I’m still training.  Life is full of adventure though.  Training for an Ironman and training as intensively as I have been puts a lot of stress on my family.  There is already very little time for training, so when it comes down to spending a little time with my precious family or blog, I have to say I choose my family.

Added to this however is another little adventure.  Four weeks ago my wife’s good friend from Spain (who moved here, got married, and lives in Vernal) when into a premature labor while being pregnant with twins at 29 weeks.  They life-flighted her from Vernal to Salt Lake and had to stop the labor three times before releasing her from the hospital.  She is required to be on bed-rest as long as possible to prevent the babies from coming soon.  Also, there is still a very likely chance the babies will be born prematurely and will require a stay in the NICU.  Because there is no NICU in Vernal she needs to stay down in the valley, so she’s staying with us!

We have donated our bed to her and my wife and I are sleeping on an air mattress.  My wife spends a lot of time making sure she gets sufficient food and liquids, as well as staying comfortable.  Along with our two crazy kids, my wife puts up with a lot during the day.  I try my best to clean the house and give her a break when I get home.  Hopefully she gets a brief chance to workout too.  This means I’m usually putting the kids to bed by myself.  Needless to say, this leaves little time to blog.

I will still do my best to update you (less than two months until taper!!) and fulfill my responsibilities for my sponsors.  If you haven’t had a chance, check them out on my sponsor’s page.  Also, look forward to our give-aways at the end of this month.

I’m very excited to announce the first of many monthly give-aways.  This is how it will work – at the end of each month every person who is subscribed to my website will have one entry to a random drawing to win one the give-aways from my sponsors.  Winners will be picked first thing on the first day of the month and announced in the Comments section of the post (like this one).  Winners will also be emailed.

If you’re not subscribed yet, you can do it right here:

Question

So, I want to know if one single person should win all of the items or if each item should be given away to multiple winners (for example, should one person receive all three items being given away this month, or should 3 different people win the items – one would receive the Six Nutrition sample, another the items from Timpanogos Cyclery, and another the Solase gift certificate)?  Please post comments to help me decide!

Double Your Chances, Quadruple Your Chances

Double your entries by inviting others to subscribe to my website.  Each person you invite (that subscribes) will double your entries.  So, if you refer 1 person, you now have 2 entries; refer 2 and it doubles again to 4; refer a 3rd and it doubles again to 8!!!

Just send them to my Contact page or here, where they can subscribe.  You will need to email me and tell me who (what email address) you referred.  Remember that each month you will start back with one entry for yourself… but continue to refer others and your chances will increase.

What’s Being Given Away

Six Nutrition

Six Nutrition is an amazing company that is making an amazing product.  This is one of the very best multivitamins made just for men.  You will receive a 2-week trial!

Timpanogos Cyclery

Timpanogos Cyclery is a sweet bike shop in Pleasant Grove.  You will receive a set of Lizard Skins DSP bar tape (color of your choice), redeemable at Timpanogos Cyclery!

Solase Massage and Oxygen Bar

Solase not only has great massage therapists, they have top of the line massage chairs and an oxygen bar to invigorate your mind and increase your recovery.  You will receive 30 minutes use of the massage chair and 20 minutes use of the oxygen bar!

Firstly I want to recommend that everyone subscribe to receive email notification when I publish a post.  This will benefit you in two ways: You’ll be the first to read my (hopefully) awesome post and you’ll also be entered each month into a drawing to receive product/gift certificates from some of my sponsors.  These drawings will take place at the end of each month.  Your chances are really good right now, so sign up!

Secondly I want to thank my amazing cousin, Brandon Sunday, with Sunday Ventures, who has helped me re-design the website.  I know a few things about websites and their organization (I build my previous site on wordpress.com), but he is the mastermind behind designing this site.  He’s the one who did all of the dirty work to makes sure things are crystal clean.  I would recommend his services to anyone!  He also offers hosting (which I now use for this site) at an amazing price.

