Race Type: Triathlon
Distance: 400 meter swim, 10.2 mile bike, 3 mile run
Participants: 215
Overall Place: 23rd
Age Group Place: 5th
Time: 1:05:43. Swim: 9:38, Bike: 34:16, Run: 21:49
I signed up for this race last week. I had been debating on this race and a 100 mile road cycling club event; The Heart of Arizona. With the 1/2 ironman distance tri coming up next week I felt that it would not be beneficial to ride that far and be gone from my family all day. Anyway, on to the race...
This race was the 22nd annual Desert Grande Triathlon. I had never been to Coolidge, AZ although it is only 30 minutes south of my house. After having reviewed last years times I felt that I could come out fairly well if the participant field was similar. With that in mind, I had the goal of pushing myself hard throughout the race (except the swim) and was shooting for a time of 1:01.
The race was held at Central Arizona College. The campus was nestled against a mountain and was quite beautiful. After racking my bike near the beginning of the transition area I then picked up my registration packet and walked around the pool. The pool had 8, 50 meter lanes. Having never swam in a 50 meter pool, I was looking forward to it. Next I walked the transition areas and asked questions to ensure that I knew the route to take. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that it was really cold out! It was 50 degrees (that is practically freezing for Phoenicians) and I was beginning to dread the bike portion.
At 7:15 I stripped down to my tri suit and headed towards the pool. My feet froze while walking on the grass but the sun was starting to warm things up a bit. The race director gave his speech and people started getting in the pool in 10 second intervals. We were all lined up by our estimated finish time so I stuck with the 8:30 group and waited as more than 1/2 of the participants started ahead of me. Once in, the swim was uneventful. I passed a few people and was passed by a couple. There were also a couple of points where I had to wait due to lines being blocked by slow swimmers. Oh, well. I came out of the pool a bit slower than expected but I was feeling good.
The bike transition went well. I put on a long sleeve shirt and was off. Unfortunately the lane was narrow exiting the bike area and I was stuck behind a slow rider for a quarter mile. Once out of the way I started pushing hard and was averaging 23 mph. I was able to hold this until we made a couple of turns and ended up in a mountain valley where the winds were moving strong against me. At that point I could barely push 18 mph and my average dropped down lower than expected. I ended the ride with a 21 mph GPS average but was pleased that I passed ~25 people and was not passed at all. The official results are skewed because both transitions were included during this leg.
The run transition went well. I stripped off the long sleeve shirt, put on the race belt and started chasing people down. After less than a 1/2 mile the course turned onto packed dirt. I wasn't expecting this and would have brought different shoes. I pushed hard and passed 10-15 people during the run. Once again, nobody passed me. There was a woman ahead of me the entire time and I used her to pace off but could never catch up.
I had to head for home immediately after the run so I did not see my results. For some reason they weren't posting any data real time. There was good food available that I missed out on but I did receive a finisher medal and a long sleeve shirt.
All in all, a good race that was well run and had a good showing. I will do this again next year.
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