Herriman Black Ridge- A Hidden Gem

As someone who has only lived in Utah for the past 2 years, I am still not familiar with all the great local races. I had my early season schedule filled, and my late season schedule filled, but I had a little window in the middle. I heard someone talking about doing Herriman Black Ridge so I looked it up.I haven't done a sprint in a couple of years, so I thought this would be fun.  I saw that it was a RaceTri event which means it was without a doubt, going to be both fun and well run. The date was perfect. The swim was short and with that as my slowest split, I figured it gave me a better shot at the podium. The race was almost full at 400 racers and I really enjoy races this size. Add those all up and it seemed like this would be a perfect race for me to do locally.

I'd never even heard of Black Ridge. I called my teammate Amber earlier in the week, knowing she had been up there, and we chatted about it a bit. She raved about the place and how much fun it was. A couple of my other teammates had mentioned wanting to do this race so I thought there would be a few of us there. So, in a last minute decision, I signed up just a few days before the race.

As the day of the race approached, I texted back and forth with those who had been talking about racing, and everyone had ended up with a different conflict. Looked like it was going to be just me! I'm not used to racing without anyone I know, but hey, why not?

The day before the race, my daughter and I went to Elite TriSports to pick up my packet, then we drove to Herriman to check out the course. I figured since I had no clue where Black Ridge was, and my GPS didn't either, that I should probably figure that out before the race! We drove out there and found this charming, tiny little reservoir in the hills of Herriman. It was so...CUTE! Then we drove the bike course. RaceTri had been very open about the fact that there was a descent at the beginning of the race with a lot of curves, and warned riders to BE CAREFUL because someone always takes it too fast and loses control (and yes, it happened again this year). I'm a chicken on descents as it is, so I wanted to see what I was preparing for. I wanted to go into the race, knowing what was coming.

My daughter, who is turning 10 this month, wanted to come watch me race. I was thrilled about that, especially since I didn't know anyone racing! It would be good to have my husband and daughter there with me. I woke them up bright and early on Saturday morning. We arrived in Herriman about 6:30am. I set up both transition areas, got my timing chip, and was ready to roll. My stomach wasn't feeling too hot, but I figured it was a sprint distance race, I could get through it.

My wave started at 8:12am.  The water was beautiful. The lake is very small so I was never really out there on my own on the swim. As I've mentioned before, this is my weakest split. I just go in there, swim at a pace I'm comfortable with, and then hurry it up and switch into race mode once I'm out of the water (yeah, yeah, I've gotta work on that). I came out of the water somewhere in the middle at 10:07. I ran up to transition and got the see the smiling face of my husband and beautiful daughter, as they cheered me on.

The bike is where I usually make up some time (thank you Kestrel). I was excited to try out my new glasses from Switch Eyewear at this race. I just got them the day before the race so I hadn't had to chance to ride with them beforehand. I LOVED THEM! They are definitely my new race favorites!

The waves had started just 2 minutes apart, and since there was body marking, I could see that there were people from the wave after me that had exited the water before me and were already heading onto the bike. However, knowing how that first curvy descent was going to be, I rode VERY carefully the first couple of miles. As soon as that was out of the way, I let it fly. The course is hilly, although nothing too rough. It's either you're climbing a little, or your dropping a little, with very little actual flat. It was a beautiful course! I could tell that I was making good progress on the bike. It wasn't long before I was passing the youngins with "20 something" written on their leg, and I knew I was in the middle of the wave before me. I leapfrogged with a couple of other women through the first half of the bike, but then passed them on the last half. About halfway through the bike, I caught up to the men from 2 waves before me. At this point, I was pretty sure there couldn't be too many in my age group out ahead of me because I wasn't really seeing any women at all. I figured there were probably 1 or 2 in my age division who had come out of the water enough ahead of me that I hadn't ever seen them or caught up to them. I biked the 15 mile course in 46:32.

T2 was uneventful (although Coach Heath would have scolded me for sitting down ;) and onto the run I went. My legs felt tired from the somewhat hilly bike course. I had tried not to hold back at all on the bike because I knew the run was short enough, I could power through it even on tired legs. I started feeling sick to my stomach and was pretty sure I'd be stopping to lose my breakfast before the run was over! However, it eventually passed and I was okay. The first mile of the run heads uphill. My legs didn't like that much and I ran my first mile slower than I had hoped. Just as I started mile 2, my legs came back and I felt like I could run again. I picked up the pace and ran mile 2 over a minute faster than mile 1. I really didn't know where I was, as far as placing, but I knew that there are some fast women out there and if I let up at all, one of them could come flying by me at any second. I really enjoyed the run course. There was some shade, some ups, some downs, some gravel, some grass...it kept it interesting! I kept up my goal pace on mile 3 and headed into the finish. To my surprise, a guy 20 years my senior and a good 70 lbs heavier than me, sprinted past me on that last .2 miles! I picked it up, pretty sure I could out sprint him at the end, but I was wrong! He got me :)

My finish time was 1:25:19, which when results were posted, was good enough for 1st in my division, a total surprise to me.

After the race, I got a chance to visit with a few other athletes from the area. That's one of my favorite parts of the race. I love meeting new friends and fellow athletes.

RaceTri always has great medals and prizes, and makes the awards ceremony very entertaining. They didn't disappoint. This awards ceremony even included a $100 prize for the HAIRIEST MAN! What a hoot! All in all, the race was wonderful. It was well run, beautiful, fun, and social. I will definitely be back!

Special thanks to Coaches Heath and Mahogani Thurston as well as TriEdge, Kestrel, Switch Eyewear (LOVE THESE NEW GLASSES!), HEAD swimming, Flexr, GU, 3B Yoga, BearPaw and T3. And thank you to my sweet husband and daughter who got up so early and came to support me. I love you!