If either of Grand Canyon University Club Triathlon's new student coaches, Stephen Garr and Shoshanah Stukas, had concerns about whether their personal training would suffer as a result of coaching the overall squad this year, this past weekend's Castle Creek Triathlon at Lake Pleasant provided the answer.
 
Don't worry about it.
 
"Stephen has been really carrying the coaching and has been doing an incredible job!" said Stukas. "It is the coolest thing to watch him lead so well. Just having more time with the team with the years building now make the races all the more meaningful. I want to race for my teammates like they're family."
 
In the team's first foray since the two took over coaching duties in August, both Garr and Stukas came within seconds of winning their respective gender groups at Castle Creek, with Garr finishing the race 2^nd overall and Stukas placing 2^nd in the female division and 14^th in the overall standings. In addition, one of the team's newcomers, Lopes' freshman Charles Campbell, gave a glimpse into his promise, finishing 28^th overall in his first-ever triathlon. It was also the first time that the Lopes had ever competed in a Mountain Collegiate Conference event in the fall, since the conference expanded its number of qualifying events over the summer.
 
Amid distributing training regimens to the 13-player roster, Garr and Stukas obviously read their own material as they headed to Lake Pleasant. Garr – a junior from Flower Mound, Texas – was a vision of consistency throughout the race, never falling out of the top 3 in any stage. Garr got out of the water with a finishing swim time of 12 minutes and 36 seconds - just 11 seconds off the top pace. From there, it became a two-man battle between Garr and University of Arizona's Joseph Moreno, who made up for being a minute off the top pace after the swim with the race's best cycling portion, and trailed Garr by just three seconds heading into the run. The two then completely left the field in the dust, each besting the next-best runner by nearly two minutes. In the end, Moreno finished just 10 seconds ahead of Garr's final time of one hour, five minutes, 40 seconds.

 

 

















The next question going into the event was how much Stukas would have left in the tank, since the Lopes' senior also just dazzled her new coaches on the Lopes' NCAA Cross Country team a week ago at the Dave Murray Invitational in Tucson.
 
The answer? Plenty.
 
Stukas' problem was making up ground, since a slow start in the swim left her three minutes off the pace of eventual female division champion Emma Elliott (U of A), and despite posting the third-best time among females on the bike, Stukas had over five minutes to make up going into the run. Stukas promptly found another gear, dwarfing all other times in the female division by nearly three minutes and getting Elliott in her sights at the end before finishing 2^nd with an overall time of 1:21:16.9 – 55 seconds off Elliott's overall pace.
 

 

















Not to be outdone by his fellow coaches, Lopes' Assistant Coach (and former student head coach) Matt Johnson wound up taking the tape one spot lower than Stukas in 15^th place overall with a time of 1:23:46.2. That allowed the three coaches about ten minutes to catch their collective breath and cheer on Campbell's final time of 1:33:47.4, as well as Lopes' junior Aidan Perales, who came across the line in 1:42:31.5.
 
"Charlie killed the race! He had a smile on his face the entire time and really had a great performance! He's a natural," said Stukas. "This performance was very positive and encouraging in preparation for Pumpkinman. There is definitely a difference with the Olympic distance, but nothing this team can't handle."
 
The goal now is to get more of their newcomers up to speed in time to take part in the Pumpkinman Triathlon, which takes place in Boulder City, Nevada, on Saturday, October 26.