Mountain Man Sprint Tri - TriathlonSprint

This was pretty terrible. Like I said, I was 100% relaxed going into the swim start, and was actually anticipating a decent swim as I'd even gone out for a OWS practice a couple of weeks ago and felt pretty comfortable. Within about 50 meters of starting the swim, I was completely out of breath. It hadn't even occurred to me that the altitude might affect my swim (Flagstaff is about 4,500ft higher than Tucson), but man-oh-man did it ever. I remained calm and never freaked out because I knew that all I had to do was turn over on my back and catch my breath, but I just felt like it was impossible for me to take deeps breaths and even unzipped the back of my wetsuit to relieve some of the tightness. There were a lot of women struggling behind me and it was so frustrating to me because I knew that I could do this swim and I felt strong and calm, but I just couldn't breathe! Ugh. The second wave of men caught up to me as I was about halfway through, and then by the time I was almost to the boat ramp a few of the faster ladies from the third wave had caught me too.

Um, practice swimming at higher elevations? Practice training at higher elevations in general? If it weren't for my breathing, I think I would have been fine.

Coming out of the water, I was exhausted and a bit disoriented. I could barely get my wetsuit off my arms as I walked up the boat ramp, but somehow managed to jog up the sidewalk to transition even though my head was spinning. I had to sit on the ground and fight with my wetsuit for a little bit to get it off my feet, but otherwise this went pretty smoothly. I didn't try to rush since I was a bit light-headed. Made sure to take a few big swigs of both gatorade and water.

Not suck so much on the swim so that I have more energy. My wetsuit is really really tight around the calves/ankles, so maybe I just need to practice taking it off because it gets stuck badly every time.

The bike was the redeeming factor of this race for me. I had promised myself the morning before the race that if I could have a good bike split, I didn't really care what else happened. And after the disastrous swim, I was REALLY ready to have a great bike and push myself. I hopped on my bike in a pack of men and vowed to track down and pass as many women as I could, since it seemed like so many of them were way ahead of me thanks to the swim. It took me a good 4-5 miles of the bike before I truly felt like I had regained my breathing and no longer felt lightheaded. I was able to get my speed up to 20-21mph very quickly, and really just tried to keep as fast a pace as I could. The bike is my favorite part of the race, so even if my legs were fried for the run, it'd be worth it for giving the bike everything I had. There were a few gradual hills on the course which I hit pretty hard and managed to pass a few people on. All in all, I passed 9 or 10 women, and was only passed by a few women who were obviously on the faster end of the older age groups and had started after me. I was feeling good for the whole ride, enjoying the scenery, and happy with my pace. I had hoped to break 45 minutes, so seeing that my split was 40 minutes was a HUGE confidence boost once I looked at the results. I love my bicycle.

I was still quite out of it when I started the bike, but all things considered, I'm super happy about this. I should have tried to drink more fluids, but I think I was too busy concentrating on trying to breathe.

Crossed the timing mat feeling really happy about my bike split, and thinking that I felt pretty good about being able to knock out the run in 30-32 minutes. Racked my bike, changed my shoes, then had to spend a few seconds messing with my hair because it got caught in my bike helmet.

My hair gets in the way during transitions at every one of my races. I'll have to find a better system. Otherwise, this was fine. Could always be faster, like everything else I do. heh.

I initially felt pretty good coming out of transition and into the run, but in a matter of minutes it became obvious that I was not going to be able to finish without walking. I tried to jog as slowly as I could and take deep breaths, but my lungs just did not want to cooperate with me. I was getting really frustrated because, just like in the swim, my legs felt good and I was wanting to push myself, but I simply couldn't breathe. It's not like I had a pain in my knee that I could just ignore and keep going... I truly could not breathe, and that's not the kind of thing I could just ignore. So, I ended up walking numerous times. Kevin (kbsnow) caught up with me and said hello, and I considered trying to keep up with him as he was going at a nice steady pace, but again I lost my breath and had to stop to walk and just concentrate. This entire run was a huge disappointment and I was basically counting down the steps to the finish line so that I could be done with the race. Once I got to the point where I could see people turning towards the finish line in the distance, I ran as fast I was able to (which admittedly was not very fast at all) until I crossed the line.

Breathe.

Crossed the line and immediately looked for water. I felt dizzy and there were people everywhere and it wasn't immediately obvious where the water was, so I sat down on a random rock and tried to catch my breath and stop my head from spinning. Eventually made my way to my stuff in transition, packed stuff up, met up with J, and we headed to the car and started heading back towards Tucson.


Being under-prepared for the higher elevation. Not expecting to have such a hard time with the altitude, even knowing that I hadn't prepared for it.


It's obvious that this race has been happening for many years- it's very well run and everything went very smoothly. Finisher's medals were nice, along with a ceramic mug (why?) and a typical plastic water bottle and cotton tshirt. The folks at this race (both racing and non-racing) were all really nice and supportive, and it was a fun morning. If this location wasn't so beautiful I don't think I would have been able to enjoy the race so much through my difficulties breathing, but being able to look down at the lake made for a nice distraction.