”  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.  ”

- Theodore Roosevelt

Functional Threshold Power on Bike

A year ago Jerom Thurston told me on Facebook that on my birthday I was supposed to run the number miles I was turning that day (27).  It was unrealistic at the time, but it left an impression.  I thought that it would be realistic this year to run 28 miles on the 28th of December for my 28th birthday.  It might actually fit into my training plan well because it would be 4 months out from my Ironman and since I’ve never run a marathon, and don’t plan to run more than about 20 miles as my longest run leading up to the race, then it would be cool to run a slow 28 miles that day.

That wouldn’t happen however.  Late in October I sustained a minor injury in my foot that kept me from running for most of November.  If I tried to get up to 28 miles by the end of December I’d probably injury myself again.  The long run was replaced by my monthly FTP (Functional Threshold Power) test.  This is an all out 2×20 minute test done on the bike.  You can read more about it on one of my previous posts: Fatigue is Voluntary.

Even though this test is absolutely painful I looked forward to seeing my progress.  Because of the foot injury I did not do this test at the end of November.  I was hoping for about an increase in 5 watts per month.  For a lot of people that is a very good improvement.  My FTP at the end of October was 235, so I was looking to get up near 245.  After the two 20 minutes sessions of incredible suffering (with an easy 5 minute spin in between), I had set my new record – 250 watts for the first session and 249 for the second!  To share with you how intense this workout is, my second 20 minute set I averaged a heart rate of 180 bpm (finishing somewhere around 194 bpm).  Besides just increasing my FTP I also had another amazing improvement.  My last test of 235 watts was an average from a 240 watt session and a 230 watt session.  The decrease between the sessions was 10 watts, this time it was only 1 watt!

I’m looking forward to even more improvement in the near future!

Registered for Ironman St George

Later in the day I finally took it upon myself to get registered for the main event that I’m training for.  $630!!!  Wow, that is the most expensive race I’ve ever registered for.  I have until the beginning of February to get some more sponsors so that I can pay back my credit card.  Why then should I register now?  Because, by registering for the event by the end of the year I will be entered in a sweepstakes for participants to win free airfare for two to the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii – just what I’m going to need.

Swim Time Trial

My great birthday must have carried over a bit into today because I had an a great 1000 meter time trial at 5:30am.  Each month I do this test as well and my times have been dropping steadily.  Today it dropped from last month’s 15:00 to 14:49!

Fishbowl Paid Back Zion’s

The final great event from the day was that the company that I work for, Fishbowl Inventory, paid back a million dollar loan from Zion’s Bank.  If you want all of the details you can read an article about it HERE.  It is really cool though.  Fishbowl’s majority owner (and silent owner) wanted his money out of the company at the end of last year.  We were forced into looking for potential investors, but worried that our culture would be slaughtered if that happened.  Through some miracles we were able to obtain a loan from Zion’s Bank.  The wonderful thing about this is that we would be buying back our own company.  A large portion of the company will be given as stock to the employees.  What company does that for their employees!

The loan was established in May of this year.  The loan had six-months of no interest and would be paid off over seven years.  We worked extra hard though so that today, when the initial principal payment was due, we would pay back the entire loan!  It was such a big deal that we had news paper reporters here and KSL here.  You can actually see the story on KSL tonight at 6pm (short version) and at 10 pm (long version).  It’s a cool example of getting out of debt early when you have the means to.

Update: Here is the KSL Video.

The goal of this test is to find out the heart rate and speed/power at which my lactic acid is building up too fast to handle.  I’ll explain this more in just a second.  This is the level at which you want to race at for a long period of time (say, an Ironman!).  Many people use the “Lactate Threshold” test to determine this.  This would be a test where, either on the bike or run, they would ramp up your power or speed in steps and test your blood as they ramp up.  Once the lactate content reaches 3-4 mmol/L, then you’ve reached your threshold.  Above this would be anaerobic and below this point would be aerobic.

The problem with the test is in 2 parts.  First, 3-4 mmol/L is not completely ambiguous, but the lactate amount can vary slightly for each person at threshold.  Meaning, one person’s threshold could be more mmol/L than another’s, depending on how quickly one’s body is able to get rid of the lactate buildup.  The second is that depending on how fast your ramp up the test you can reach this content level at different heart rate points.  So, the Lactate Balance Point test solves this problem.

