Race Report: Tribal Sprint Triathlon

Well the race didn’t go quite as I planned but I guess that was part of the reason I did it.

I didn’t get a lot of sleep the night before as I was car camping and between the biting bugs and me being convinced the creature outside (javalena was the guess) was going to jump into the open door to eat me I didn’t sleep much or well.

The alarm went off at 4:15, I left the camping area around 4:40 and was at the race site by 5:15.  The desert is pretty out now, lots of blooming saguaro's.

Upon arriving at the race site, I grabbed everything I thought I would need and headed to the transition area. About 10 minutes before they were going to close the transition I noticed a lot of people were wearing wetsuits despite the 75 deg water temp and 1K length.  So I ran back to my car and got mine. I made it back with enough time to throw my running shoes and visor into the T2 bag hand it off and make it to the boat ramp (bike was point to point). Of note the ground was not smooth pavement, there would be no running from the water to my bike.

The swim went ok but as I was putting on my cap and goggles I realized I forgot my ear plug. Not a big deal just means I’m stuck breathing on just my right side which means a slower swim since I usually breathe every 3rd. Other than that, the swim went pretty well, I was much calmer than I typically am and the wetsuit didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. By the end I felt like I was finally getting into a good rhythm so I’m hoping that will stick with me for Eagleman and will enable me to feel comfortable going fast from the start. After the swim I walked to my bike, got out of my wetsuit pretty quickly and was off on the bike.

I was expecting a pretty flat course since it's near Phoenix and all but it turned out to be lots of rolling rolling hills not to mention sharp turns, cattle guards, and two turn arounds with one being around an orange cone after coming down a hill.  Not to mention that it was very windy out.  On a few hills I felt like I was working very hard just to go down them.

T2 was a bit chaotic as volunteers were helping to find and give out the T2 bags we handed over at the start line. The volunteers were doing a great job, I just happened to finish the bike at about the same time as 10-15 other people so it took me about a minute to get my bag.  I quickly put on my running shoes and set off on the run which ended up being a trail run the first 2 miles. I was doing well passing lots of people especially on the trail and then about 4 min before the end my shoe came untied so I stopped to retie it and then finished the race.

All in all not a great race but I now know what I need to remember for Eagleman. I’m still not really sure what my time at Eagleman will be but regardless it will be good to be back in MD for the weekend. And in trying to be positive the weather has only just gotten good for training out here and my big races are in the fall. Last year by Eagleman I had already been burnt out for about a month and this year I feel like I’m just getting into the swing of things. So if I am a bit slower at Eagleman but have motivation to train hard thru the summer then I think I’ll be okay with that ... so long as I do well in my races this fall.