2014 Race Opener- Lifetime Tri Marquee + Arizona Fun

This year's first race came up fast. The goal for this race was to see where my fitness was and what things I need to improve on for the upcoming season.

We swam in probably the only body of water in Arizona, Tempe Towne Lake. Although, it's not really a lake, more like a canal. I viewed the race course before race day to get an idea of what to expect. When viewing the "lake" it looked very unappealing. It was very green, dark, and a had a few floating fish. This made me wonder if it was safe to swim in; other people must have asked about it too since the race committee announced to everyone that it was fine.

Race day came and I was a bundle of nerves....as always. I was excited for this race. Especially, the swim since I've been working at it a lot during the off season and my times in the pool were looking good. So I wanted to see how it would transfer in a race.

The swim was a wetsuit legal race. I wasn't sure if it was going to be since it had been really warm but luckily it stayed in the right temperature. We had an in water start. I made sure to try and get towards the front to try and avoid getting trapped in the middle. Although, when the gun went off I still got thrashed around a bit. To avoid that in the future I need to get a faster start.
After I got myself out of the thrash zone I was able to get into a good rhythm and stay near a small group of girls. I had a little difficulty sighting some the buoys since I try not to rely on anyone around me that we are going in the right direction. In order to get out of the "lake" you had to hoist yourself up onto the stairs that were placed there for the race. Thankfully, they had people there to help you out. Even with someone there it was still a little difficult. Also, at this race was the Leadman race that went off an hour before us. Since that distance is similar to an ironman they had wetsuit strippers there and I thought they were only there for those participants but they were there to help anyone that wanted it. So of course I took advantage of that. My swim time ended up being 26:36. I was a little disappointed that it wasn't faster because I know I'm in shape to go faster.

Keeping my nerves in tact

Transition went well up until I mounted my bike and went to slip my feet into my shoes. One of the straps came completely out so I had to fiddle with getting it back into the loop while trying to get going. Not sure how long it took but I finally got it back in and was able to start chasing people down. The bike course was two 14 mile loops making the course 28 miles, which is a little longer than a normal Olympic distance. The course was pretty flat making it a fast course. Since it was a two loop course there were a lot of turn around spots. The first loop went really well. My legs felt good. I was passing a lot of people. One thing I like about loop courses is you can see what position you're in. However, I had absolutely no idea where the leaders were. So I just keep pushing through the second loop and that's when my legs started to fatigue a bit. My bike split was 1:17:55.

Heading out on the bike

Second transition went smoothly as well. The first couple miles of the run went well. I caught one girl that was ahead of me. I felt strong and felt like there was plenty of juice left in my legs to keep up that pace. My pace started to slip a little bit halfway through the run, but I was able to pace off some other guys and get my pace back. Once I got to about the last two miles I really started to struggle. I don't know if the heat was getting to me or if I didn't take in the adequate amount of nutrition. Or maybe it was a combination of the two. I got passed about less than 1 mile from the finish, which was a bummer. My run time was 42:39. It wasn't as fast as I wanted but it was faster than most of the other girls who beat me. So that was encouraging. I ended up coming in at 8th place with an overall time of 2:29:14.

This mist machine felt so GOOD after the race!

After the race I stayed in Arizona for a week to meet up with my coach and have some fun training in the desert. He's in Tucson, which was a little less than 2 hours South of Tempe. I had a couple swim sessions with him and they have made such a huge difference in my swimming. I found I was swimming several seconds faster per 100 than I had been, which is HUGE! He also taught me how to do a flying mount. I've been wanting to learn how to do that for quite some time. I've watched videos on youtube but was always a little scared to try it myself without any tips. I'm glad I waited because what he taught me was a lot easier than what I had seen done in the videos.

My sisters came with me on this trip and we made sure to make the most of it by discovering as much of Tucson and surrounding area before we had to come home. Since we were so close to Tombstone we made a trip down there. Tombstone is about an hour south of Tucson and almost to the Mexican border, which I had no idea until we got stopped at a check point on our way back to make sure we were all U.S. Citizens.

We also went and saw an Ostrich ranch which was a ton of fun. They had other animals there such as donkeys, deer, goats, prairie dogs, and some birds. We got to feed all of them which was a fun experience. It was cool to see the how different each of those animals with take food from you. Although, you didn't hand feed the ostriches. They made me a little nervous. It looked like would peck your hand off.

Another amazing thing about Tucson is that they are in the Saguaro desert, which is the only desert that has the Saguaro cactus. These cactus are absolutely amazing. They grow extremely slow and don't grow any arms until they are 70 years old. I don't really want to give you a history lesson on them (plus that would take a bit to type) but you should look them up. They are very fascinating!!

A Saguaro cactus

Our hike on a windy day

I didn't think I would like Arizona that much because there aren't really any trees, grass, flowers or any bit of green vegetation. But after spending a week I really loved it. Seeing all their dried up river beds really makes you thankful for all the water we have here in Oregon. I would also love to see their rainy season. I saw so many signs that said "Do not enter when flooded".

Also, saw some wild burros