The Lactate Balance Point is the point at which your body can no longer get rid of lactate as fast as it is building up.  I’ll explain the test by sharing my experience with it.  The first day I did the bike test.  After doing a warm up, my coach ramped up the resistance to get my heart rate up to 140-150.  After a few minutes he pricked my finger and tested the blood with a blood lactate test meter.  We also recorded the power on both his Computrainer and my Quarq, as well as the heart rate.  He then ramped up the power again so that my heart rate was around 160.  We wanted to make sure that I was building up more lactate than I could get rid of.  We tested the blood again.  It was plenty high.

We then brought the power down and my heart rate to about 130.  We then tested incrementally as we stepped up every 5 watts or so for 3 minutes and then tested the blood.  Because the lactate level had been very high a few moments earlier, it was falling as my body got rid of it.  As I slowly increased my power again we were looking for the moment when the lactate stopped dropping and started to increase.  This would be the point at which my body could no longer get rid of lactate and instead it was building up.  For me it was 145 bpm.  I wont share my watts, but I’ll let you know that it was about 15 watts lower than I would like to be by the time Ironman rolls around.  I’m hoping I have enough time to make that improvement.  Another hope is that outdoors my balance point (same heart rate) will actually be 10 watts higher.  I’ll be testing this outdoors in the near future to see where my outdoor watts are with this heart rate.

The next day I did the same sort of test, but on a treadmill.  We had initially thought that my balance point would be a slightly highly heart rate (as most thresholds on the run are at a higher heart rate than the bike), however, mine was also at 145 bpm.  I was only about 15 seconds/mile slower than my goal by Ironman, but I’ve got to remember that running off the bike always takes its toll and that I should aim to improve by about 45 seconds instead.

This information is coming in very handy as we plan my training over the next few months and as I check to see what kind of pacing I’ll be able to hold for Ironman.  I recommend this type of test to anyone that is training for longer distance events and wants to make sure their pacing is as fast as possible, while being controlled.  I will do this test again near the end of march to get my final heart rates, power, and speed that I’ll use in Ironman.  Also, a big THANKS to my coach, Adam Weaver, for doing such an amazing job with the test.

After watching the Ironman, I watched another YouTube video a friend had shared with me.  This was, in some ways, more inspirational.  This video is about a young man who was born without a leg.  He has overcome the doubt that others have tried to put in his mind and eventually won the NCAA Wrestling National Championship.  I wrestling all through high school and feel that it provided me with a great mental base and strong work habits that have helped in triathlon.  I’m sure you’ll find some of your own inspiration points from this video, but I’ve listed some of mine below.  (Watch the video in its entirety to get everything out of it)

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

The first thing I loved was said at the beginning by Jay Leno: “Some people spend their entire lives wishing for amazing things they’ll never get.  Others just focus on doing amazing things with whatever they have.”  There are so many people out there with so much talent and they waste it.  I feel that those who use what they have are given more by our Heavenly Father so that they can do even more than they could have otherwise.  I hope I can do amazing things with what I have.

I loved how Anthony talked about perseverance.  We have so many struggles and trials in our lives.  It is easy for us to give up.  His mother helped motivate him to never give up.  As a child and teenager my mother too always reminded me of my perseverance.  This motivated me to never give up.  My new support team of my wife and kids now inspire me to never give up and even when stress is overwhelming and the work load is tough, I’ll make it through!

Finally, I loved his ending message, a poem that he wrote:

“Every soul who comes to earth
with a leg or two at birth
must wrestle his opponents knowing it’s not what is,
it’s what can be that measures worth.
Make it hard, just make it possible
and through pain I’ll not complain.
My spirit is unconquerable,
fearless I will face each foe, for I know I am capable.
I don’t care what’s probable,
through blood, sweat, and tears, I am unstoppable.”

