went in waves, by age group.  Derrik and I were in the same age group and started at 7:10.  We got in the water to tread until they said go and then we were off!  We were told that if you went more to the middle of the river that there would be a better current so I headed there right away.  It wasn't a bad swim!  It took me 26 minutes to do a mile.

 We hopped out of the water and ran over to where all the bikes were set up.  I wish I had a picture, there were THOUSANDS of bikes!!! You had to make sure you made a mental note of where you had set up your bike the night before or you'd be lost!  It was such a fun atmosphere everyone was running and stripping out of their wet suits and getting to their bikes.  I took my time in the "transitions" so I could catch my breath a little.  I was so proud of myself after each leg of the race for even getting that far!  I think I was a little worried I'd even be able to finish!  We hopped on our bikes and road 25 miles.  There were some crazy fast riders out there!  I felt like I was going as fast as I could and then people would speed past me like I was on a Sunday stroll!  It took me an hour and thirty five minutes to ride that portion of the race.

 Then it was the killer!… A six mile run, and just to be cruel they started it out with a steep hill!  I have never seen so many tired people before! Ha ha.  I have done a lot of running races and I have never seen people run like this.  All along the trail people were jogging at walking pace, and a lot of people were walking too.  By the time you got to this point in the race, you were exhausted!!! It was a fun atmosphere, people all along the way were telling each other to keep it up!  There were people out there in their sixties and seventies doing this race, I couldn't believe it.

 Once I got to mile five and there was light at the end of the tunnel, I couldn't believe I did it!  It felt awesome!  It was so fun to cross the finish line with so many people there cheering you on!  There were people all along the way sitting in their front yards and they would spray you with hoses because it was so hot.  It was such a fun race, anyone thinking about doing it, should!!!! Derrik's parents were SO nice to come along with us to support us all… and to watch all of our kids while we raced!  Here I am with Elsie at the end with our participant medals:)