What's in a name?

A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.
I beg to differ when it comes to a triathlete.
Mathlete, Craftlete, Sasslete
None of these names can start to compete
With the glorious moniker of Triathlete

On Saturday, August 23, Mom Covey and I competed in our first (and quite possibly last) Triathlon. It was at the Jordanelle Reservoir Park near Heber, UT. We were proud to finish. (I'm almost prouder of the poem. Almost)

We started the race by receiving our numbers to identify us from all the other triathletes. I was #208.

The S should denote Superwoman after what we accomplished (1/2 mile swim, 13 mile bike, 3 mile run) but instead denotes the type of race we participated in - a Sprint triathlon. The other leg letter option was O denoting Olympic triathlon distance which is twice everything in a sprint. The leg number denoted the triathlete's age by December 31, 2008. So, for a day, I was 28. December 14 will make it official again. It was so cool to ride past people and see whether they had brain damage or not (by committing to do an Olympic Triathlon) and how old they were. We saw a 76 year old gentleman. It was inspiring.

A pre-race picture. We were going to do the whole race holding baby Johnny above our heads while he was in his car seat, but we thought that would be distracting to other triathletes. Maybe next time, dude.

Five minutes before race time, we're ready to get in the water. These swim caps and wet suits are guaranteed to knock 30 seconds off your swim time. Talk about amazing.

We are in the water right by the red TYR floating marker. Mom Covey is adjusting her goggles and I am treading water just to the left of her with one man in blue in front of me. We were psyching ourselves up at this point, making our game plan to swim straight lines. Our heat was the last to start and we had watched plenty of people swimming way more than they should have because they didn't sight on a landmark. The best part of the swim was that I only swallowed one mouthful of lake water. It could have been much worse.

Yay for the half mile swim being over! We finished in the lower end of our heat but were very happy to finish.

Mom looking ready to ride after the transition from swim to bike. Mom was amazing. She made sure we had sleek road bikes for race day. They made such a difference. We raced the course last week to get ready on mountain bikes and the contrast from mountain to road bike is unbelievable. Shout out to Fezzari Racing Design and Karen for sponsoring us in the bike department.

This is me breaking the rules in the transition area. Typical, I know. I didn't realize no riding the bikes in the transition area, but since 900 triathletes had already gone before us (we were the last heat to start) I don't think the race official was too worried when she gave me the warning.

Our only incident was my chain popping off while switching gears going up the one climb. I'm proud to say I popped it back on without too much grief and caught back up to mom. She was a great rider, setting the perfect pace for us. After the bike ride, we dropped off our bikes to the same transition area and took off for the 3 mile run. Mom was amazingly willing to race at my pace - I'll just refer to the 3 mile run as the 1.5 mile run/1.5 mile walk. The good thing is that I was running whenever anyone was taking pictures, so my true confession can never be corroborated, but such it was - half and half. A finish line has never looked so good.

Our champion chearleaders who carried around all the gear and probably put more miles in than our run going back and forth to all of the sites to cheer us on. Thanks, family. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. The only injury of the entire event was a pulled shoulder muscle for Johnny because he was willing to cart everything around. Thanks for the sacrifice, dude.

It was such a great day. Congratulations, us! We are proud to call ourselves Triathletes!