This will be my first Iron-distance triathlon and I am thrilled!  I am making the jump to long distance racing.  I am racing Ironman St George with the intention and goal of qualifying for the Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii.  It will take a lot of precise preparation to qualify for Kona on my first Ironman attempt.  I’m putting all my chips in though.  I’ve evaluated my plan for the event many times and come up with a finishing time that is very feasible for me and would place me in a qualifying position.  My training thus far has gone so well that I feel comfortable in setting a secondary goal of winning my age group (25-29) and place in the top 25 overall (including Pros).

I am so excited about this as triathlon is my passion.  I have always had the dream of qualifying for the Hawaii Ironman and now is my chance.  I’d like to explain in a little further detail what resources I’m pooling from to make this dream come true:

Past Experience

I’ve competed at a very high level in shorter distance triathlon, having raced at four different national championship events and qualified for two world championships.  I raced at one of those and finished as the 10th American (Australia, 2009).  This experience in shorter distances helps give me the confidence of excelling at longer triathlons, as long as I can put in the time.

I’ve also managed a triathlon store for two years and interacted with many athletes who have competed in iron-distance events.  I’ve tried to gain a little knowledge from them.  I’ve spoken with many who have raced in St George and have pinpointed important tactics to implement.

I have also raced with and trained with many high level coaches and athletes who have shared wisdom that I have implemented throughout my triathlon career.  Much of that is applicable to Ironman racing.

Support

The most important resource however, is my family.  I’ve tried to always keep my family as the top priority even when my triathlon endeavors get intense.  My wife has always been there to encourage me and support me.  She makes so many sacrifices for me!

When we were first married we came to the conclusion that I would not be racing Ironman until we had kids in their teens or even out of the house.  I had accepted this.  A year and a half ago, however, while on a bike ride with my wife, she told me, “You can do the Ironman in Hawaii if you want.”  I had to make sure she understood that I’d have to do another Ironman just to get there.  We’ve realized with the birth of our second child that (1) if I’m going to do an Ironman in the near future, it better be now and (2) to make sure that my family stays as my first priority, I’m going to have to find more time so that my family does not suffer.

Time

To successfully complete an Ironman, one could get away with 10-15 hours of training per week.  For me to reach the goals and dreams that I have, and to not have regrets, I need to train 20-30 hours per week.  This is practically impossible with a family and full time job.  I am very lucky to work for a company that cares more about its employees than money.  I arranged a meeting with the CEO, President, and several managers that oversee my position to share with them the dream that I have.  They were very understanding and excited to help me.  They’ve approved me to work just 3/4 time so that I can put more time into training.

Because of Fishbowl‘s willingness to not only provide me with an amazing job with the best company in the world, but also so freely support me in this endeavor, I’ve listed them as a sponsor.  Just as proof of how amazing the leadership and atmosphere is at Fishbowl, here is an article in the Deseret News, written by our CEO, David Williams, titled: “People First, Profits Second Generates Empowerment“.  In case you don’t know, Fishbowl makes inventory management software.  Here is Fishbowl Inventory in a Nutshell.

Coach

This is the first time I’ve had an official coach.  Most of my past training has been something along these lines: swim, bike, and run when you can.  With my determined goals and the sacrifices I was making at home and at work I didn’t want to have any regrets that I had not prepared correctly.  For this same reason, it was important for me to have a coach that I could trust and knew how to train me.  I chose a coach out of Colorado named Adam Weaver.  I have worked with him before as an athlete interaction and know that he is a very successful triathlete as well as a coach.  It helps that he has raced in Kona twice before and qualified one of those times at Ironman St George.  He knows the courses I will be racing on.  I love his style of coaching and we are seeing amazing results so far!  (His time is limited, but I’d love to talk more with anyone who is interested in having him as a coach, whether a sprint distance athlete or an iron-distance athlete).

I also have the added benefit of having additional coaches to contribute to my main plan.  Spencer Woolston is a phenomenal triathlete that had the fastest bike split at Ironman St George last year.  He has helped Adam and I develop some bike specific training tactics that will help to catapult my biking ability.  Diane Peterson is coaching my masters swim class and have given me individual attention to get me where I need to be for Ironman.

