Ice Breaker Triathlon Race Report!

It's been a little over a week and a lot has happened!  I competed in the Ice Breaker Triathlon in American Fork last Saturday and to my surprise beat last year's time by almost 5 MINUTES!  I couldn't believe it!  I think I'll give all the details so I can come back later and reminisce!  We took all the kids Saturday morning (stayed Friday night at Gpa. and Gma. Jeffs) and within 15 minutes of arriving Brendon was already asking when we were leaving....Ugh!!! Camilla and I made a plan that she would keep track of my times during each leg and yell them out to me as I passed by her.  It seemed like a good plan, but didn't end up working out too well.  After a bunch of announcements it was time to get in the water.  Oh, hold on. Back track.  There were a couple instances where I could have been offended but just laughed it off.  At packet pickup one of the guys doing body marking asked me what number I would be on the swim.  300 meters in 4:59 or less would be marked with a "0" on their left hand,  5:00-5:59 would be marked a "1" and so on and so forth up to the number 5.  responded that Iwas a "1" (even though I can swim it in less time, ended up swimming it in 4:42).  He looked at me funny and asked, "you think you're fast?"  I responded that I figured I'd be able to keep up in that category.  He smirked a little and marked my hand with a "1".  I know what he was thinking.   I'm not starting new paragraphs.  Just one long stream of thought here...  The swim went ok.  I thought I had started early enough.  Nope!  I should have gone with the first ten people as I was the ninth fastest time in the pool on the day!  Sounds like I'm bragging.  Maybe I am.  I'm proud of how my swimming has come along.  I felt pretty good coming out of the pool and into the transition area.  Camilla was nowhere to be seen by the time I had my gear on and was onto the bike.  Oh well.  The bike was a beast!  I'll never get over the pain of going up those two hills right at the beginning and then on the second loop. Ugh!!!  Regardless, I was feeling pretty good on the first lap and realized that I was on pace to beat last year's bike time so I kept pushing.  The second funny experience happened at the end of the second loop where you turn to head into transition.  A course official actually tried to stop me as I turned in,  saying that I needed to do another loop.  I smiled and kindly informed her that I had indeed done two loops.  She looked puzzled, but let me by.  I guess a short pudgy guy shouldn't be able to hang with people who look like athletes.  Neener, neener!  T2 was quick and easy.  Probably my best transition to date.  Those yanks shoe laces are the bomb!  I was out onto the run course in right around a minute.  The run course has that same dang hill, but I refused to walk any of it this time.  Instead, I put my head down, shortened my stride and motored up it.  Oh, I forgot to mention that Camilla caught up to me as I exited T2.  She shouted to me that my time was 40:12 up to that point.  I remember thinking to myself that I could just sandbag it and still beat my time from last year by 30-40 seconds.  That thought didn't last very long when the thought of my buddy, John Anderson, challenging me to go sub 1:05.  I picked up the pace.   I ran hard.  For me anyway.  At about the 2 mile mark two gentleman passed me at maybe a 30 second faster pace that me.  I tried to match their pace but couldn't.  I let them go.  At the end of the run I gave it all I had and finished in 1:04:39!  I was absolutely amazed that I had beat last year's time by such a margin.  After the official results were posted I was very satisfied with most of this triathlon.  I was ninth overall out of the water and 11th overall on the bike!  That's out of just under 300 people competing! The run is another story.  I actually ran my fastest 5k in a sprint triathlon but it was still slower than 50-60 people and that alone dropped me to 5th place in my age group.  Time to put in some more speed work on my feet and drop some more weight!  I'll get there!