Pumpkinman Triathlon - October 15, 2011

Our Family is Loyal--L Helps E With Her Bike Before the Race
(This may be my favorite pic from the event)

One year ago, I was racing in the Pumpkinman Triathlon.  I've been wanting to blog it for a year now.  But I haven't felt like I had the time to do it right.  Sometimes the perfect is the enemy of the good.  So since the 2012 race is tomorrow, I figure that there's no time like the present to get this post up!  :-)

First, though, here is a little video recap of the day, set to some pretty good tunes.  Props go to my brother L for putting this together.  You can read his (brief, but timely) recap here:

The race for me got off to a bad start.  I had to drop off my run stuff at T2 and so I was late to the starting line.  The parking for the race is along the shore of Lake Mead and the parking lot is littered with little tiny thorns that could easily puncture a tire.  That makes getting your bike set up a little tricky.

I managed to get into my wetsuit as I scrambled toward the finish line, but as I went to put my goggles on, disaster struck!  My goggle straps broke!!  Somehow, I had a flash of inspiration to tie a knot in them and it worked.  Then I got the race director to let me start with the next wave and the crisis was (mostly) averted.

That water is cold!

Because I didn't start in the same wave with L. and S., I was behind them getting out of the water.

The first transition (aka T1) is always tricky.  Usually, you're pretty cold and your arm muscles are fatigued because you've been windmilling your way through the water for the past 30+ minutes.

So during T1, you have to use your fine muscle skills to get dressed and get on the bike and it can be a bit tricky.

My transition was trickier than normal because I had chosen to do the bike and run portions in costume--dressed as a skeleton. I was proud of my costume.  Heck, I felt like it took a lot of time and energy to come up with and make, but I had on my normal tri pants, then black tights from ankles to wrists, then the black polyester skeleton costume.

It was a lot of black fabric and it wasn't exactly Nike Dri Fit material if you know what I mean.  Still, I thought that the costume looked great and I was pumped to wear it.

(I actually would win a prize following the race for the Best Costume and my picture is still on the web site for the race.  Though it was not not lost on me that my "cover boy" moment came with me wearing a mask to cover my face!  :-)

The bike portion went fairly well.  I caught up to L.about 8-10 miles in or so.  I think he was surprised to see me pass him.  I gave him a couple quick tips as I rode past and I think it really helped him.  His pace the second half of the race was a lot faster than the first half.

At about Mile 18 or 19,  I passed a milestone.  This is the part where you begin a significant uphill climb from Lake Mead up to Boulder City.  You go up about 1300 feet or so in only 5 miles and it is challenging.  The year before, I had almost puked at this point.  I was glad to be able to get past this part and was thrilled that I felt a lot stronger this year.  I love seeing my improvement in these races from year to year.

All those layers made me very hot!

The bike portion can be exhilarating, especially when you get a little downhill and a cool breeze.  The last half mile of Pumpkinman before Transition 2 (T2) is a downhill coast and it feels great after the five mile climb!  (A really, really brutal climb!)

Next up was the run.  I feel like the run is the worst part of this race.  You basically run through the streets of Boulder City and end up on a road to nowhere.  It's just you, the competitors, hot asphalt, and bleak desert for miles around!  Plus, I've heard a rumor that the run is actually slightly longer than a 10k, which makes more of a mental challenge.

This gives you a good view of my costume--from the front and the back

I got a few comments about my costume during the bike portion, but I got way more during the run.  A few people called me "Skeletor."  A lot of people said, "Great Costume."  Quite a few asked me if I was "hot."

