House Painting

It's hard to believe that we have been in our house long enough to require another round of painting.  The last time we had our house painted we used good old Keith Vandergrift and his son, utilizing a great "bro deal".  This time we used friend of a friend's company, Mastay's Painting.  Tara had also found a color scheme similar to what we have previously had, but a bit sharper, from around the neighborhood.  Here is the in-process shot above.

They had to replace some of the siding that had been damaged by water over the years but did a great job with the work.  We also ended up replacing the garage side door which had been neglected and was all sun damaged.  In the end, we were quite happy with the work and our sharp-looking house.

Ironman 70.3 World Championshps (St. George) - Part 6 of 6

 

With the hard work behind, it was time for celebration and reflection on what we had just experienced!  Shortly after I finished, one of my teammates, Jet, finished as well.  His overall time was 4:48:48, but he started in a wave behind me.  Here is a picture of us as we try to collect ourselves and get to the celebration part.

A bit later, Nick Cummings joined the party with us.  Nick is a riot and a great guy.  I was happy to get some redemption and beat him on this day as he smoked me on the run at the Lake to Lake triathlon earlier this year.

Here is the full Boulder Racing crew at the after party celebration.  Brian Andzejewicz and Ed O'Malley absolutely smoked it finishing 29th (4:41:33) and 39th (4:43:45) respectively in our Age Group (M40-44), Jet Swayze had an impressive day finishing 67th (4:48:48) in his Age Group (M35-39). I finished 122nd (5:00:32) in our Age Group (M40-44).  Jay Brown came home in 142nd (5:11:32) in his Age Group (M35-39) and Tyler Anderson finished out our crew with a 146th (5:12:10) in his Age Group (M35-39).

It was a day where everyone had a great race and an even better experience.  We drank and ate and shared war stories of the Snow Canyon climb and the personal battles that always happen during a long, hard run leg.

In a day and age where "everyone gets a medal", this one feels pretty special.  It was literally earned with blood, sweat, and tears along the way.  I am not sure if I will have the opportunity to compete at this level again, but I look back in awe at how amazing this was and look forward with hope that I may some day be here again.

Ironman 70.3 World Championshps (St. George) - Part 5 of 6 (Run)

 

After a rather speedy T2 of 2:27 (as compared to the almost five minutes the last time on this course due to having to lace up an ankle brace), I was ready to attack this brutal run course that promised almost a thousand feet of climbing in 13.1 miles.  The weather had mostly blown through by this point, but the roads were still a bit wet which actually made pretty good running conditions overall.

I was not entirely sure what pace I could run for this course, because it was so different than anything I had run before (at least successfully).  The first loop I focused on keeping the base under control but still close to what I had run in Ironman Boulder 70.3.  It's always a dicey game to try to figure out how fast is too fast, but I came through the first 10k in just under 47:00 minutes which was a really good start.

The real kicker on this course is that normally you would run up this big hill and do some out and backs on mostly rolling stuff and then scream back into town, but for the World Championships they had you run a four block section from the top of the big hill straight back to downtown (following a section of road that seems barely runable it is so steep) and then you get to repeat the entire circle a second time.  This is a picture of me coming around the circle to start the climb back up for round two!  Was feeling really great at this point still and was enjoying pushing myself.  At this point I was still holding an average pace somewhere near 7:50/mile or so.

The second lap was harder than the first but kept trying to hold it together through all of the hills.  I was able to sustain my pace for the most part through the whole run, though the last mile or mile and a half started to hurt.  I ended up power walking a 25 yard section up the one last kicker before you drop back down to town, which was a bit disappointing but I was able to get myself running again.

The final half mile was filed with pain and suffering as I asked everything from my quads as I ran down into town with everything I still had.  Nothing quite compares to seeing this amazing finish line coming up in the near distance!  The crowd was amazing.  They were going bananas and tons of people just lined the streets from corner to corner cheering away.  This picture shows both the joy and the agony that this race demands out of its competitors 

This is the amazing finish that awaits you when you complete the Ironman 70.3 World Championship.  My total run time was 1:44:40, which was a personal best run within a 70.3 Ironman.  I was absolutely thrilled with that effort given this venue and the difficulty of the course. Though I slowed a slight bit at the end, the average pace was 8:06 / mile.  My run was 189th out of 350th for my Age Group. 

Ironman 70.3 World Championshps (St. George) - Part 4 of 6 (Bike)

 

 

After finding my transition bag and changing, I grabbed my bike and headed out for what I was hoping would be an epic ride on this awesome bike course.  T1 time was 5:36 which was a bit slow, but not horrible given the enormous size of the transition area.

This is a picture from about two miles into the ride course as you circle Sand Hallow before heading back to the mountains and canyons in the distance.  At this point it was still an amazing day with beautiful weather.  Our Age Group (Men's 40-44) also got extremely lucky and got to head out first which meant mostly open roads for me to really find a good rhythm and ride my own race.  As anticipated in a World Championship, there were some guys that rolled by me quite fast and I knew were in my Age Group, but I let them mostly go.  After 10-15 miles I mostly settled in for a ride with several guys moving at roughly my speed and I spent most of the time trying stay outside of the draft zones or having to pass when I accidentally drifted in on one.

