1st Place at Tribal Triathlon

What a GREAT race. Off course it is always fun when you do good :-) This was my 3rd year in a row competing in the event and the 3rd time winning. But the most important part is that my time improved every year. This year I finished in 1:12 hrs. Last year in 1:18 hrs. Also important is: hahaha...beating the most men possible :-) In 2009 I finished 10th overall, this year I finished 4th overall men and women!!!

Here are some pics from last week:



My new AVIA bolt shoes are GREAT!!! Supersoft and a great fit. Post workout in the shoes I enjoyed my recovery drink and a nice stretch on the porch.

Our swim in Lake Mary. The picture doesn't show how big the waves really were ;-)

Checking my fast ride before the race in transition. The course is so hilly that I had a hard time deciding if I should take my Parkpre Mr. Cherry (aka the Roadbike) or the TT bike.

Lake Pleasant the morning of the race. Less waves then in a pool!!! We were really lucky as the temperature stayed low (for Phoenix) and there was overcast most of the day.

The start of the race. The water was a nice 74 degrees andd really clear (unlike Lake Mary). I surprised myself with my swim with the 2nd fastest time (men and women). The time included the swim and the transition which might have put me in that spot because I had a quick transition. My wetsuit came off surprisingly fast. From last year my swim + transition I improved by about 4 min!!! Yippie!!! Hopefully all the hard work is paying off now:-)

The bike was pretty uneventful. Up and down and up and down for 23 km. Not an easy course but so much fun. T2 is at the beginning of a trailhead, which means you hand the volunteers your bike and they bring it back ina truck to where you started. The run is a challenging 5k. You really just have to "turn your brain off". No thinking about all the loose gravel and the rocks and the cactus which is right next to you. The course is 1 km of downhill where you can just fly (after the switch off of the brain:-). Then 1km steep uphill. Then it winds back to the start of the race. The last 1 km is on pavement and also a downhill which feels really nice. But overall the 5 km feel like 2 km, because you are not thinking about the distance, you are so busy looking at where your foot goes that you forget that you are running :-)

Here is Pam before her 2000 m open water swim. We decided that next year we would do the Triathlon and then the 2 or 4 km OW swim afterwards.

Here is Kevin from Tribe multisport handing me my award!!! Thank you so much for the great organization and all the Prizes for awards and the raffle (even though I never have the winning numbers for the raffle :-(

After the race Pam and I went on another 35 km bikeride and the I tooke her on the trail to run the race course with me again :-) Fun day!!! When we were done we were a little dehydrated and hot so we decided to jump into Lake Pleasant again!!!

She drove back to Flag, I got picked up by JR for a trip to Globe. We spent the night camping downtown Globe and JR raced the 89 mile long State Championship Roadrace on Sunday morning.

JR and 2 other guys climbing the final climb, which seemed like 100 miles of climbing...see the Lake in the back of the picture...that is where the started the climb!!!

After driving back to Flag we were tired from the lack of sleep and all the sun. But after a good 10 hour sleep, we are ready for another day of training!!!