Last weekend, I participated in the Santa Rosa Triathlon one of the finest triathlons in the US, which fortunately for me, happens to be held here in Pensacola. Race weekend started with me and my mom volunteering at packet pick-up on Friday afternoon, where we spent a few hours handing out packets to the athletes. When we were through, we headed over to the expo to register for the three bikes that they would be raffling off the next day after the race.
Race morning the alarm clock went off a little before five, not that I really needed it as I had already been awake for thirty minutes. Me and Matt got up and quickly got ready to go. Preparation was a little different this time as it was the first time that me and Matt were both going to be racing. He has done lots of running races with me, but never a triathlon. We got the bikes in the truck and headed out to the beach.
When we got over the bridge and saw the flags waving, we realized it was going to be a windy day and with the purple flag up, there were going to be jellyfish in the water. Once we had unloaded our stuff and started heading over to transition, we couldn’t believe the line that we saw to get into transition. We got in the back and waited our turn, thankfully it moved pretty quickly. After we had racked our bikes and set up our transition, we walked over to the beach to where the swim would start.
While waiting for the swim to start, we found my parents who were also doing the race and chatted excitedly and maybe a little nervously with them. The final announcements were made, the national anthem was sung, and then the first wave of swimmers were off. I was in the 8th wave and Matt was in the 10th wave, so we had a little bit of time to wait (the waves were separated by 3 minutes). After what didn’t seem like too long, I was standing at the water’s edge waiting for the horn to go off. The horn blew and we ran in, did a few dolphin dives, and started to swim. The water temperature was great and it was crystal clear. The bad thing about that was that you could see all of the jellyfish around you. I probably saw 8-10 that were floating beneath and around me and got a few mild stings. I felt like I had a decent swim and completed the 600 yard swim in 12:04.
After the run up through the sand and into transition, I was out on the bike course. The course was pancake flat out and back and with the way the wind was blowing, we had some crosswind and a little bit of a headwind on the way out, but then a tailwind on the way back. Being in one of the later waves, I was passing people pretty much the whole time and with the younger guys starting behind me, I had several of them fly by me. I was so happy to hit the turnaround and get to enjoy a little bit of help from the tailwind on the way back. The 18 mile course took me 53:05 to finish.
One good thing about that bike course and having the help from the wind on the way back is that it lets you start the run with legs that are a little fresher. For the first quarter of a mile or so, my legs just didn’t feel like they wanted to move at the speed I was asking them to, but once I settled into it, I felt a little better. The good things about sprint races is that they are over quickly, the bad thing is that they hurt more as you try to push the pace J. By the time I was on the run, I had a pretty good feeling that I was in the front of my age group, but I also knew that there were some fast ladies who had started earlier than me so I tried to push and close that gap as much as possible. I was happy to turn into the parking lot and have the finish chute in sight. One goal I had oing into the race was to run my first sub-20 minute 5k and I knew it was going to be close. I crossed the finish line, looked at my watch, and saw that I had run a 19:38.
Now that my race was over, I could relax and focus on cheering on my parents and Matt who hadn’t finished yet. I walked over to the outskirts of transition and saw that Matt hadn’t come in from the bike yet. Not long after, I saw him coming and cheered him on as he started the run. Meanwhile, my mom had finished, so we waited together to see Matt complete his first triathlon. He did it and actually finished with a pretty stellar run time for a first timer.
Once everyone was at least on the run, we were able to pick up our bikes from transition and pack them up. Then we headed over to the best part, a lunch catered by Carabba’s and the post race party. Charles Gheen and the crew that puts on the Santa Rosa Island Triathlon know how to put on a fantastic race and top it off with a great post-race party. I had lots of friends and people I know that had also done the race and it was fun to catch up with them and hear their stories. After eating a delicious meal, they did the award ceremony where I found out that I got first in my age group and second overall (fourth overall if you count the elites that raced), but unfortunately did not win any of the bikes that were raffled off. Team MPI showed up in force and had several podium finishers, including the overall female winner. 