Here I am above making sure I stay cool on the bike leg.  This was an epic picture captured by one of the local photographers that was around!  However, about 30 miles into the bike, it was readily apparent that the day was likely to change quite drastically.  With the Snow Canyon climb approaching on my right, I could see a wicked looking storm to my left heading this way.  Dark storm clouds and lightning seemed to be rolling across the mostly desert landscape.  I started wondering if this would case the race officials to halt or cancel the race.  In the end, they did not but we were in for some epic weather! 

About half way up the climb, surrounded by booms of thunder, a pelting rain was unleashed upon us.  We were just soaked to the bone and had some crazy cross winds which weren't that bad to navigate on the way up the canyon, but the descent was quite a different story.  Coming down at almost 50 mph with soaking wet roads and a cross wind that made for some serious white knuckling.  I was thankful for my cycling background as I think I handle a bike better than the average triathlete and was relying upon all of my experience.  My bike split was 2:31:24 which I was quite happy with, given the course and the weather.  This was 81st in my AG of 350 with an average speed of 22.17 mph.

Ironman 70.3 World Championshps (St. George) - Part 3 of 6 (Swim)

 

Race morning!  So wild that we were finally here.  After a nice and early 3:30 am wake up call, we drove down to take buses out to Sand Hallow.  I spent 30-40 minutes going over all of my gear, pumping up tires, and filling nutrition bottles and then we started to get corralled up into our waves.  This is a picture taken by Bill Plock who is a friend of us from 303 Triathlon.  Ed, Brian, and I were all in the same wave and geared up.  You actually see us in swim skins, not wet suits, as the water was too warm to be wet suit legal. 

It was my first swim without a wet suit in a race, but I was actually fairly excited to see how it would go.  It is always a bit intimidating lining up for a 70.3 swim for me as 1.2 miles always makes you feel it.  I kept talking myself through the strategy I can worked out with my coach Eric Kenney to try to go easier in the first 400 m and to find my own rhythm.

I was mostly able to execute the strategy to plan, though my goggles fogged up a bit on the way back in which made navigating a bit harder than expected.  This is a picture of me running up the boat ramp after coming out of the water.

My split for the first 0.6 miles was 16:13 (though it didn't appear to be centered perfectly on course) and the back 0.6 miles was 19:43, for a total time of 36:26 or 1:53 min/100m.  This was 131st out of 350 in my 40-44 AG.

 

Overall, I was happy with this swim.  I expected to be a bit slower without a wet suit and generally I felt fairly strong through the whole effort which was my main goal.  I always wish a would swim a bit faster, but happy to be back on dry land and start working on the other two legs of the triathlon where the real racing starts for me.

Ironman 70.3 World Championshps (St. George) - Part 2 of 6

 

This is a picture of most of the Boulder Racing team in front of the big World Championship sign.  We were definitely feeling legit with having a big crew here for the race.

They actually had this iconic structure in place when we were here for the Ironman 70.3 St. George in May but I avoided taking a whole lot of pictures with it because I hadn't earned my place at that point.

Here is a celebratory picture with the structure.

One with the crew being fairly normal or at least one that our coach would approve of.

And here is a slightly more rowdy picture of the gang.  I love these guys, they just crack me up.  It is such a rare group that can be focused and perform at such a high level without always taking themselves too seriously.  Perhaps that is why the team does so well...it is the perfect mix!

The next day, Friday, we once again headed over to the mouth of Snow Canyon for a race prep ride to get the legs moving again and primed.  Obviously, it is amazing there so no real complaints!  Normally we would have been riding the beginning few miles of the bike course and then would check in our bikes, but they asked people not to ride out at Sand Hallow Reservoir with the vast number of people expected with this World Championship race so we just dropped off our bikes and gear and headed back to the main house to conserve as much energy as possible.

Ironman 70.3 World Championshps (St. George) - Part 1 of 6

 

It's hard to fully describe and capture what this weekend race experience is really like.  Having qualified at the last race of the year for the 2021 Ironman 70.3 World Championships to join six of my teammates here is an amazing honor.  It's also the most I have felt apart of team functioning with a same-minded focus since potentially college, if ever.  All throughout the weeks and months of specific training leading up to this event we pushed each workout and each day.  With the weekend finally arriving (after another long drive down to St. George), all the work was done and it was time to toe the line and see what we had.  Adding to the team experience is that we had a huge house in St. George where the whole team stayed.

People mostly trickled in the first evening (Wednesday night) and we had most of the crew there for an early Thursday morning spin on the bikes the next morning as seen above.  One thing that struck me, besides the beauty of this sunrise, was how crazy it was to see all of the World caliber triathletes descend on this town.  Every street you turn down, every store you go into, every place you go there is just a mass of shaved-legged, ultra-lean athletes.  It is really inspiring and motivating!

