Despite the race starting at 7am, I arrived at Fiesta Island at 4:30 to help setup. With the moon up and stars out, I definitely wanted to be back in bed for a couple more hours, but the energy of my teammates helped me block out my grogginess. As part of the timing team, it was my job to help setup all of the timing mats and ensure they would record athletes’ times as they came in/out of transition, and finished the race. Luckily, everything went smoothly with timing setup, and the timing crew and I were able to get everything set up by around 6am, leaving 1 hour to warm up before the race.

The problem with Duathlons is that run starts = extremely fast starts. As soon as the airhorn was blown the entire wave sprinted off as fast as they could. I was dropped off the main pack almost immediately, but within a few minutes I was able to catch many athletes who went out at a less strategic pace. I was able to catch a few more runners as I came into transition, and felt pretty strong before starting the bike.

TritonMan was my first time racing on my bike, and I had been practicing my mount/dismount skills for weeks in anticipation. However, as soon as I made it onto Fiesta Island I was blasted by some of the worst headwind I’ve ever experienced, and it only got worse as the race progressed. By the time I made it to the third and final lap of the bike course, the wind was now blowing even stronger, to the point where I almost ran out of gears. By this time, all of the collegiate women’s waves had also made it onto the bike course, so my last few miles of bike were a very crowded sufferfest.

The windy bike course and quick first run took a lot out of me, and so coming into the final 5k run I felt pretty awful. Luckily, I had lots of my teammates out on the run course to cheer me on, and help me keep running. I was feeling a lot more relieved than excited by the time I reached the finish line, and embraced the opportunity to finally stop running. After every race I always have two thoughts: “Wow, I’m never doing that ever again” and “When’s the next race?” I definitely was feeling more towards the former at the end of TritonMan, but I’m already looking forward to my next opportunity to race.

Article By Josh Weimer