Triathlon

Hayden did his second triathlon on Saturday. It was the Black Hills Triathlon, which is a 3/4 mile swim, 30 mile bike ride, 5 mile run. He did the same race last year and finished it as the youngest competitor, although he had a horrible bike, and wasn't really as ready for it as he could have been. He did so fabulous this year! So for starters, he got a new bike. Thank you to the many of you who donated to Hayden's bike fund and who hired him to do yard work or babysitting. He was able to buy a bike last winter and he trained on it for much of the year. He loves it and it made a huge difference in his success this year. His times in this year's tri compared to last years:

3/4 Mile Swim: 23:11 (2008) 17:36 (2009)

30 Mile Bike: 2:01:28 (2008) 1:35:24 (2009)

5 Mile Run: 46:42 (2008) 35:40 (2009)

Some boring stats that Hayden and I find fascinating: Last year, after the swim he was in 118th place. This year after the swim, he was in 26th place. Major improvement! His transition time from the swim to the bike (which includes about a quarter mile jog from the lake to the bike racks) was three minutes faster this year! That's huge! But seriously, the hugest difference was definitely the bike ride. He took over 25 minutes off it! That's amazing! And a total of 55 minutes off the total race. His final time was 2:36:03. He was the only person in his division, so he obviously won it, but he also beat all of the participants in the next division higher. He did awesome!

Oh yeah...and I did it too. But I did a relay with my brother Dale. I did the swim and run, he did the bike. It worked out quite nicely. Although our finishing time was STILL slower than Hayden's! Our total time was 2:59:49. After several teams were disqualified, we ended up taking 3rd in our division! (Don't ask how many teams were participating!) It was a really fun experience (besides a few little issues that involved running and urinating), and I'm totally up for it again next year. Except I want to do the whole thing myself. I think I'll do a couple of sprint triathlons first, instead of jumping right into the Olympic length. And I definitely need to get some "gear" so that I look a little more professional (so Dix needs to start making some moo-lah!).

Those are all the pictures that were taken with me in them...guess who was the more favored athlete in the family? Actually my dad took a bunch of pictures of me, Dale and Hayden. So when I get those from him I'll post them.