Thinking that I *might* do an 70.3 for my 70th birthday, I thought it was time to get back into triathlons, not having done one since 2016. The Iceman Sprint Triathlon appealed to me because of the open water swim at Lake Pleasant. I’ve had a fair amount of experience with cold water swimming so I felt that would give me an advantage in the swim (Arizona lake temperatures in February can range from upper 40s to upper 50s). The sprint bike and run segments are only 20k and 5k respectively, but I hadn’t been riding much in the past couple of years and, since my last trail race in November, I had cut back on running. I had plenty of time to train since signing up for race, but having found out in December that both of my knees show cartilage and meniscus wear and tear, I chose to take some time to rest.
Not a lot of prep went into this race – my plan was just to finish and hopefully have a good time. The weekend before the race I went to Lake Pleasant to swim and scope out the bike and run courses. Water temp that morning was around 50F and I only swam for about 15 minutes, enough to know what race day would be like. I had plotted the bike and run courses on a GPS route planning app, which gave the elevation profile. However, when driving the course it seemed harder than I had imagined, and the same with the run course. I couldn’t help but stress about it over the days leading up to the race.
On race day, Alastair and I were up at 2:30am for the 2.5 hour drive to Lake Pleasant, arriving there before sunrise when the air temp was in the low to mid 40s. I picked up my race packet, set up my bike in the transition area, then went back to the car to stay warm until it was time to suit up for the swim.
Swimmers doing the Xterra went off first at 8am, followed by our group. I was pleased to see two swimmers that I met at Lake Pleasant the weekend before. We had a nice chat and a few laughs, which always helps settle my nerves. Alastair stayed with me until I left the timing mat and was there when I returned. I felt comfortable in the swim, and passed quite a few other swimmers who obviously having trouble with the cold. I learned later that about 10 people were pulled, unable to complete.
My transition from swim to bike was slow, about 7 minutes. I had brought a number of options to wear on the bike, depending on the temperature. I wore long bike pants on top of my tri shorts, a T-shirt and insulated jacked, and no gloves, which worked well for me. Many athletes were wearing significantly less, some even in sleeveless tri suits! I rode briefly with a nice woman from Nebraska – her first time in Arizona. Aside from the steep initial climb (over 8% grade) from the transition area up to the main road, the course wasn’t as bad as I anticipated. There were multiple long climbs with average 5-6% grades, nothing that I found difficult; although, I took those pretty slow, averaging just under 14 miles per hour for the entire course.
The run segment was my least favorite. I felt OK overall, but for some reason my feet hurt. A few days before I switched my shoelaces to an elastic quick lock style, so I thought that they might be too tight and stopped once to loosen them – it didn’t help. I walked quite a bit, especially on all the hills, and ended up average 11:35 minutes per mile. Not awful, but far from my best 5k pace. I didn’t realize until after the race that I forgotten to remove the small hand warmer packets I put in my shoes. Those were simply meant to keep my shoes warm during the other segments. Nice idea, but…duh!
My finish time, including transitions, was 1:59:59, putting me in 2nd place for the Female 65-69 category. OK, there were only two of us in the category, and the woman who placed 1st was a much faster cyclist and runner than me… but hey, I still got the pint glass age group award!
I was glad that I did the race. I had a great time, saw some friends, made some new ones, and would probably do it again. I was very grateful that Alastair came with me. I know I was more relaxed and confident with him being there.
So what’s next? Not sure yet, but I’ll have a new bike in the next couple of weeks (a friend is building one for me), and I want to start swimming more often and increasing my weekly miles, so we’ll see.