WETSUITS! ... a.k.a. Overdue Tucson Post

I should be eating dinner right now so I can swim later, but work chewed me up and spit me out this weekend. This means, of course, an evening of blogging, dinner, making Monday's lunch and crashing out early.

Tomorrow will hopefully mean April's recap post ... which I was going to do tonight but I've been talking about this damn post forever so FINE HERE IT IS.

So while in Arizona we did a little keeping healthy beyond just walking around a ridiculous amount at all the touristy-type stuff, like the Pima Air Museum and the Desert Museum.

We managed to run one day in the already oppressive April heat (no, seriously; it got into the 90s while we were there) and did a little bit of lifting as well in the hotel fitness center.

Our big athletic-y day was Saturday ... the day of the Sabino Canyon hike and of TriSports.

We started off and Brandon was happy and ready to go.



Enjoying the cactus and the walk itself, we stopped for a photo.


Hard to notice, but we're actually both wearing our My Way or the Tri Way shirts!

Though it was already getting warm (around 8:30am and in the 80s), we kept soldiering on.


The Timbuk2 is carting around water and sunscreen and phones and money and all that crap.

There were a few areas with bridges that were submerged in water and Brandon's socks got soaked, so we stopped for a minute to let his shoes and socks dry out.


He didn't wear his Drymax socks like I did ... even though I *did* end up drenching mine to the point of being damp for two days on the way back down ... Yep. I broke the Drymax on this hike.

The trail wasn't all that horribly long - only 3.7 miles to the top (and we took the paved route unlike the rest of the family), but hills are hills, man. We saw tons of runners going both ways and promised ourselves to join them if we were to ever come back.

Still, after lots and lots of gorgeous cacti and a few more flooded bridges, we reached the top.


Brandon at the top!


Me at the top!

We heard from my dad that there was supposed to be a waterfall at the top so we hiked around for a while off the auxiliary trails looking for it, but to no avail. We also waited for the rest of the party (my dad, brother and brother's girlfriend) to show up, but they didn't. We were getting sick of waiting, so we began the descent back down and out the canyon.


Loved these signs of warning for the cyclists ... of which there are few. Cyclists have very limited hours of use for the trail ... probably due to the crazy buses that go up and down the road that all pedestrian traffic tries like hell to avoid.

We finally made it back down ... and waited and waited and waited for the family to show up. While we were waiting, we saw a group of triathletes (most likely pros) all decked out in French and Canadian Ironman stuff (one dude had a killer kona-related tat on his leg), talking in French and, well, we were in awe.

Everyone finally showed up so we left, grabbed some In-N-Out for lunch and then zoomed off to the TriSports.com store.


Ahhh, triathlon mecca ...

We walked in, feeling extremely out of our league, but talked to the staff people anyway to get some wetsuits. We were split up, asked our heights and weights and given a wetsuit to try out. Brandon had to try on one or two, but I got mine on the first go-round.


Brandon getting into his wetsuit. This was the first he tried on that ultimately didn't work ... see the bunching at the knees?


Brandon testing out the suit in the store's endless pool. How cool is that? The pool also had mirrors on the bottom so you could check your form. Obviously Brandon points this out to dense me AFTER I was done swimming.

Wetsuits chosen, we shopped around a bit, each getting a race belt and some gels. I also got a bento box (basically a little pouch you attach to the TOP of your frame to hold food/whatnot) and Jef Mallet's book Trizophrenia ... which I read later and was hysterical. HIGHLY recommend.

The best part was that the store was celebrating its 10th birthday ... so everything (EVERYTHING) was 20% off! I got all my assorted crap for less than the original cost of my wetsuit alone, so I was a very happy person.

In the end, Brandon and I weirdly enough ended up with the same wetsuit ... BlueSeventy Reactions. I guess it makes sense though ... we basically have the same running shoe right now as well as the same bike. And goggles. Why not wetsuits too, right?


My pretty new wetsuit!


Brandon holding up our wetsuits.

Unfortunately, this happy story has a sad postscript. After we got back home to Denver ... we learned that the powers that be for Ironman banned all wetsuits made from neoprene (and some other synthetic rubbers) and suits of a certain thickness. Our new BlueSeventys? Made from neoprene. Which really freaking sucks, because we were HOPING to have these suits for a few years and wear them for IM 70.3 Boulder next year. Now though ... ugh.

I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it ... and if we have to go back down to Tucson to have another wetsuit adventure ... so be it.