Both, 'Mr. Sprinkles and Glitter' and I did the Mountain Man Sprint Triathlon in Flagstaff, AZ this weekend. It was absolutely amazing!
We have been going up Flagstaff quite a bit to train on the hills that are in the bike/run course and just to get used to the altitude up there. So I have been super excited for this race. I've never done a sprint distance before, and I was ready to push myself as hard as I could on the shorter distance.
We left Saturday morning and stopped at our favorite breakfast place, Biscuit's, on the way out. Once we got up there, we checked into our hotel room, went to packet pickup, and then ate lunch at Chipotle. (Driving is hard and makes you hungry ;))
After lunch, we met up with some friends and I bought their old Timex watch- it just so happens to be the exact same as 'Mr. Sprinkles and Glitter'. He recently broke his charger and was in desperate need of one to charge his watch for the race, so it all worked out perfectly. Since it was the exact same watch I had no choice but to bling mine out! How could we tell the difference if I didn't?!
After we met up with them, we went back to the hotel and took care of some very important things- 'Mr. Sprinkles and Glitter' cleaned his bike and I painted my nails... like I said, very important things. ;)
Before I knew it, it was time to eat again! Both 'Mr. Sprinkles and Glitter' and I eat the same thing before every race. He has a steak with a sweet potato and I have pasta with chicken and broccoli- no sauce. So we went to Outback where we could get both of those things. The wait was ridiculous, but the hostess told us there was open seating in the bar. We headed into the bar and found a table right away- score!!
After dinner, we went back to the hotel room and I got in bed as fast as possible.
We woke up, got ready, and checked out of the hotel. Heading down to the lake where the race started, I was so excited but started to get nervous. Once we got there, we went our separate ways and got ready. We met back up and walked down to the swim start together. He started before me, so we quickly said goodbye and he took off.
Shortly after, it was my turn. The water didn't feel as cold as I remembered it feeling from the previous weekend- which was nice. I started towards the front and felt great. I got to the first buoy and felt fine (I was a little worried the altitude would make it hard to breathe) so I picked up the pace and as I got closer and closer to the finish I kept increasing my pace. I was hoping to be around 16 minutes but was happy with my 18:16 finish- especially when a friend pointed out to me that I finished the swim 1st in my age group!
I quickly moved into transition and got on my bike as fast as I could. I knew the course and tried to push myself outside of my comfort zone. Once I reached the turnaround point, I knew there was a slight downhill the whole way back so, once again, I picked up the pace.
I finished in 1:33 and was happy with that. A PR since I've never raced this distance before! ;) Plus I finished 5th in my age group (out of 14). There was 2 minutes separating me from first place- which again, is why I wish I would have pushed a little hard on the run.
Once we finished, we stopped for pizza and headed home. A drive that usually takes us 2 and half hours ended up taking us over 4 because of an accident. We literally we're at a dead stop for over an hour before we started inching forward. It. was. horrible!
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| Beautiful picture, courtesy of my iPhone ;) |
We are both racing Mountain Man in Flagstaff next month, when is your next race?