Ummm, yeah!  Thanks Captain Obvious!  I'm in 3 layers of polyester and spandex and it's 95 degrees and there is no shade.  (Not to mention the mask that I had to wear as well!)  It was like being in a frickin' oven to wear that costume!!  But I was committed to it and I've long felt that if you're going to do something, you need to do it right.  "Go Big or Go Home!" as a wise person once phrased it.  ;-)

So I just decided to endure it.  I can endure a lot of things, but this was a challenge.  My time for the first half of the 10k was 28 minutes.  That's actually a pretty decent time.  But during the second half, the wheels came off the bus....My split for the second half of the race was 40 minutes!  Yikes!  Let's just say that I was probably pretty dehydrated and lucky that I was still ambulatory by the end of the race,

As I neared the end, I got my favorite comment of the day on my costume.  One of the other competitors told me: "Sexy bones" as I passed by.  What's interesting about triathlons is that they write your age right there on your leg, so I knew exactly how old she was.  And even though she was a little bit older than me, she was definitely pretty cute.  I was glad I had my mask on so that nobody could see whether I blushed!

Triumphant!

As you can see in the video above, I hit that final turn and I felt like I just launched myself toward the finish line!  I felt like I was sprinting so fast.  After watching the video, I'm thinking--not so much!  It definitely felt faster than it looked!

All in all, it was a really fun race and I'm glad it's become somewhat of a minor family tradition.  I have to give some props to some of my other family members who competed (and to Ray Ray who drove down from Provo to cheer us all on!!):

Brother-in-Law T:

T gets the Polar Bear Award for doing the swim without a wetsuit!

 T. did the Sprint distance (shorter than the Olympic) with my sister E.  I think that this was his first triathlon ever, but he did great!

E:

The Bike Ride Has Some Spectacular Views

L:

L. had the best pit crew at the race.  His wife and cute little miracle baby both came to cheer him on!

S:

S. had the best overall time.

Results:

Here are the results from the race:

• E - Swim: 17:26 (2:20 rate); Bike: 1:04:29 (11.5 mph); Run: 32:08 (10:22/mile); Total: 2:00:19 (Sprint Distance)
• T - Swim: 17:00 (2:16 rate); Bike: 1:27:04 (8.5 mph); Run: 35:41 (11:31/mile); Total: 2:26:10 (Sprint Distance)

• S - Swim: 28:48 (1:56 rate); Bike: 1:47:40 (13.8 mph); Run: 59:06 (9:32/mile); Total: 3:21:34 (Olympic Distance)
• L - Swim: 36:29 (2:26 rate); Bike: 1:43:47 (14.3 mph); Run: 58:14 (9:24/mile); Total: 3:24:58 (Olympic Distance)
• G - Swim: 32:47 (2:12 rate); Bike: 1:38:53 (15.0 mph); Run: 1:07:15 (10:51/mile); Total: 3:26:20 (Olympic Distance)

I'm still ticked that L. and S. beat me.  And especially that L. beat me by literally 82 seconds!

The Plan for 2012:

The plan for this year is the same as always...get a better time than last year!  The only problem is that I have no right to a better time because I haven't put in the preparation that I should have.  Still, I think it will be fun and I'm looking forward to the challenge!

Check back in year to see how I do in the race tomorrow!  :p

Up, Up, and Away!

I had to swing by my parents' house yesterday and snapped a picture of the hot air balloons launching from the field behind their house.  I never get tired of seeing the balloons and its always thrilling to hear the "whoosh" as the balloon pilot fires up the balloon's gas burners to soar up, up, and away!

Something to Live For

Notre Dame's Word of Life Mural--aka "Touchdown Jesus"

It's no secret to my friends and family that I am a big fan of BYU sports.  I especially look forward to football season every year.  There is something that I love about watching our football team play and every Fall, hope springs eternal that our football team will have a memorable season.

We all have things that motivate us, things that inspire us.  I'm not as good as I should be about setting goals, but goals do help us focus on the important things.  We can have personal goals and we can have other goals as well.  BYU's football team is no exception.

Back when BYU was a member of the WAC or MWC conferences, the football team's goal every year was to win the conference championship.  With BYU going independent, however, that goal is gone.  Instead, we all hope that BYU will win a national championship.  Another goal would be for BYU to make it to a BCS bowl game.

