‘A mixture of everything’ has triathletes flocking to Tucson to train

Typically, temporary stayers in Tucson are either snowbirds or desert admirers — or both. But for countless professional and collegiate tri-athletes, it has been their training station.

Located in the heart of Oro Valley at the Aqua Bear Athletic Centre, Barrie Shepley’s home has been a hotbed to a plethora of Ironman champions, winners of the infamous Kailua Kona race in Hawaii and even the new UA women’s triathlon team.

“What I found out through my first visit here is that it’s not just Mount Lemmon behind us, not just the bike loop that continues to get better and better, not just the pool down on University, it was a mixture of everything,” said Shepley, an Olympic gold medalist coach. “So what the average people of this town don’t understand is that there is an incredible history in this sport that comes here every single year.”

Having a long-term outside swim facility can be difficult to find for many triathletes looking for a place to train. Tucson offering “summer” year-round has been one of the main selling points as well as the culture that has been developed over the years.

Hailing from Slovakia and Texas, tri-athlete Lukas Siska has embraced this new environment which has done wonders and given advantages as he prepares to compete in half and full Ironman competitions.

It’s the same thing that attracts us all (about Tucson), the top athletes, the weather and the winter,” Siska said. “I mean, it’s so nice here in the winter; everywhere else, it’s not. The fact that you can walk around in T-shirts and cycling shorts in January is a big deal for a lot of us — and swimming outside. Everybody swims outside here. To (Tucson locals), it’s nothing, but to us. It’s like, well, ‘we’re swimming outside in January.’ It’s awesome.”

Throughout the training season in Tucson, younger tri-athletes gain an uncanny and knowledgeable experience of learning from the best of the best — sometimes just by being in their presence. Recent athletes that have trained here include 2-time Kona silver medalist Lionel Sanders, men’s 75 tri-athlete and 3-time Ironman champion Bob Knuckey and many others. They have been coached in large part by Shepley.

“Man, there’s just pros everywhere you turn,” Siska said. Lionel, who’s swimming behind us, he’s such a big name in the sport. And then Trevor Foley, he’s gonna be one of the top Americans. “… You’ve got these people that are coming in and out all throughout the winter that are world-class pros that will be here for like a month at a time, and then they’ll go away. So it’s like you’re never not around the top class in triathlon in this town.

Initially coming in as a transfer to the Arizona swim and dive team, Grace Reeder recently made the decision to transition to the triathlon team, the UA’s 22nd sport that was added last year and will begin in 2023. Despite all of the adversity Reeder had to deal with, coming into foreign territory, the camaraderie and the leadership from the professionals have made her process far more feasible.

“For me, I’d say it’s a huge advantage just as someone getting into the sport, you have a lot of people that you can draw on for advice, so you know, if I’m like, ‘Oh, I don’t even know what I should do for this type of workout,” Reeder said. “I can easily reach out to someone and get their advice, so it’s nice to have so many people around you that know what they’re doing, and I’ve done it for a lot longer than I have.”

This new program at the UA has been noted by Shepley as a “full metal program” that “gives an incredible opportunity to women’s growth.” The team is led by Wesley Johnson, who originally came from Salt Lake City before accepting the job. His goal is to take his team and coach them to the same level of success as the professionals that are training just miles away from their training site on the UA campus.

“The plan is to build a full on Olympic program out of the University of Arizona, and the sport they have, there’s no reason we can’t do that.”

Despite having a large age range of the training triathletes, spanning from ages 18 to 80, the triathletes hold a ‘family” esque bond with one another with a similar goal in mind. Knuckey, a Toronto native who has been training in Tucson for the last 15 years and is currently competing in the 75-80 age range, has noticed such a bond.

“The first week I was here, we had juniors here, so they’re 17-19 (years old) and they were great to train with,” Knuckey said. “We all get along really well because it’s all the same. Same sport, same grip, that’s the life. It keeps me young.”

Tucson’s Sam Long won the Ironman 70.3 North American Championship in St. George, Utah, last week, finishing in 3:43:05. Tucsonans Trevor Foley (3:45:27) and Lionel Sanders (3:48:20) finished second and fourth, respectively.

In Ibiza, Paula Findlay (3:43:34) finished fifth, and Tamara Jewett (3:43:51) was sixth in the 2023 PTO European Open on Saturday. Both have trained in Tucson over the past year.