Gear

I am very blessed to have the racing gear that I have.  Over the last several years I’ve been able to get great deals on equipment by working at PowerTri, as well as receiving sponsorship from Suunto, Scott, and Zipp/SRAM.  Because of this I have some of the best gear on the planet.  No, really, you can look at My Gear page.

My bike, helmet, and wheels are all very aerodynamic, but that is only part of what I’m so excited about.  One of the most important pieces of equipment that I have is my power meter!  I have a Quarq power meter that is built into my SRAM crank.  This communicates with my cycling computer to tell me how many watts I’m putting out.  This allows my training to be very precise.  I’m able to track my exact improvement over time.  I’m also able to control my effort on race day to a level that I know I can handle and be able to subsequently run a fast marathon.

Exercise Facility

Another reason why Fishbowl is so great is that we recently built a fitness room.  It was built by contributions to the CAM Foundation and will be used to help teach underprivileged about health and wellness.  It has three treadmills, two recumbent bikes, an elliptical, and a extensive weight machine.  This is a perfect environment for me to train in.  I do almost all of my training here as I can do it right before or after work.  The winter is going to be long and cold so I’m grateful to have easy access to a treadmill and a place to have my bike trainer (and bike).  For those days when I can get outside to run I will have several options as Fishbowl is right next to the Murdock Canal and the Bonneville Shoreline trail.

Sponsors

As I mentioned early, I would not have the amazing equipment that I do without the support from sponsors.  I am very grateful for everyone who has ever pitched in or helped in the past (especially for my travels to Australia in 2009).  I have also never been putting forth the time, effort, and sacrifice that I am now and need additional support through financial sponsors.  Registration alone for Ironman events is very expensive.  Additional costs come from travel, lodging, and added nutrition.  These all come at a time when I’m cutting work to chase after my triathlon dreams.  If you are interested in sponsoring me, please contact me.

The race has a 5k and a 1/2 marathon that runs around the top of Suncrest (the mountain dividing Salt Lake Valley and Utah Valley).  I had run up the north side of the mountain in the Rivalry Relay and really enjoyed the area.  This race would partly be on trail and definitely not flat (but at the same time not straight up hill).  Here is the map of the course.  I knew I was not ready for a 1/2 marathon so I opted for the 5k.  I hadn’t run since the relay so I got in a short run Friday morning and hoped that would be good enough for the race the next day.

Race Morning

Our 2-month old baby was not doing well because of acid reflux so my wife and family stayed home.  I was doing the race on a whim, so my goal was to get it done, hopefully grab an award, and then head home.

Because half of the run would be off-road and maybe slightly muddy I didn’t want to wear my Saucony Type A4s.  They half holes along the bottom.  So I wore my favorite pair of training shoes: the Saucony Kinvara.

I showed up plenty early and realized once again that the prep time for a running race is minimal compared to that of a triathlon.  I had plenty of time.  I got a good warm up and noticed someone who might be my main competitor.  He looked like a strong runner and had an Army jacket on.  I guess I was imagining that all he did for a living was workout, so he had good chances of being a good runner.  At every race I size people up and many times I don’t do a good job.

About 20-30 minutes before the race I took my First Endurance PreRace and stayed lose, waited for the race to begin.

Gun Fires!

Ok, so the gun didn’t fire, they actually had a Fire Truck start the race with a loud siren.  I took off down the hill and was surprised to find myself in 1st.  Usually there is some crazy kid who doesn’t know what he is doing that sprints off for the first 100 yards and then starts heaving.  Maybe I was that guy?

After a few hundred more yards we went down another steep hill and someone had now caught up with me and was just behind me.  Then… my shoe lace started to come untied!  I had triple knotted them!  If it had been later in the race I wouldn’t have worried about it, but only 1/4 mile into the race… I had to retie it.  I pulled off to the right a little and slowed down just enough to make my friend, sure enough the Army guy, pass me and feel that I couldn’t handle the pace (in case he didn’t realize that my shoe had come untied).  This would hopefully give him a false sense of control and maybe get lax enough that I could catch him again.

