So, second-to-last in age group and periously close to last among the men...I guess this is what you call a "limiter".

I took about 10 strokes at the beginning and I knew that the swim wasn't going to be great. My arms were dead. Probably due to my swim in last week's race and I played 18 holes on Sunday. But I just took my time and swam about 100 and rested for a minute on my back or doing the breast stroke.

The highlight of my day was when I got helped up and out of the lake by no less than Pirate Girl. It's always nice to get a friendly face after a tough event.

The swim was ok though since the real purpose of the race for me was to get out in open water and swim without flipping out. So, mission accomplised there.

Not do two races within a week and play 18 AFTER the race.

Not too bad of a transition considering there was about a 100 yd run from the swim and I had to get my wetsuit off. I did hustle a little more than usual here since it's a sprint.

Nadda

I hadn't scouted this race at all so I had no idea what to expect on the bike. I figured it would be pretty flat since Sahuarita's in a long valley. However, the hill in the middle of the race surprised me, so I sat up for a bit and spun in an easy gear. The hard part for me was that since I didn't know how long it was I held back some so I wouldn't blow up, so it wasn't my best climb. Usually, because I'm so light, I can really gain time on people on climbs and it was a little disappointing that I didn't get more time back from my poor swim, but that's on me not scouting the route before hand.

Once you made the turnaround at the top of the hill, you could really make up time (as a matter of fact, I checked my watch and at the top I had about 35 mins on the bike. I finsihed in about 20). I was in my 53x12 gear and I was spinning out...so that's the first, and probably only, time I wished I had an 11 on the cogset. Unfortunately, I don't have a computer on my tri bike yet so I don't know the speed, but it was fast.

All in all I really liked this course. It was fun and the hill in the middle mixed things up from a normal sprint triathlon. And who doesn't like screaming down as fast as you can?

Scout the route before hand and go harder up the climb.

Another pretty good tranistion for me.

Zilch

I felt a little lethargic starting out, maybe the first half mile, when I realized my cadence was pretty low. So, I shortened my stride a little and picked up my cadence. It seemed to get my legs going and as I felt better I was able to lengthen my stride and set a pretty good pace for myself.

I passed quite a few people and had seen that my pace after mile 1 was about 7:40 which I was pretty happy with. I was able to keep that pace and finished with it. Ususally in 5k's I don't do much better than that so I guess all of my running is beginning to pay off. The time I posted is right up there with my cross country times in high school which was too long ago to mention here.

Pirate Girl was clearly stalking me, because when I crossed the finish line there she was trying to take my race number!

Make sure I'm running at my comfortable cadence of 90 right away.

Hit the line, talked with my parents who came to watch, then hung out with the wife and kiddies in the park.


128/141 in the swim; 67/141 on the bike; 41/141 on the run. I'm gonna go with my swim. Uggghhh, I'm really bad at that. It's frustrating because in a pool I do about 2:05 splits and I don't even know how to flip turn. I've got to get some more swims under my belt in open water! If I would have shave a lousy 7 minutes off of my swim to get to 25:00, I would have finished at 66 overall instead of 85. Frustrating!


This was a fun race and I think I'll sign up for next year. The bike course wasn't what I'd call scenic, but it was challenging for how short it was. The run was nice as it winded through the neighborhood. Everyone talks about the lake and how it's dyed green, but it's no worse than Tempe Town Lake on the fishy/gross meter.