Swim
Comments: The swim was excellently organized as usual for the Tucson Tri series. At minute 67 our swim wave started. The effort felt like Wednesday’s swim. It felt fast but with little effort. Before I knew it I was out of the water and running down into T1. What would you do differently?: It was a great swim. No times yet... Transition 1
Comments: Judge Susan Bacal had set up her transition area next to mine and she was cheering me on through transition. I had a little balance issue trying to get my socks on. But I got out and riding fast. I even did a BMX style jump to the saddle! T1 and T2 Lumped Into Bike Time What would you do differently?: Slow DOWN and concentrate on the task at hand and stop worry about what to do next. Bike
Comments: I started out and had the straw of my aero-bottle whipping around. The roads were very smooth except for Euclid, as usual. This time the little yellow mesh covering the fill hole of the aero-bottle popped out and of course ¾’s of the Vitamin Water in the bottle began to cover me. I placed my left hand over the hole and tried to steer with the right. That was fun. I finally got back to smooth road and decided to drain the rest of the bottle before getting back to Euclid on the second lap. The rest of the ride was uneventful and fast. What would you do differently?: Get a better solution for a top on my aero-bottle. Transition 2
Comments: The second transition was quick. It was nice not having to deal with the Camelback. Nothing really held me up and it felt fairly quick. What would you do differently?: NADA Run
Comments: The run started nice enough. I started slow expecting the calves to cramp and the started to. But by ½ mile the cramps went away and the legs started moving with less effort. My pace got quicker and few people were passing me. By mile 3 I was in full stride and kicking hard. I went into this race treating it as a C race. I didn’t go in expecting to break any personal records. That being said I was astonished when I came across the finish line and saw the total time clock was at 2:29:30, meaning I finished approximately 1:22:30 a full two minutes faster than October’s race! I finished faster and it felt like a lot less effort. Of course being about 10 pounds lighter helped! What would you do differently?: Nothing, the best tri-run to date. Post race
Warm down: FOOD as much as possible and more Vitamin Water. What limited your ability to perform faster: I didn't push my self as hard as I could have. If I had really pushed there is no doubt I could have been under 1:20:00. Event comments: Another great Tucson Tri Series race. The new sponsors and the shindig at TriSports were great. Last updated: 2007-01-05 12:00 AM
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United States
Tri-Tucson
60F / 16C
Sunny
Overall Rank = 149/180
Age Group = 30-34
Age Group Rank = 19/23
I got a late start to the night and went to bed near mid-night. So the alarm woke me partially excited to get to the race. I frantically ran around the house making sure I had everything. I went to put my bike on the new bike carrier on the rear of our car and realized I put it together wrong and had to do some quick fixing. We got everything going and out the door we went with only my Labrada shake in me for food.
I decided to try something other than Gatorade as it wasn’t doing the trick for the muscle cramps. I grabbed a bunch of different Vitamin Water drinks especially with potassium. More on this later.
We got there around 5:20 (T1 opened at 5) and most of the really good spots were already taken. I did get a spot over near the end of a rack. I did all the regular things. I set out and planned my transitions, pumped up my tires to 120 psi, and continued to hydrate. While standing around waiting for my swim start a guy from the Elite section walked over and asked if he could borrow my tire pump. He went on to explain he just had a flat riding his bike from the car to the transition area. I quickly said sure no problem. I saw he was pumping the tires on a brand new Cervelo P3C and I wandered over to check out his bike. He looked up and said,” I’ll bring it back quick!” I realized he thought I was stalking my pump and let him know I was just admiring the ride. We had a little laugh about that. He finished up and handed me the pump and introduced himself as Emilio De Soto. I asked if there was any connection with the clothes. He said it was his company and proceeded to give me his card and told me to drop him an e-mail and he would send me a code to get his clothes at a discount! Sweet, I met Emilio De Soto.
While watching the first waves of swimmers the crowd was informed of a celebrity in out midst. The second wave was the wave where all the relay teams started. The one thing no one expected was Michelle Jones in the water, RACING. But there she was killing the pool. She did the swim with an average 1:11/100 yards! She was doing the swim and bike while someone else was doing the run. By the time the third wave had started we saw her on the bike from the high deck. She was chasing down a motorcycle at an incredible speed.