IMAZ Race Report

(subtitled: don’t leave home without it)

Hey Everyone,

Here’s an Ironman Arizona race report. Actually, this is a report on the swim, which is the leg of a triathlon that doesn’t usually get much attention.  IMAZ always happens on the third Sunday in November, a fortuitous schedule as Thanksgiving feasting is only 4 days later.  I have raced at the Tempe Town Lake venue at least 8 times over the years.  So, I should have had a good idea what I was getting into, right?!? 

Tempe Town Lake is a slightly wider spot on the Salt River.  The Salt River gets its water from way up in the mountains of eastern Arizona.  The swims are always a bit chilly with temps in the upper 60’s to 70.  That is surprisingly cool as this is the Valley of the Sun where you can roast on the run during fall races.  But, the water is fine with a full wetsuit and extra swim cap under the race cap.  Complacency hit before I left home when I made the conscious decision to not bring my trusty XTERRA neoprene hood and booties. 

I was too busy with work stuff (of course) at the AirBnb the day before the race to bother with the test swim, but, after all, I knew perfectly well what to expect.   I was thus unpleasantly surprised at 5 AM to hear a volunteer say the water temp was 61 degrees.  Not a big difference one would think, but that is 8-9 degrees colder and 20% closer to actual ice than I had expected (analysis provided for all my fellow number nerds out there). 61 definitely crosses my threshold for that neoprene hood.

Enough backstory:  The race started.  With the majority of the course going straight into a stiff wind and chop plus my sub par training, I was frozen after a 1:30 split.  During the swim, I started to see big, lumpy shapes on the life guard boats.  The lumps turned out to be athletes that had been pulled out and wrapped up with blankets.

I saved myself some pain as my frozen feet couldn’t feel the long concrete run to transition and then set a new longest ever S to B split (18 min).  After struggling for a while, I finally had the lucid thought that if I couldn’t get my hands to work well enough to put my cycling shoes on, I sure as heck couldn’t ride the bike.  So, I took the time to warm up. 

Stating the obvious, losing a tremendous amount of physical and mental energy in the first 1.5 hours is not a good way to start a very long day.  In case you’re curious, mile 40 of the bike is where my toes started to function again.  My poor feet finally did carry me across the finish line.

So, the moral of the story is:  pack everything you may possibly need.  Especially for early and late season races, even if you’ve raced there many times before.  Be prepared for all kinds of weather conditions on S, B, and R. 

And yes, I know better.  I made it through the Celtman ocean swim (48 degrees!) in the Scottish Highlands because I had the right gear.  I do have the bracing Alpe d’Huez on my possibles list – thanks for that good preview, David Mc. I’m happy to talk about gear and coping strategies with anyone thinking about a cold water event. 

I hope everyone is doing well and making fun plans for the 2023 season!