Desert International Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

I was pretty miserable the whole time. Dunked my goggles as we were shuffling out and dove in. Goggles were clear, but I still couldn't see the buoy, so I just sighted the double palm trees. Had a little bit of contact early on, but it was a pretty mellow swim start. I tried to stay on feet, but it didn't seem like anyone was swimming in the right direction. When I started to get the feeling that I was all alone, I stopped and took a look to be sure I was on track. It seemed like it took forever to get to the first buoy. There were a lot of pink caps in the water around the turn and I caught a couple of frog kicks in the forearm. One woman who was stopped started backstroking alongside me and seemed to be keeping pace. Couldn't wait to get out of the water! Eventually made the turn and tried to pick up the turnover / focus on pull in the last 200m. Was glad to touch sand and get on dry land.

Do some longer swims. Not sure if it was the course or my lack of swim training or the fact that I was coming off a cold, but I was 4 minutes slower than last year. Was a bit discouraged when I saw the time when I hit the T1 mat.

Struggled a bit to get my wetsuit off. I can never stomp it completely off (despite Body Glide on the ankles). I left my shoes off the bike since I struggled at the bike mount in the du the day before. I still had a hard time. Took a few attempts to click in and I swerved around quite a bit before slow pedaling up the hill. It wasn't pretty.

Practice the bike mount and figure out how to get the wetsuit off that last little bit without reaching down and peeling the legs off.

Tried to start off relatively easy, but I knew this was gonna be about an hour of hurt, regardless of effort. I couldn't really breath all that well and I was hacking and wheezing most of the time. Survival was the order of the day. I tried to focus on cadence and getting air. There were a lot of people to pass (especially on the second loop), but I got passed plenty of times.

Push harder? Suck it up? I gave what I had.

Dismount went well, but missed my rack. Couldn't find my stuff and started looking at the numbers on the racks. I couldn't remember mine and got confused with the day before. Before long, someone called out my race number and I ran back to my rack. Helmet off, shoes on, grabbed handheld bottle and Garmin. Running out, I realized I forgot my race number. Monica was there at the run out and I told her I forgot it. Oh well. Made a mess of that transition.

Walk the path of travel to my rack in the morning. Or remember my race number.

Out of transition, I was fiddling with my Garmin and realized that this was going to be a pretty ugly run. My head felt like it was as big as Jack(-in-the-Box)'s. I was still passing people, but those on their second lap were blowing by me. At the end of the first loop I got passed by someone in my AG and I tried to hang onto him. I never checked my Garmin for pace, but I could tell I wasn't really "racing". I was just looking for this one to be over with. Got caught by a pack of three guys from other AGs in the last mile and ran with them to the finish.

Not sure. Didn't want to quit, but didn't really think I had much to give. Just gotta keep on keepin' on.

Walked through the chute and caught up with Monica. Made a pass through the Athlete Food zone and loaded up her purse before heading to transition to clean / pack up. Hung out


I was about 10 minutes slower overall than last year. Was looking forward to a good weekend of racing until Tuesday night, when I came down with something. I was pretty sick heading into the weekend and raced the duathlon the day before. It definitely wasn't my best day, but you're not always going to be at your best. It's good mental training to stick with it. It's always hard, right? On this day, I just went slower. At least it was only a 2-hour sufferfest. It would have been a loooong long-course race day!


This is a good race. The race director seems to care about the event and it doesn't seem like it's all about the bottom line. The course is easy and this year the weather was very good for an early season race. If anything, it got a bit hot on the run, but all in all, I can't complain. The run course is known for being a little short and this year, I think the swim course may have been a bit long. Either that, or last year it might have been a bit short - there was some wind last year and the current may have brought the far buoy in a bit? Anyway, conditions were a non-factor. It was a good workout and nice to hang out with training buds. I felt lucky to have Monica there to sherpa for me.