Arizona Folks -- Couple Topics/Questions for 2026 In-State Race Season

Triathlon Forum
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I’m still fairly new to living/racing in AZ, so I’m trying to make sure I correctly understand the race landscape for 2026. Hoping any of you AZ folks will chime in and let me know if I’m missing anything…

I was thinking about doing the IceMan event (that was held in prior years in February). However, there’s no info about it on the 4 Peaks website. Given how close we’d be now to that time, I’m assuming that race has been “retired”. Anyone know if that’s correct? (I emailed 4 Peaks, but haven’t received a reply yet.)

Assuming that’s correct, that would mean there are now only 6 OWS (non-pool swim) triathlons remaining in the state:

  1. Lake Havasu (March) - Sprint & Oly

  2. Cactus Man - Tempe (April) - Sprint & Oly

  3. Deuces Wild - Show Low (May) - Sprint, Oly & 70.3

  4. Mountain Man I - Flagstaff (July) - Sprint & Oly

  5. Mountain Man II - Flagstaff (August) - Oly & 70.3

  6. Castle Creek - Lake Pleasant (Oct) - Sprint & Oly

Any OWS triathlon events in AZ that I’ve missed? Assuming not, it’s pretty amazing to me that a state with more than 7.5 million people can only support so few remaining events. Guess I’m going to have to add some travel to fill my race dance card.

Speaking of travel, I think the closest Ironman 70.3 events to AZ would be either Indian Wells, CA or Ruidoso, NM? I don’t race full IM distance, so I haven’t looked at those. But I suspect the closest remaining to AZ would be either somewhere in CA or TX?

Final question – Thinking about doing the Oly at Lake Havasu in March. Would be my first time at that event. Any feedback from the group on that race? Thanks…

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Oceanside 70.3 is probably the closest 70.3 race. St. George was drivable but sadly I think the race is gone.

the Oro Valley triathlon is a pool swim but it is a well run race. An excuse to go to Tucson if you aren’t settling there.

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I used to live in the phoenix area. It’s understandable to me why there wouldn’t be a lot of OWS races in the state, being a desert with few lakes and rivers. I did a race at Lake Pleasant a while back - seemed like a great venue - wonder why there’s only one race there? Might be a cost or permitting thing.

The good news is that SoCal is driveable and there are plenty of options there. And for local races, a pool swim in a 50 meter pool is pretty darn good if done right.

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I think you have named most of the remaining events. Yes, we used to have a lot more. La Quinta 70.3 is the closest, next is Oceanside, and then Ruidoso, all of which are on my 2026 calendar along with likely CactusMan and Deuces, maybe one of the MM events.

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Honestly, it has come in waves, when I started racing here in 2016 (and moved here in 2017) the scene was kinda cratered as Lifetime got out of Triathlon, but there was a resurgence of events for a bit. But we also lost a promoter in Tri-Family racing. Kinda surprised 4 Peaks hasn’t tried to pick up anything at Bartlett Lake but I’m sure they are content with Lake Pleasant stuff. And with Ironman completely pulling out it kinda sucks since we essentially have year round pool swimming available to us.

@Bryancd could probably opine a lot more about how the scene has evolved over the years.

If I can lose some weight I might get my slow bum into Cactus Man sprint this year.

There used to be 3-4 races there and then 2 at Bartlett, but Tri-Family racing went kaput.

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A few years ago there was a race with a pool swim in March. If I recall it was called Tri for the Cure.

The year I did it the West Point Cadets were in town for spring break and crushed the rest of us…..

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Tri For the Cure is on the 4 Peaks Racing schedule.

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Yep. 4 Peaks does basically the same event at Anthem 2x per year. Tri 4 Cure in March, and Holiday Classic in December. I’ve raced both of those, multiple times.

The biggest problem is the pool swim format. 25 yard lanes, ducking under 8 lane dividers, and running back to do it again, while dodging slower swimmers who came in later. Then again, total time in water is so minimal that it’s tolerable…

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Raced at Deuces for the first time last year. Had a fun weekend. Oly on Saturday and Sprint on Sunday. Nice location, and a good low key local race vibe. Definitely an event that punches above its weight…

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Forgot about the draft legal event at Tempe in November. Wanted to race the AG option last year, but had a schedule conflict. Planning to race that one this year…

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Did the owner just lose interest or retire? It was never clear to me why they stopped having races.