Play Like a Champion Today

With a current record of 4-3, however, BYU will neither win a national championship, nor play in a BCS bowl game.  Our goals for the football team, consequently, have gotten simpler.  Win the rest of our games and win the Poinsettia Bowl--and hope that that can springboard us into the national rankings for next year.

I know, it doesn't sound great, but things could be worse.  We could be Utah fans and have to win 4 of our remaining 6 games in the PAC-12 just to be bowl eligible.

Or we could be Utah State (who is having a great season) and have to worry that if we don't beat Louisiana Tech on the road, we might be bowl eligible, but not even make it to a bowl game.

Which brings me to this week.  Even though our overall season may be over, we have a chance to do something really special this week.  We play #5 Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana.  If we win, it would surely be remembered as one of BYU's greatest football wins of all time.  It is an opportunity to make an even bigger statement than going to a bowl game and winning.

Notre Dame Stadium

The last time BYU won in South Bend was in 1994. I really had no idea that the game was being played because I was trudging somewhere in the jungles of the D.R.  But I have a friend who played in that game and I'm sure that it's something that he will never forget.

The game on Saturday has the potential to be huge.  It will be on NBC for a national television audience.  It's not often that you have a chance to play a Top 5 ranked team and it's not often that you have a chance to beat a Top 5 ranked team.  But if you want to be the best, you have to play the best--and win.  I think we have a real shot to play well and win, despite the disappointments that we have endured this season.

If we do, it could be as fun and exciting a game as BYU's 2006 win over Utah.  A game that came down to the last play and which featured "The Catch" on an improbable pass from John Beck to Jonny Harline.  So BYU fans, even though even though we suffered through a disappointing loss to Utah and a 7-6 bummer of a loss at Boise State, there is still hope.  There is still something to live for!  :-)

The Catch!

UPDATE:  The DesNews published this article today:  "BYU Football: 1994 Win at Notre Dame One of BYU's Best".  Looks like I was a little ahead of my time!  :-)

That's Not My Name!

M. in his Baby Thing (I have no idea what it's called!)

I woke up this morning to E. singing the song: "That's Not My Name" by the Ting Tings.  I'm not even sure that I knew what all those lyrics were, but she was belting out the chorus clear as a bell.  It was really cute.  And, a bit unusual, since E. is usually not a morning person!  ;-)

I'm still not sure where she even heard the song or the lyrics, but it's amazing what kids can and do absorb.

This is one of my favorite recent pics of E.

I also got to spend a little time with M. late last night (for one of his midnight snacks) and this morning as well.  It's amazing at how quickly he is growing.  He is also picking up some fun new tricks as well.  First of all, he has recently perfected the art of rolling over.  He loves to flip over from his back to his tummy and then hold his head up to look at everything.  That's just been in the past couple of weeks.

M. doing one of his tricks...

He has also been perfecting his technique to roll back over to his back.  Now that he is becoming more mobile, I live in constant fear of him rolling out of his car seat, off the bed, or out of his swing.  I'm sure that will always be the case.

M's second trick actually stems from his recent voracious appetite.  He seems to be eating a lot and it's all I can do to keep his bottles filled up for him.  He gets so anxious to eat that he will actually grab at the bottle in a desperate attempt to get some food!

He is also able to hold the bottle himself for short periods of time.  I don't know why I think it's cute to see him grab at and then hold his bottle, but I do.  Maybe it stems in part from the fact that if he holds it, I don't have to!  (Especially when I'm only half awake late at night or early in the morning!)

I wish that there were more exciting news to report, but I feel like M. and E., to a certain extent, don't get as much ink in my blog since they're the younger two in the family.  But that doesn't mean that we love them any less!

A Carney's Life For Me...

Sadly, there was something sinister about this ride!

Don't worry, I'm not really going to hit the road with the "Carney's," but we did have fun last night when the traveling carnival came to town.  I first noticed it when it sprung up overnight in our new sports park literally overnight.  It kind of reminded me of the classic Ray Bradbury novel "Something Wicked This Way Comes".   (See my tribute to Ray Bradbury here.)