My hands stumbled as I tried to retie the shoe.  In my haste I decided to just double tie the laces.  I was able to get going again before any one caught up.  Actually, there was a huge gap!  I guess that it was going to be just a race between me and the Army guy (come to find out later that he had won the race the year before).  Over the next 1/4 mile I started to gain ground again on the leader and was within about 15 yards when… yup, my shoe lace came untied again!  This time I took the time to triple tie it.

Soon after, the course diverted onto a trail that wound between bushes and went uphill.  I could not see the leader anymore and thought maybe I was loosing ground on him.  All of a sudden the trail opened wide up and I could see the leader about 15 seconds ahead of me.  I just needed to take a little out of him at a time.

The trail curved in and out of the side of the mountain.  I would find spots to mark the leaders location and time the gap to myself.  Over the next mile I didn’t really make up much time.  I was feeling the extra effort that I put in to try to make up ground from having to tie my shoes.  I was hoping that he would not look and see how close I was.  However, on one the last curves before we got back on pavement, with about a mile left, he did see me.  I don’t know if he started running faster, but I started to fade.  As we got onto the pavement I noticed that my split had increased by 5-10 seconds.

There was one more hill to go up before a bit of winding and then a very steep descent to the finish.  I could hardly make it up the hill.  My lack of running over the last two weeks, as well as playing catch up earlier, had caught up to me.  Once we started to wind through a neighborhood before the descent I lost sight of the leader and knew I wouldn’t catch him.  I tried to run strong to the finish, but there was little motivating me to go all out, considering there was no one even close behind us.

I finished just over a minute behind the winner and then waited three more minutes for third place.

So, the question is, if I didn’t have my shoe laces come untied twice, who I have won?  The answer is no.  I may have been closer, but on that day I’m sure the other athlete was better.  He was stronger late in the race and I wasn’t.  This just puts fuel on my fire to train better, more consistently, and become faster.

Background

My good friend, Rus Southwick, is one of the race directors for this event.  It is really cool.  It is a 6 person running relay that starts at the University of Utah and travels 64 miles down to Brigham Young University.  Each person takes a turn running until you’ve rotated through and run 3 times.  The race would be held on August 27 (I know, a while ago).

Training

At the beginning of July I had been organizing the health and wellness program at Fishbowl Inventory (my current employment).  As details of this program progressed it seemed like it would be fun to have a group do some sort of athletic event.  Timing was perfect to participate in the Rivalry Relay.  It was also a very manageable event for beginner runners.  We thought we could put together one or two teams.  As the momentum got moving we had enough interest for four teams!!  There were so many people that wanted to get active and they just needed something to push them.  For me it was very similar, I had spent some time focusing on family and preparing for the birth of our second son that I was not very active.  I wanted to get back into things.  This was the spark!

With less than two months till the event, training preparation was not optimal.  I prepared a training plan for all of the members of the team, but I think only a few followed.  Eventually we would narrow the teams down to just three (which is still amazing).  We had one team that we thought could compete for the overall title (named “The Fast Fishbowlers”) and then two others that were evenly split to compete against each other.  We were so excited for the event that Fishbowl ended up sponsoring it and hosting one of the exchange points.  You can read a fun blog post about this by Fishbowl’s amazing copywriter, entitled “Fishbowl Runs More Than Inventory Software.”

One final hiccup worth mentioning came three days before the event when one of my team members (The Fast Fishbowlers) twisted his knee playing football and we needed a quick replacement (really, we needed one asap and he had to be quick otherwise we may not have a chance of winning).  After calling several friends to take the spot, my cousin was available.  He was a high school cross-country star who hadn’t run much in the last year while at college, but he would do just fine.

Race Day, Leg 1

Our team was in the last group to start (they had groups of teams leaving every 30 minutes, starting with the teams that had estimated their times to be the slowest, followed by faster teams).  I would be the number three runner (running the 3rd, 9th, and 15th legs).  This runner had the most hills and the furthest distance to run.  Yay!