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No idea. I moved away early 2022 and then moved back in 4Q 2023 and I was looking at the race calendar on running in the usa and noticed nothing at Bartlett was on the calendar and then went to their facebook. Stopped posting in 2022.

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Another one bites the dust in AZ…

Email today from 4 Peaks. 2026 is the final year for CactusMan in Tempe…

After that, you can now count- on one hand - the number of local OWS triathlons for the 14th most populous state, with almost 8 million people.

Tell me again how we are a healthy sport?

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That county is one of the largest Mormon counties outside of Utah. I’m surprised to see the race on Sunday. I assume permits, other events etc force the issue, but it obviously isn’t going to help.

I’d like to put this race on my calendar now though, so thanks for pointing it out.

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I think they are also struggling with the LightRail project that killed Tempe 70.3.

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The tri scene has never been great in AZ. It’s been better and it’s been pretty good, but never great. When I’d go back to NC in the summers it wasn’t if there was a race, it was which race or races did I want to do on any given weekend.

Some of the reasons though why tri in AZ has never really blossomed like other states are:

It’s hot in AZ in the summer. A lot of people flee for cooler climates. It’s pretty hard to go out on a run, ride or swim without seeing a world class triathlete, swimmer, runner or road or gravel cyclist right now in Tucson. End of May they disappear faster than the snow on Mt. Lemmon. We’ve got the best group ride in the US (The Shootout), the best climb in the US (Lemmon) and some the best gravel riding in the US~ 1h from here.

It’s hard to get volunteers to come out when the 5am temp is 94F and the 9am temp is 103. Even if you’re making a donation to their org.

The sun is brutal. No one wants to stand around in it.

Not a ton of OWS available, for instance there is no OWS in Tucson

More people complete triathlon and running events than compete them even more so compared to the year before the pandemic. Those die hard, train year round folks are leaving the sport/have left the sport, have moved to gravel, trail racing, mtn bike racing etc

Several coaching businesses that used to have a big presence at races also closed for medical reasons, or the owners went into other businesses, or just stopped coaching.

On the plus side there are a lot of gravel events, trail races, mtn bike races & running races throughout AZ. The tri scene though…..just a shell of what used to be.

Bryancd can tell you there were races where we’d have 8-10 guys within 3 minutes of each other at the front of the race back in the day. Now he’s about the only diehard, train year round triathlete left in AZ. The rest have moved away and don’t race, stopped racing, took up fishing, moved to gravel or mtn biking or trail running or pickleball.

AZ great place to train for 9mo of the year, not a great place to race triathlon during the season though.

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For sure, it was crazy competitive and turnout was great. I think Ironman made it very difficult for the local races to survive and now they have left, so we are stuck. I’m definitely one of the few still training and racing from my contemporaries back in the mid 2000’s. Having a second home up in the White Mountains where we spend 2 months of the summer helps a lot.

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I should talk to you about real estate up there. The wife has strongly suggested that I leave for parts of this summer. It seems, and this is an unverified report, a malicious slander at the root of it, that I’m a cranky ahole when the temps are >103. Now that my Dad has passed there is 1 less reason to go to NC for the summer.

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It has always been on a Sunday. So was IMAZ. Sundays are much easier days to do road closures. That’s why so many races are on Sundays. It’s a fairly large attended race with over 500 racers last year, being slightly earlier and no St George could see this year’s being pretty large, probably 6-700. With them announcing it as the last one, it could be bigger.

Guess it depends on what you mean by local? In the state we still have Mountain Man 1 and Mountain Man 2 and Deuces Wild, and Castle Creek. That leaves us with 4, which sucks. But last year was also the last year or the year before was the last year of 4 Peaks Splash and dash series. Permitting but also interest drying up.

I don’t know if I agree with the idea that all these triathletes are doing things like gravel, I can see Fishing and Drinking though.

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Yep. That’s sweet. It’s a problem that I understand.

I guess there’s a reason why in an area with a about 30k people they gets just under 200 racers over at Gila Hanks on Saturday, while Tempe with 5 million people on a Sunday gets around 600. That’s not to say Saturday solves every problem as clearly the race is underperforming for the area it’s in.

And if it’s reached the end of the line for permitting reasons, not performance, it is what it is. But I personally know at least 10 people who’d race Tempe on a Saturday.