So last night, as I enjoyed a beautiful SoCal sunset, I felt the carnival calling:

Note the enticing lights of the carnival at the left...

These pictures never do these sunsets justice.  The pinks don't really come out the way they should, but I gathered the boys and E. up and off we went.  E. was so cute.  She kept wanting to know "what that circle thing [was] called?"  I kept telling her it was a Ferris Wheel.  Unfortunately, when we got there, we realized that it was more like a "Scare"-Us Wheel because the cars twisted and rotated all around, so we didn't get to take E. on the ride.

We did a loop of the carnival first so that everyone could get a feel for what their favorite ride might be.  Then $25 bought us 32 tickets. It wasn't a terrible deal, given that most rides took 4 tickets per person.  I figured we had enough for two rides each and was willing to double down (and risk blowing the wad) if need be.

Waiting for the first ride...

One thing I noticed while walking around was the hordes of 13-15 year old kids.  Not many parents in sight.  I wondered what type of parents just dropped off their kids to roam unsupervised at these types of activities.  Seeing so many kids running around only made me feel old myself!  :-/

E. got to pick the first ride.  Perhaps not surprisingly, she picked the Merry-Go-Round.  She was a little scared, but luckily, I told her that I was going to be right there beside her.

I think that the Merry-Go-Round was three tickets.  I'm going to complain and sound like a grumpy old man, I know, but it really should have been two.  If there were any saving grace at all, it was that I got to ride for free.  There just seemed to me to be something wrong about having to pay to ride just so that my kid could ride the ride.

S. and R. didn't ride, but they really got into the spirit of it.  They were running around the Merry-Go-Round trying to keep up with us and get E.'s attention.  It probably wasn't the safest thing, but I didn't care.  It was really cute and I envied their enthusiasm.  I kinda felt lucky to have such great kids.  It's nice when those type of fun parenting moments sneak up on you like that.

E. is so excited.  Look closely and you can see R. running alongside in the background.

Next up, as R.'s choice.  He wanted to do a ride known as "The Zipper" (see the pic at the top).  The only problem was that he wanted me to do the ride with him.  At first, I thought: "No big deal."

In Line for The Zipper

I had S. and E. wait for us and I left strict instructions for them not to move.  And lest you think that someone should have tipped of CPS about me, there were people that we knew waiting with them at the ride.

The Zipper is a ride where you get in a little metal cockpit.  The cockpit goes up and down, but is also free to fip and roll over and over.  R. and I got on the ride and the minute that they shut the door to our little cockpit and I instantly knew that I was in trouble.  This ride was not meant for people of my height!

I could barely fit and the legs and head were jammed in at all sorts of awkward angles.  I got hit with a crushing wave of panic.  This was not a carnival ride, this was a metal coffin!!  I seriously fought the urge to demand to be let off the ride.  Probably the only thing that helped was that I knew that no one could hear me even if I tried!

I tried to focus on taking deep breaths and reminded me how "fun" this ride was supposed to be. At the same time, I prayed that someone had performed all of the proper maintenance on this traveling, little, rackety, death trap!  I looked over at R.  He was all smiles and loving it!  At least one of us was!

After a minute or two, things got better and then the ride started.  Once we started flipping and spinning, I got a little more into the spirit of things.  I also gained a healthy appreciation for the thrill rides at amusement parks like Disneyland and Magic Mountain where I can actually fit on the ride!

S. picked a Tilt-A-Whirl ride next and all four of us rode together.  I got a really cool video, but I'm reluctant to report it for two reasons.  First, I'm not sure that anyone can actually watch the videos that I post on my blog.  Second, E. looks really nervous in the video (even though she was totally fine) and I already fear that I'm on CPS' radar after making E. and S. wait for R. and me while we went on the Zipper!  If you're interested, let me know and I'll either post it or send the video to you.

Yes, I know this is washed out and blurry, but I love E.'s smile
Let's just pretend that this photo is from
Instagram and I applied a really "artsy" filter!  ;-)

We finished the night with a ride on the Magic Carpet giant slide.  S. and E. could barely handle it.  They were so scared to slide down.  We all slid down together (side by side by side) and they loved it!  :-)  One of my great regrets of the night is that I didn't get a pic of us coming down together.