The main goal in this ride was just to shake out the legs a bit for an hour and start getting prepared for registration and the expo activities.  We ended up heading North from our place just to the start of the Snow Canyon climb (which is the signature climb for this race) and then headed back.  We had an impressive blue train rolling through the city and it was an absolute blast.  Here is Ed, Jay, and Brian in the picture above waiting to cross traffic.

Later this day, we headed to the downtown expo to formally register.  While we had been here earlier this year for a Ironman 70.3 St. George, this was so much bigger and impressive.  Here is the main banner/display for the World Championships.

One of the really cool features of this race is that all of the participants names are displayed in this massive poster.

 

Above is my own name listing on the poster, #626.  I made the list!  After checking this out, we went over to the registration tents and got our wrist bands, bib numbers, transition bags and also our celebratory qualification token.

Gavin's Birthday Party

 

As Gavin gets older, birthday celebrations seem to turn more into hang out times than specific parties.  This year he invited the crew over to take a trip to Top Golf.  Here is a picture of most of the crew watching Maximus play some games on his phone while we wait for a few more to arrive.

Top Golf is actually quite fun and has a pretty good hangout vibe to it.  We had two bays and the guys took turns hitting some golf balls and scarfing down whatever the next food item was that happened to be delivered to our tables.

 

Gavin has probably only golfed a few times in his life with a few trips down to the par-3 course that is near us, but I think he had a great time.  Quite a few were shanked to random places but he did hit a few good ones mixed in as well.

Maximus probably wins the prize for most classic look and has clearly golfed a bit more than most of the others or it is just the baseball form coming through with the more natural swinging of the club.  Hard to beat this look with the vibe he has going above!

 

He might need to work on his center of balance while swinging though, as he fell to the grown shortly after hitting the ball here!  Overall I think we had a great time and we were very happy to have returned home with all the boys intact and without any major injuries!  Happy 14th birthday Gavin!

Centaurus Bernie Gay XC Invitational 2021

Gavin and Gage both joined the running club (at least part time) at Westlake Middle school this year.  Most Junior High Schools/Middle Schools have formal team sports but our school district does not fund them so anything that does exist is typically a small club affiliated with the school or more likely just a full separate sports club organization.  We are thankful that Gavin's Spanish teacher Mr. Hinkle gets the kids together to run at the track and arranged for the crew to join a formal XC meet with other schools.  Here they are all lined up at the start of the Centaurus Bernie Gay XC Invitational 2021 for the ~1.5 mile run.

Both of these guys are really good runners, though Gage would say that he enjoys it more than Gavin.  They came through the one mile mark running hard together somewhat toward the front end of the pack.  They were both looking very strong!

This is a picture of the full Westlake team that ran this day.  Gavin finished in 27th with a total time of 10:43.60 and Gage finished 36th with a total time of 10:47.60.  There were a total of 153 middle school boys racing this day so they did quite amazing!

Bunnies!

Even though Gavin is older, and he doesn't like to admit it, he still can appreciate a nice soft stuffed animal.  This is a new stuffed rabbit that is as soft as can be for his birthday.

 We also just enjoy Gavin's goofiness and comedy routines to keep things funny and lighthearted.

Water World

I haven't been to WaterWorld since I was probably a kid and these guys haven't been in at least a year with COVID shutting things down but we got invited to head there with Andrea Schmidt and her kids for the last open day of the year, so we jumped on the opportunity.  What is funny is that we ran into the Hoods in the parking lot as we were getting ready to go in so our crew jumped in size as we all kind of mingled together.  Here is Gage and Little Gavin heading down the old classic Screaming Mimi!

 A close view shows the absolute joy that Gage has in skipping across the water on this little sled.  Overall it was a fun trip and a great day to be at WaterWorld with good friends.

Manitou Springs Trip

With a lot of options made more difficult by the ongoing COVID situation, we have been looking at trying to find additional things around here to keep us busy.  I have been wanting to go to Manitou Springs for quite a while and never have been.  So we decided to head down that way and see what it was all about.  We didn't really know what to expect but we did find the tiny town tucked away in the hills near Colorado Springs and we immediately ran into some sort of outdoor fair.  We quickly parked the car and hiked over to see what it was all about.

It had a solid Boulder vibe to it with community activities like these soap rings to make bubbles with and tons of local artist tents selling paintings and photographs and jewelry type stuff.

However, we were not prepared for the local emotional support emu to make an appearance.  The boys were absolutely fascinated by this thing and had to go in for a pet.  Quite amazing!  After a while, we decided we were melting in the sun and heading back to the car to go try to locate what had been marketed as a "Penny Arcade".  We almost gave up trying to get there due to some horrible traffic getting through this tiny town, but we searched on and to the kids' disappointment with their bag of pennies...no real functioning Penny games were available once we found the Arcade.  They did have plenty of older, grubby, classic arcade games that we played for a bit but not quite the experience they had hoped for.  All in all, this made for a pretty fun day trip to somewhere we hadn't been before.  Next trip, we would like to arrange for a hike up the Manitou Incline but currently you have to have reservations to go and we didn't think that far ahead for this trip.