St. George Triathlon = Banned for Life

Two years ago I participated in the St. George Triathlon. It is held on Mother's Day weekend in (surprise) St. George, Utah - Hurricane, actually. It was my first triathlon and it was gross. I was doing the sprint and we had to wait until the Olympic-distance racers had gone. It took a very long time - by the time we started it was almost 9:00 in the morning of what was going to be the hottest day of the year so far. The water was cold, I got kicked in the head and pushed under the water by the swimmers all around me. It freaked me out so much that I started hyperventilating and had to stop swimming and tread water for a few minutes. In treading water I turned around so that I was facing the shore and noticed several swimmers raising their hands. Nice men were coming over to them in kayaks and helping them back to shore. When I saw that, I almost started to cry because I wanted out of that water so bad. Suddenly a young man in a kayak was right next to me asking me if I was okay. I shook my head no because if I spoke I would cry. He had a very soothing voice - he told me I could do the whole swim backstroking (a new word I just made up) and I would make it. He silenced the voice in my head and I did the backstroke for the next 700 meters. Somewhere in the middle I threw up and apologized to the poor, poor swimmer next to me. (See? Gross.) Once I finally got out of the water, I spotted Brian in the crowd and walked (didn't run) over to him and simply said, "I puked." He reminded me that the race was still on and I needed to hurry.

The bike was fairly uneventful except for the one mile long uphill climb at the beginning. The run was on red sand and rocks with several hills. I stopped running at some point and couldn't remember why I decided to do the race in the first place. By the time I finished it was almost 11:00 in the morning and 95 degrees. GROSS. In the car on the way back to the hotel I cried and cried. It was over. I was alive. I'd done the whole thing.

Last weekend Brian did the same race. It was such a cold and windy (WINDY) day that the people who went before Brian were getting blown all over the water and half of them had to be pulled out. Brian knelt on the rocks in the cold water waiting for his turn to go... FOR 45 MINUTES. Then the race organizers canceled the swim (geniuses) and announced that it was time for the bike. Brian braved the wind on his bike all the way up that awful hill, got to the turn around and had a flat tire. He didn't believe my tales about the run on the sand and hills, so that was also miserable (add wind and cold instead of blazing heat). This is all second hand information because I ended up staying in our hotel room watching "Step It Up and Dance" (what the...?) with Bridget. (We were going to get a ride to Sand Hollow with the wife of Brian's friend who was also doing the triathlon, but he got pulled out of the water and called his wife to tell her not to come because it was gross.) In the photo you can kind of see Brian's number (243) on his left arm. He's in the pool at our hotel, not the Sand Hollow Reservoir.

So, St. George Triathlon, it's over. We're breaking up with you. We're done with not enough volunteers to save people in the water. We're over your silly one mile hill on the bike. And we're SO OVER the run on a non-trail with all the sand you can inhale. Goodbye forever.