By this time, our tickets were gone and it was almost E.'s bedtime.  I hustled us out of there before we were tempted to seriously blow the wad there.  The best part was that our house was literally 2 miles away, so it took longer to walk to the parking lot than it did to drive home!

The carney is in full swing tonight, but I suspect that by tomorrow morning, it will be all packed up and gone...leaving only memories and some random scraps of trash.  My kids are already asking if we can go back next year.  I'm pretty sure we will!  :-)

The Carnival

Side Out!

Ready to Receive the Serve

It's Saturday, so that means vball time for us out here.  Our "game" this week was an intra-squad game.  It's pretty low-key and I'm okay with that.

The first game we didn't even bother to keep score.  But our team did really well.  I told R. that if he served underhand perfectly 10 out of 10 times, he could move back and work on an overhead serve.  And I'll be danged if he wasn't 10 for 10 in that first game!  He was so excited to be able to serve like the experienced players do.

R Serves an Ace!

I think the final score of the second game was like 25-11, in our favor.  Trust me, it's not the coaching!  Our kids are just pretty good players.

One of the mom's actually came up to me to apologize for taking over at the last practice.  Her daughter is on one of the other teams and this mom always comes decked out in vball gear for the practices.  As I suspected, she played in high school and junior college and then coached some high school.  I told her not to worry--I was more than happy to turn things over to her!  (I had some errands to run, including getting a haircut!)

Some things are just not getting upset about--and that especially goes for youth volleyball practices.  Trust me, I have more important stuff to worry about.  And I was only too happy to get to leave practice early thanks to her volunteerism!  :-)

S Serves Up A Winner!

As you can see from the pictures, it was yet another gorgeous Fall day here in SoCal.  We really are lucky to live in such a beautiful part of the world.  After our "game", the boys and I went to Mickey D's for our traditional post-even treat. It was a pretty good start to the day.

(Now if only BYU can play as well against Oregon State!)

One More Gratuitous Shot...

No Man Left Behind

Ben Baltz, 11 Years Old, Is Carried Across The Finish Line by
Marine Private First Class Matthew Morgan, 19 years old
(Photo taken by Kim Baltz)

I heard about this story on the radio yesterday.  It touched me--not just because I love doing triathlons--but because it's the type of "feel-good", inspirational story that we need more of these days.  I later stumbled across the story on the net and felt like I had to share it!

Here's the gist of what happened:

Ben Baltz is 11 years old and he's also a bone cancer survivor.  The cancer took one of his legs.  On Sunday, he was competing in a triathlon in Pensacola, Florida (the Sea Turtle Tri).  Ben completed the swim and bike portions without any problems, but during the run, a screw in his prosthetic leg came loose and fell off.  Ben fell down as well.

Pfc. Matthew Morgan, a United States Marine (from San Diego) who was volunteering at the event came over to help.  Ben struggled to fix his prosthetic leg but realized he couldn't do it on his own.  At that point in time, Mathew picked Ben up and said: "Hey, you're going to be taken home by the Marines today."

Other Marines who were volunteering lined up into a column of twos and they all ran to the finish together.

I loved this quote from Pfc. Morgan: "He was going to finish the race no matter what, but I told him to jump on and we finished the race together," Morgan said."

You can read the full story here.

The Marine Volunteers from the Camp Pendleton Triathlon

The story reminded me of the many Marines that volunteer at the Camp Pendleton Triathlon that our family does every year.  I've always admired them and this story and made me more grateful for their efforts as well as the efforts of all of the other volunteers of the many races that I've done (especially all the volunteers from the St. George Ironman!).

I love the challenge of doing these races, but I love even more the inspiration that people like Ben Baltz--as he conquers the challenges in his life--and Pfc. Matthew Morgan--as he reminds us of that quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln--give us:

"No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child."

Semper Fi!