Blood, Sweat, Tears, and MUUUDDDD!!

Can I just tell you how much fun I've had the past month+?!  Within that time I have participated in four completely different events.  One = a triathlon.  Two = volunteering for one of the most amazing cycling events in the West.  Three = a century.  Four = a 10k.

Now short stories for all.  Well, I'll try and keep them as short as I can. ;)  (If something is highlighted in green it means it's a link to another website, so feel free to click.)


Jordanelle Sprint Triathlon - A total fluke and a super sweet one!
My boss, who is also my next door neighbor, and his buddy had been taunting me for over a months time that I needed to do a triathlon with them.  I told them I hadn't been training and that I didn't want to spend money on it, so I wasn't going to do it.  The week before the tri, my parents, myself, and my boss were talking on the driveway and Nate (my boss) said to my mom, "Come on Sue, just rent a wetsuit for Lydia!  We'll call this a [insert name of the website I work for] sponsored triathlon!"  So I laughed and thought nothing of it.

Turns out when I got to work in the morning, I checked my e-mail, and there was a "Welcome to the Jordanelle Triathlon!" e-mail in my inbox!  Other than me laughing, the first thing that came out of my mouth was, "Are you kidding me?!  NATE!"  So, I wasn't about to complain!  A free triathlon?!  Yes please!

So I rented a wetsuit and all in all, I probably only trained for about 5 days or less.

The race day came and it couldn't haven't been any more beautiful!  The water was almost 80°!  Moving on.

• The swim was the best I had ever done and it was actually really fun...besides my goggles fogging up rendering me almost blind.
• The cycling was horrible for part of the ride because I got a massive headache.  The thought of my pituitary tumor growing actually came to mind and I was afraid I needed to stop so my brain didn't explode...and this was all while going uphill.  Then a quick prayer and downhill made me forget about it.  I just wish all of you could have experienced going downhill at 36.2 MPH.  It's glorious...but almost hitting a deer is not.
• The run was good.  Nothing out of the blue.

Want to know the icing on the cake?!  I got 4th place in my age division!  Not bad for only training for 5 days.  Just goes to show I can do what I put my mind to.  Now, had I not dinked around during one of the transitions so I could find my watch, I totally would have gotten 3rd without a doubt.  Next time I'm not going to waste any precious seconds! 


LOTOJA!!! - Don't even get me started. 
I want to do this race so so bad, especially after seeing how beautiful the course is!  Anyone want to relay with me next year?!

I was an official "course marshall" for the race.  Sounds pretty legit, right?!  I mostly just told the cyclists where to go after their feed zone, stopped traffic, sacrificed my body for the sake of the riders (I almost go hit by like 5 cars and I'm talking by inches, INCHES!), picked up feed bags, and yelled words of encouragement.  It was superfluously fabulous.

I also saw the largest man on the hugest bike I will ever see in my life!  No joke.  It was ridiculous.  His top tube was seriously at my mid-abdomen and the saddle was about at my shoulder.  He rode about 2' away from me, so I'm not over exaggerating.  Come to find out that it was Shawn Bradley!!  Just imagine a 7'6" man on a bike.  Breath taking.  He was riding a 82cm custom Trek road bike.  If you don't know how big that is, my bike is 47cm and an average male's is about 55-60cm.  The largest Trek makes, I believe, is 64cm.  So yeah, 82cm?!?!  Ridiculous.


Wonder Woman Century - 100 miles of pure bliss!
Oh, the glories of cycling!  This is the type of first cycling event I wanted to do.  It wasn't too big and it was all women!  I found out about this when I rented my wetsuit for the tri, but I wasn't quite sure about it.  Once again, I didn't train as much as I should have, so I was a little hesitant to do it.  The cost to do 100 miles was exactly the same as doing 70, so the extra 30 miles was the deal breaker.  I guess the saying "Go big or go home" came into play.  Plus, once again, if I thought I could do it, I would.  So I signed up for it the week of the race.

In the fewest amount of words: It. Was. Aaaawesome!

• I was by myself for probably 80% of the ride, which was nice because I had plenty of thinking time. 
• When I was going down a steep hill I looked to see what my speed was (expecting to see about 36+) and it was a wonderful 41.2 MPH!!!  I "Wooooo-hhhhhhoooooooo!"ed with excitement.  Then came the tears...from the wind blowing past my eyes.
• Riding through canyons is SO fun!
• I wanted to finish around 7 hours and I beat it....by 17 seconds!  6 hours, 59 minutes, and 43 seconds was the end time
• While "competing" with 80+ women, I came in 30th.  Not fabulous.  Not great.  But considering I only trained for almost 3 weeks, not bad!

Once I was finished, I changed out of my Lycra and drove 4 ½ hours to Las Vegas.

And I wasn't sore at all!



The Dirty Dash 10k - I never thought I would love mud so much!
Now this is probably the funnest 10k anyone could ever do!  I signed up for this one probably sometime in August, so I was for sure planning on doing it.  From looking at the little course drawing they had, for some reason I thought it was going to be all mud...not until 7am the morning of the race did I realize I was running a 10k, aka 6.2 miles.  So in other words, there is no way it was going to be all mud!  Duh!

There are so many amazing things about this race.  Here are a few:

• It was the largest first year event in the history of Utah.  They closed registration after 1000 people, opened it again, closed it after 2000, opened it again, and eventually there was 4000-5000 people there for the race!  They had to open an afternoon event because it was so huge!
• A good portion of the money went to charity, so that's super sweet!
• I lost my shoe in the mud within the first minute of the race.  "She lost her shoe!" was heard as I was shoving my muddy foot back into my shoe.
• While jumping over the first giant bail of hay, I cleared it with ease, but this was not so for the second bail.  My footing wasn't secure and I fell on my knees on the hay.  Scratches galore and blood trickled down my leg.
• I almost lost my shoe again before jumping over the climbing walls.
• While one leg was mid-shin deep in mud and the other was knee deep, I finally got one leg out with my shoe, took off my shoe, worked the other leg out, took that shoe off, and trudged up the mud hill with no shoes.  (It took me about 3 minutes to get out.)
• I gagged while running in very stinking marshland...I swear it was poop and not mud.
• I almost lost my shoe again when one leg was again knee deep in watery mud and the other was hip deep.
• The "World's Largest Slip'n'Slide" was amazing.  (At the end I decided I wanted to slide directly into the mud, so I stood up, ran, slid off the slide into the mud, and almost took out a women.  We both laughed.)
• And then I had to swim/crawl through a giant watery mud bath.

This was one of the best events I've done.  They're doing a 5k version in the Spring of next year so I'm totally doing that.  Rather than meaning less running, I'm sure it means more mud!!  Yeah yeah!
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So there you have it.  One more event to come; the Halloween Half Marathon!  That is in two weeks and collectively I have run a grand total of 11 miles this month.  So much for my saying of "preparation is key!"  This seems to be there summer of non-preparation.  But hey, I've done what I wanted in good times, so I plan on doing decent for this half.  We shall see in a couple weeks!

Yeah, that wasn't sort at all!!  Ooops.