9 Months to Tri

[Brett] Today was a blast, my first tri as an AZ resident and the first time for Jason and Ilia. We hit the Tribal Sprint Triathlon at Lake Pleasant for a 1000 yard swim, 15 mile bike at 3.6 mile trail run. The course was amazing, with the most spectacular views I’ve ever seen. The road conditions were hilly - but otherwise great, and the trail run was beyond words. The course had featured a point to point bike ride that seemed unusual to me until I realized they wanted to get the racers onto the trail section around the lake. The trail run was primarily on single track and had some amazing climbs, rocky conditions and switchbacks between the valleys… not to mention some snakes! I heard a rattlesnake about mile 1 of the run, Jason and Ilia said they saw 3 or ‘em. Speaking of wildlife, I nearly met my end during the bike section: Top speed, downhill in gear 20, full aero position pedaling hard down a hill and thankfully the woman I was passing yelled “Horse!”. There, in the middle of the road in front of me was a full-sized donkey that had gotten loose and was a bit spooked. As I squeezed the brakes, he bolted off the road and danger was averted. A couple miles later a good sized jackrabbit bounded across the road in front of  a few bikes causing a couple swerves but no crashes. So, apparently when you tri in AZ, you tri along with nature!

Jason and Ilia did a great job for their first tri, this was the most difficult sprint tri that I’ve done, so it was an awesome job by them to do so well! Jason kicked my butt in the swim, when he gets a big boy bike then maybe he’ll hang for the whole race!

Jason’s Pictures of the event

Tri Hard!

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