Friday, November 20, 2009

Arizona in November



At 7 AM this morning, two days before race day, the temperature is 48 degrees.

By any standard, this is cold for the start of the race. Add that the temperature of the water is only 64 degrees and you start to wonder what your thinking was that you were going to be racing in the heat.

I don't like cold water. I did Muskoka one year- June in Ontario. The stated water temperature was 54 degrees and this was, if canadians are capable of such things, a lie. I was disoriented when I exited the water.

This is nowhere near that bad, but swimming without a wetsuit yesterday, I wasn't too happy.

Of course, the truth is there will be 'heat', which is to say that it will get up into the mid-to-upper seventies during the bike and the run. And with the stronger sun here, it will get hot. I certainly was sweating in the middle of the day while I was standing around waiting for my bike, which TriBike Transport did a great job getting here.

Overall the village was very well organized and if everyone had not wanted to check in at the athlete registration at 10AM yesterday, which is no fault of the venue, things would have been perfect.

But the four hours I spent at the village waiting for one thing or another did make it clear- it will be hot. Just not in the water or at the beginning of the bike...

PS- the race does not climb that hill. It's just a cool hill. Maybe I'd place better if we did climb it.

2 comments:

Terri said...

Good luck Alan! will be checking in online!

Don Gustavson said...

i run up that hill whenever i'm in tempe on business, great view at the top.