Matt's first Tri

This is the story of how Matt became a triathlete.

Once upon a time, our friends Shawn and Whitney Killpack moved to Edwards on April 2nd. We had them over on April 3rd. Matt and Shawn became workout buddies on April 4th. On April 11th, I got a phone call from my husband while I was in Utah, asking if he could race in a triathlon with Shawn in Las Vegas on April 21st. He hadn't swam more than 100 meters or ridden a bike in years, but hey, why not? So next thing I knew, I was in Vegas cheering on my husband who had trained for his first triathlon for a whopping ten days.

We stayed with our friends Talon and Carolyn, and the six of us (well, eight including babies) woke up in the middle of the night in order to be at Lake Mead at the crack of dawn. Matt's race started first since he did the sprint distance -- 800M open swim, 12.4 mile bike ride on the worst hills imaginable, and a 5K in the sand to top it off. For good measure, Mother Nature decided to grace that spring day with a 98-degree high temperature, which meant our boys were racing around 90-degrees.

But that hardly mattered, because Matt rocked it! He placed tenth in his division, which is not too shabby for a week-and-a-half of training. I spent the first few years of our relationship cheering him on as a college athlete, so it was fun to cheer for him again. Shawn raced the Olympic distance (he's been doing sprints for about a year and decided it was time to up his distance) and did really well, too. As soon as they were done, Matt and Shawn signed up for another triathlon in June. And thus Matt's new favorite hobby was born!