Tempe International Triathlon - Olympic Distance - TriathlonOlympic

I have a hard time accepting that this was a true 1500m course. Although wet suit legal, I opted to practice in my new Zoot Speedsuit as it is legal to use in Kona. I figured not wearing a wet suit would cost me maybe a min or two over 1500m. My last 1500m wet suit swim was 22:43. I have a hrad time accepting that 45 days later I am 3 min slower, wet suit or no! Looking at everyone's splits, it looks like the course was long, maybe by 100m or so. Everybody was talking about it. Regardless of the time, my swim feltvery good and the Zoot Speedsuit really feels good and regardless of my split, I'm glad I tried it out, although wearing my wet suit probably would have bumped me up a spot or two in the end.Where I had been planning a 23 min swim I ended up 25min and was not happy!

I suppose just wear the wet suit and go for it. Anytime a race allows wet suits, wear them, folks!

No problems with transition, the speedsuit comes off super fast. I did have a moment of trouble with my helmet buckle, it was a little too tight.

Double check my helmet strap!

OK, I crushed the bike. I had the fsatest split for the day. I was more than a little annoyed about the swim and decided to make a statemtn on the bike. I pushed for all 4 laps. I have raced this same bike course 3 times now and really wanted to see how my cycling has improved since last year. It is well known that this bike course is about 1.5 miles short of 40K, so my average speed was really 26mph. I flet great, I felt very fast. I had one bottle of water mixed with 2 gels on my frame and made sure I drank 1/4 per lap.

My best race pace yet, so nothing.

Fast in, fast on with my shoes, visor, race belt.

Nothing.

The overall winners time was a 38 and change and he runs 35-36 typically. My 40:08 is also 3min slower than my last Olympic. Only 5 people went sub 40min! So can't really compare my split here either. But I felt good, it was really starting to get hot. It's an Olympic run, it ALWAYS hurts! I was being persued by 2 other AG'ers, but managed to hold my pace, which was probably right around 6:00 flat based on my HR data. The field at the front was so spread out, I was alone the entire run.

Hope that the RD gets the distance right so I don't have to go too far! ;)

Chatting with all the top finishers about how long the swim and run were!


This is a fun race, but it is a little chaotic sometimes. The RD is super guy, just not the ebst at timimg. I didn't mind the aid stations having only water as that's all I have time for, but I can understand other people complaining about the lack of additional aid product, especially if they were still on the course after 10:00am when the temps really got up there. The awards ceremony took a while to get started as well.