Amica International Triathlon

Amica decided to switch venues this year from beautiful Lake Pleasant to the gasoline-smelling, salty Firebird Lake. Seriously, this water was disgusting. I could see oil on the surface of the water, there was this weird green stuff floating around, and parts of it smelled like pure gasoline.

Anyways, I woke up at 5am and headed down to the lake (13 minutes away from my house). I left at 5:45am and was one of the first to arrive. International distance participants were supposed to start at 7:30am while sprint waves started at 8am.

Two days prior to the race, I did the Phoenix Seven Summit challenge, 23 miles of hiking to Phoenix’s highest summits. This included South Mountain, North Mountain, Shaw Butte, Lookout Mountain, and Squaw Peak. It was a ton of fun, but it took a toll on my legs. My quads were pretty sore and fatigued Saturday. My friend recommended an Epsom salt bath. I watched an episode of Dexter while soaking my legs in the Epsom salt. I’m weird. I’m not sure it worked, but it was worth a try. I spent most of Saturday stretching, foam rolling, and got a massage.

I went into this race with little expectations, except to maintain a solid effort throughout the entire race. I had crashed on my bike a couple weeks ago so my biking has been limited, and I haven’t done any speed work lately. My main incentive was to beat my friend, Chad,by 12 minutes because we had a lot of $$$ riding on this race.

Swimming in the disgusting Firebird Lake was the low point of the day. Also the race started 10 minutes late, so I had to stand in the water for extra long. The course was two 750m loops. I couldn’t believe how salty the water tasted; it felt like swimming in a disease-infested ocean…. and then there were the parts that smelled and tasted like gasoline. It stung the nostrils.

Swim start, trying to get away from Chad... his plan was to hang on my feet the entire swim

The timing mat was at the entrance of T1 , which was about 100 yds from the water. My watch swim time was about 1:15 faster. Still, I’m surprised that my swim wasn’t faster. I’ve been going to master three times a week and I’ve gotten much faster in the pool. For some reason this isn’t correlating with my open water times.

So happy to get out of the water - Giving my coach a high five!

The run course was two loops around the race track:

I could definitely feel the fatigue in my legs from hiking on the run. I did my best to even pace it, but I faded a little at the end. Overall, I put it a solid effort and I’m pleased with how well I performed today.

I had a great time catching up with friends and teammates. I saw many people on my team spectating including Coach Nick and Joe. Many of my teammates were racing as well.  Also, big thanks to my groupies: Bobby, Becca, Mr. Case, Finn, Catie, Leah, and Kelly.

Also, I beat Chad by more than 12 minutes… so he had to buy me a Kona lottery entry… I’ve gone to the dark side.

Thanks for throwing $90 down the toilet for me Chad. 🙂