Our first two runners did amazing and as I took our baton we found ourselves in second place, however, we were 6-minutes behind first place!  I had a lot of work to do over the next 4.9 miles.  I took off at a blistering pace just under 6-minute miles.  I got the pleasure of running along Wasatch Blvd in Salt Lake City, down towards Cottonwood Heights.  This has a great view overlooking Salt Lake Valley.  Honestly though I was not focusing on the view.  I had to worry about a running that was right on my tail, literally.  I could hear him breathing.  About a mile into the run and after passing 2 teams that must have started before us, this runner caught up to me and was now pacing off of me.  We were still running just under 6-minute miles.  As we neared mile 4 the pace was taking a toll on me and I decided that saving myself for the next leg would be more important than keeping up with this other runner.  The last half mile I slowed to about a 7-minute pace.

Right before finishing my leg, however, I passed the runner whose team had been in the lead.  This means I made up 6 minutes on him!!  We still remained in second place due to the runner that passed me.

Leg 2 – The Hill

Over the next six legs The Fast Fishbowlers passed over 60 teams that had started before us (including passing up the team that had passed me).  As I prepared to run my second leg there were only a handful of teams in front of us.  Because of our late start time we were running the fastest and thus in first place overall.

My leg would be considered one of the hardest of the whole course.  This was a 3.3 mile run up the north side of Suncrest.  There is no flat section, just up hill, 1200 ft!  I had run this a few weeks before to know what it was like and it took me 33 minutes.  My goal was to do it in under 30 minutes.

One of the most important aspects of this leg is mental strength.  It would be practically impossible with my current training to run the entire leg and not walk, so I set goals for myself before I could walk.  An example is when I wanted to walk I looked at my watch and said I’d run x more minutes and I wouldn’t stop until I got there.  Then I only allowed myself to walk for 30 seconds and then got going again.

The hill itself was not the only part of mother nature that had to be overcome, but the heat.  It was now in the upper 90s and only just after noon.  I wore white sleeves and a white cooling beanie to try to reduce my temperature.  When wet these items really helped to cool myself, but they would quickly dry off.

As I neared the last portion of the hill, and one of the steepest, my legs burned with agony.  They were feeling my sub 6-minute effort from earlier in the day.  I pushed harder though to reach the top, finishing in just under 31 minutes.  I was very happy with my improvement.

Leg 3 – The Other Hill

Within two more legs we had completely overtaken all the teams.  It was now up to us to not get lost over the last third of the course and maintain our lead.  Our team did great!  We continued to put time into the other teams.

My last run would be turn out to be the hardest.  My efforts in the first two legs would come back to haunt me.  This was was 4.5 miles, first with a steady downhill and then flat for a mile and a half.  The next mile and a half was two hills with a very brief flat portions in between.  The last mile and a half was flat, then a very steep downhill (almost uncontrollably steep downhill), then once again a brief uphill before descending a few hundred yards to the finish.

All went well until I started up the first of the hills.  My hamstrings were shot!  I had run this portion several times in training and never needed to walk.  It was all I could do to keep going though.  My team offered amazing support by stopping every few hundred yards to offer me water.  I hated it because I knew they were watching me and I couldn’t walk when they were watching.  I hated it because I just wanted to walk.  It was good for me though.  I walked for several brief moments up the second hill and then tried to go hard the last 1.5 miles (“hard” was a very relative term by this point).  Even though there was a lot of pain, I gave it all I had and I was very pleased with that.  I’m glad I got to help my team.  I also finished my last leg at the Fishbowl-sponsored exchange point.  It was fun to finish with all of the encouragment from so many other employees from such a great company.

Finish

The last for runners on our team finished strong and The Fast Fishbowlers won the inaugural Rivalry Relay in 8 hours, 13 minutes.  Next year we’ll have to do it under 8 hours!  It was a lot of fun to be a part of and encourage others to run in the event.  You can read another fun, brief recap of the event on the Fishbowl Blog: “Orange Trumps Red and Blue in Utah’s 1st Rivalry Relay Race“.