Destination Race: Steamboat Sprint Triathlon

While I love Boulder, one of the best aspects of living here is the [relatively] close proximity to other awesome places. Some of the "relatively" clost places we've explored this summer include Rocky Mountain National Park, Pike National Forest, and Buena Vista. Last weekend involved a slightly longer trip with a more defined purpose.

Steamboat Springs is roughly 200 miles away, so I was expecting a long drive to the first annual Steamboat Lake Sprint Triathlon, but a truck on fire on the westbound side of I-70 along with a motorcycle accident on the eastbound side made for a hellish drive out over the Loveland Pass. I was just starting to think that there was no way a 4+ hour drive could be worth it for a sprint tri when we got off the highway and onto route 9 in Silverthorne. The next hundred miles were absolutely stunning. If you have to drive for hours on end, that's the kind of driving you want to be doing.

The race wasn't until Sunday morning so it wasn't really a problem that we got there late, except that I was supposed to volunteer at packet pickup and get a discount on the race, but completely missed it. Luckily, Lance, the Without Limits Productions race director, is a super nice guy and still gave me a little bit of a discount even though I totally missed my assignment.

After packet pickup, we set up our things at the campsite - we stayed at the Sunrise Vista Campground at Steamboat Lake State Park. All the sites were in this beautiful field of yellow and purple flowers and overlooked the lake and the mountains. I've camped in some pretty beautiful places, but I'd say this was top-five.

For our pre-race dinner, we headed back down south towards the town of Steamboat Springs and Elisa's parents met us at a little italian restaurant, Pisa, and treated us to the all-you-can-eat pasta, pizza, and salad Saturday night special. It was delicious, and although the atmosphere was...unique...it was the perfect carbo-load before the race.

We spent the night getting all of our race stuff ready and built a nice warm fire. Sitting around the campsite with a bunch of laid-back triathletes really set the tone for the whole race for me; I was not here to win or PR or prove anything. This year, summer racing is about having fun. If it isn't fun, it isn't worth signing up for. With that in mind, I can't think of a better location or group of people to be with. When we finally went to bed around 10:30, the stars were absolutely stunning (and I've seem some good starry skies this summer) and early in the night, without the brightness of the moon, the Milky Way was totally visible across the sky.

I slept very well in my new tent, but around 4am I woke up and realized I was getting cold. Considering it's been in the 90's in Boulder, I was really surprised that I could possibly be camping somewhere driving-distance away, in the end of July, and be cold. I guess that's Colorado for ya. When I woke up at 6:15 and got out of the tent, there was frost on the picnic table - I wasn't being a wimp after all, it really was cold.

However, after a leisurely pre-race breakfast (of my usual clif bar and banana) we had just a short 1-mile bike ride downhill to the transition area. By the time we got there, the morning cold had worn off and the air temperature was a pleasant mid-60's (the water, a near perfect 69F). We got there will plenty of time for a good long warmup in the transition area's laid-back atmosphere. I was clearly not the only person who had come to simply having a good time and enjoy the scenery.


The race ended up being a really well-run, generally awesome event. Being surrounded by mountains and overlooking the lake even made the hilly bike course kind of enjoyable. And after a long steep hill in the first mile of the run, the course descended down a single track trail through a beautiful field of flowers right along the lake.

Elisa came in 3rd overall, so I ended up 1st in the F20-24 age group, and Katie snagged 3rd! We got sweet plaques and awesome belt buckles that came later that week in the mail! The post-race spread was awesome, and I would sign up for this event, or any event put on by Without Limits, again in a heartbeat. I am so disappointed I can't be in Colorado for the Olympic distance race they're putting on in Steamboat at the end of August.


Katie headed off to Snowmass and Vail for the week while I spent the day with the six others who were going back to Boulder. The rest of the day involved yummy lunch at Johnny B Good's in Steamboat Springs, a stop at the Green Mountain Reservoir for the incredibly mature boys to "commandeer an island," a trip to the Nike outlet in Silverthorne that was taxing for my wallet, and another painfully slow ride on I-70.

To cap off an already awesome day, we went to a cookout at Rob and Rudy's house. As I was going home, the reality sunk in that I only have three short weeks left here, and that I am leaving behind so much more than the city of Boulder. Going back to LA will mean leaving all the awesome friends I've made here, the weekend camping trips, the backyard cookouts, the Wednesday night frisbee games, the 6am swims. I know that when I leave, I'll be counting down the days until my visit in November, and will be constantly trying to bribe CU people into visiting me in California (come on, you can ride outside in December...and January...and February...). For right now, though, I am more than ready to live it up for these last couple of weeks and get everything I possible can out of Boulder!