Merrill Ranch Spring Triathlon 2022

My first triathlon!

Got my kit together the night before, running through each phase a few times to make sure I had everything. Parked the Model Y on the driveway overnight with my bike on the roof rack and ready to roll. I slept pretty well, despite the excitement. Sarah was up at the time and said goodbye before I left! ❤️ The drive was about 45 minutes SE of home, but being up so early, there weren’t many people on the road.

Picked up my race bib and chatted with the race organizers a bit, mentioning it was my first tri. They were super supportive and, as everyone was saying, said the Merrill Ranch Tri was a great first race - pool swim (instead of open water) and a flat bike and run.

Racked my bike and prepped by transition area.

Met a guy named Kevin who was setup right next to me. I had asked if he had done many triathlons, and turns out, yeah he has! Had been racing close to 10 years, with some time off when he had kids. We had a fun chat about race tips, upcoming races, etc.

Nerves started to kick in as we arrived at the pool. We got in line with the rest of the athletes, roughly in order of how long we thought the swim would take us. A first wave had already started for folks expecting to take over two hours to complete the race. It was great to see people of all backgrounds, ages, body sizes, etc. doing the race!

As we approached the starting line, the race organizers let each athlete start, then gave about 15 seconds for them to get ahead before the next person went. One organizer finds your race number, calls it out to another, then “3, 2, 1, go!” - the timer is hit, and you jump into the pool.

Swim was good! I had put in extra time in the weeks prior to making sure I felt comfortable in the water. You snake through the pool lanes - up one, down another. When you get to the end, you jog back to the starting line and do it again to make a total of 400m. Before the race, I thought maybe I would go too fast and either run out of steam on the swim or run out of breath. Fortunately, I was able to keep both in check and finish the swim about as fast as expected.

A short jog to T1. Put on my tri shirt, helmet, cycling shoes, took my bike off the rack, and ran with it to the mount area. T1 went as expected thanks to my physical and mental prep for it. Glad I had everything where I wanted it to be.

As soon as I mounted my bike, I knew I was going to have a strong cycle. I knew this was probably my strongest leg of the race and I leaned into a bit, averaging about 19mph for the whole cycle. I think I could have gone faster, but didn’t want to be overcooked for the run. My bike computer lost connection to my watch too, so I spent a bit of effort and energy trying to get that sorted out to no avail. I did get it to start showing estimated speed, which was fine enough (even if it was yelling at me to do a U-turn to navigate back to where I started).

Dismounted my bike, jogged it to transition, and got prepped for the run. Some triathletes choose not to wear socks for any leg of the race, depending on the distance. I went sockless for the cycle and decided to put socks on for the run. I wasn’t trying to win, so an extra 30 seconds to pull them on wasn’t going to impact that, and the benefits of not having to worry about blisters or something outweighed any time gains.

Helmet off, socks on, shoes on, race belt with bib number on, and off I ran. T2 time was also good thanks to the prep beforehand.

Then my weakest leg: the run. I had the jelly-leg feeling at first getting off the bike and into the run, as expected, but took the pace a little slow at first to work through it. Then pushed up to my race pace. Again, felt strong! It was two loops around a park. As the second loop started, I could feel my quads start to tighten just a bit. Not enough to slow me down, but enough to know that I had paced my race just well enough. Any faster on the run or swim, and I might have been very sore the following few days.

As I came into the home stretch, the head race-organizer was cheering people on and recognized me from when I checked in. “Let’s go, Matt!” Then even louder so more people could hear, “Let’s go, Matt! It’s his first triathlon!” With only 100 meters or so to go to the finish line, I ran as fast as I could! Sprint to the finish felt awesome.

The results came in and I was shocked to be 4th in the Clydesdale (over 220 lbs.) category. And by only about 3 minutes! Easily could have gotten there with a bit more efficiency in transition and a bit more speed on my run! Super pleased with my results.

And Kevin? Yeah, he got 6th overall and 1st in his age group. Not a bad person to meet before your first race to get advice.

So glad I signed up for this race. I was able to practice my triathlon race prep and work out any kinks before my first olympic distance tri on May 1- the Cactus Man Triathlon.

There’s a repeat of this race in October, and I think I’ll sign up again to compare results!

Date, Location, Weather
Saturday, March 26, 2022
Florence, AZ
Partly Cloudy, 72 °F

Race Distances
Swim: 400m (Pool)
Cycle: 12miles
Run: 5km

Results:
Total Time: 1:19:41.8
Swim: 9:20.8
T1: 1:22.9
Cycle: 37:34.7
T2: 1:51.0
Run: 29:32.1 (Pace: 9:32/mile)
Overall Place: 57th
Category Place (Clydesdale - Over 220lbs): 4th
Total Athletes: 137