TriFest Day 2!

So now that it has been a couple weeks since my last post I thought I should finish up with the second day of TriFest 2012 put on by TriSports.com! After having such a fun day on Day 1 we woke up to another beautiful sunny Tucson morning! In the am we had team pictures and individual shots. Here is a list of everyone on the team http://sponsorship.trisports.com/athletes.html. There are some pretty impressive resumes on there! After pictures we had a surprise workout to go to. Bc this was my first year on the team I had only heard stories of what had happened in the past. Last year if I heard correctly they had a mini tri that was at the Starr Pass resort that consisted of a water slide start around the lazy river....this year we weren't as lucky but it was still a good time. Our sponsor coordinator, Jaclyn below, told us the scoop; we had a nice little sprint triathlon with a 800 yard pool swim at the JCC, a 16 mile bike through the open roads (including obeying all lights) and a nice 5k run on the Rillito river trail.

To add to the excitement the winner got a nice gift card to the store! The swim was not the lazy river I was expecting but after getting onto the bike I realized the advantage of making the lights! Leo and I Carrillo and I ended up riding most of it together by the way the lights were...I would work hard get 100 feet ahead..then STOP..then 100 yards ahead...then STOP.

This was a pretty continual cycle. Needless to say..after getting stopped at 90% of the lights the possibbility of getting the GC was gone! The winners ended up being Thomas Gerlach (http://www.thomasgerlach.com/) and Allison Stewart (http://www.atrihuntress.com/). Great job to everyone! After that we chowed down on some muffins, fruit and some gatorade and relaxed a little bit before our ride from the JCC back to the store. After getting back to the store it was a Triathletes' Dream.....about 50 vendors from Zipp to Cervelo to Shimano to Blue Seventy and anything in between was there to show off their newest products. I was loving it. In the end I ended up picking up a pair of LG Tri 300 carbon shoes (http://www.trisports.com/lg-tri-300-cycling-shoes.html) It was great as Craig helped me fit them to my size 48 foot! They ended up being heat moldable and in addition we used a vacuum suction to make them fit even more perfectly to my large feet! After that process I started looking at swim skins as I knew that I need all the help I can get at swimming -especially when it is not wet suit legal. I ended up going with the Aquasphere Energize suit pictured to the right. We shall see how it works when I use it at St. Anthony's in a few weeks! After my little shopping spree I ended up kicking back for a little bit before the infamous TriFest Party that Saturday night!

I had heard some stories about this party so I was really looking forward to it. We get there and a live band is playing, there is food everywhere and there are poker and blackjack tables set up! After getting some good eats in, Seton, the Owner gave a nice little speech about the past year and for the future. Afterwards,Jaclyn got up and said a few words, including awarding fellow teammate Craig Sheckler (http://www.endurancemultisport.com/) the 2011 Athlete of the Year! Congrats to him!! It was truly nice meeting him and his wife Erica that weekend.

When the blackjack tables opened, I quickly lost all of my play TriSports money but boy did I have fun....its especially fun when your not really losing real money...but then I guess I would have been upset had I won. After a great night and saying good bye to a lot of the teammates I needed to get to bed as I had an early 17 mile run with "The Hoff", aka Ben Hoffman (http://benhoffmanracing.com/) Thanks so much to TriSports for a great weekend and I can't wait to come back next year!!