2005 Santa Cruz Sentinel Triathlon

Readers beware – this is rather long.This year's Sentinel Triathlon featured almost perfect conditions.The weather forecasters, who I suspect base their weather predictionsmore on bad dreams brought on by spicy food the night before, called for rain and thunderstorms, but we woke to clear skies and calmseas. The alarm went off at the butt crack of dawn once again thisyear (hopefully this will conclude 5:30AM wake-ups for this year atleast) and we fumbled our way into our racing uniforms, hit theJohnny once or twice (or three times in my case), then staggered outthe door to load up the bikes.

Janine and I stayed at my brother'splace in Santa Cruz along with our friend Bart and another friend Chris. We successfully got out of the house without waking my brother's three dogs, my brother or his girlfriend, or if we did,they were too polite to say anything. I think I did wake his renter who lives in an apartment above his garage. I failed to realize that the garage door opener shook the entire garage like a 5.0 earthquake. I'm sure she was tossed fairly unceremoniously onto the floor when I hit the "open" button. I can only hope she is a very heavy sleeper.Our little convoy of triathletes made our way down to the Coast Hotel next to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk where the race would take place. Since Bart and Chris were so eager to get to the race so they could get "fresh" porta-potties, we did not need to worry about crowds in the transition area. There were a few people milling aboutin the dark, but for the most part, the majority of competitors chose to get an extra half hour or two of sleep and arrive at a more timely 7AM. Janine and I racked next to each other so we could more easily share the coveted can of olive flavored Pam Cooking Spray. For those of you not in the know, triathletes use Pam not only for cooking, but to lubricate our legs to make wetsuit removal easier and also to flavor our bodies for the various sea life we may encounter during the swim, like great whites and killer whales. These sea creatures appreciate that we use low cholesterol cooking sprays.

We squeezed into our wetsuits, and then wandered down to the start ofthe race. The swim starts up on the beach behind this huge ditch dug in the sand which is just in front of a huge mound of sand. The idea is to see how many triathletes do face plants in either the pit or mound, and then get stepped on by the masses behind. One race strategy is to hang back a bit at the start so that you can use the bodies of your fellow athletes as a bridge across the pit, and ladder steps up the mound.I had the dubious distinction of being the first to start the race, followed by a Clydesdale wave, then Janine's wave, and then Bart pulled up the rear with a 9AM start time. He had enough time between my 8:10AM start to grab a Starbucks, read the Sunday Times, and visit the porta-potties a few additional times. I made it through the pit and over the mound without embarrassing myself, then ran for the water where I promptly did a nice half gainer with a bellyflop entry into the frigid Pacific ocean. The swim is a clockwise 0.9 mile journey around the Santa Cruz pier. You can hear all the Sea Lions barking under the pier and the only thing I could think of is "hmmm, sharks like sea lions, sea lions are shiny black, I'm wearing a shiny black wetsuit". At that point, my internal dialogue changed to more of a chant, "stay in the middle of the pack, stay in the middle ofthe pack".

I came out of the water in good position, although I knew Chris was somewhere ahead of me. He is an incredible swimmer who was raised by a friendly family of dolphins when he was orphaned at a young age. It has served him well in triathlons, but proved awkward at parties when he dives head first into the smoked lox and shrimp platters. I ran up the street to the transition area across from the Coast Hotel, found my bike, and headed on out to the bike course. Janine was not too far behind me, but had some difficulty getting out of her wetsuit. She stopped to take her wetsuit off before running the ¼ mile to transition, but her wetsuit refused to be removed. As she was flailing about, she managed to take out about 6 of her competitors, so she has decided to employ this strategy in future races. At this time, Bart was still at Starbucks waiting to start the race.

Out on the bike course, I set my sights on chasing down Chris. I knew that I would have a good gauge of how far behind him I was whenI got close to the turnaround at mile 11. Unfortunately for me, Chris passed me around mile 8, going the other way, so he had atleast 12-13 minutes on me. I believe after having been raised by dolphins, Chris was adopted by a family of European pro cyclists and forced to ride 500 miles a week just to get to school and back. Janine set out on the bike and proceeded to chase down the few remaining women in her age group she did not manage to knock over in transition. At this time, Bart was still at Starbucks waiting to start the race. At the end of the bike segment, Sentinel offers competitors a little bike handling practice. Due to where the course has to turn-aroundat mile 11, the race organizers added a short out-and-back to the end of the race. They have us go down this incredibly bumpy and windy narrow 1-lane road to some nature center, then turn around and retrace our route. The road was so bumpy, I saw competitors loosing everything from water bottles to tooth fillings to contact lenses. I managed to keep most of my bike and body intact and powered back intoTransition.

Chris had already taken off on the run. Janine was hunting down any woman with a 40 or above marked on her calf (our ages are marked on our left calf to provide entertainment and age-related joke material for the spectators). At this time, Bart was still at Starbucks waiting to start the race.

The Sentinel run is along West Cliff drive past the lighthouse and down to the end of the road, then we turnaround and head back to thefinish. I set a good pace, knocking back the first couple of miles without too much difficulty. My legs started to feel some fatigue atthe turnaround, but I was running with a guy from Team Kain that was in my AG. I did not know what place I was in, but I knew that if I beat that guy, I would be one step closer to the top. I paced off of him for about a mile, then made my move. When I say "made my move",it was not one of those spectacular moves you see in the Olympics were the competitor in the rear zooms around the person in front and drops them like a hot potato. I came around the guy and tried to put some distance between us. I was red-lining it, but the gap seemed to only grow by inches. Eventually his contact with me snapped and I pulled away. I did happen to see Chris on his way back to the finish around mile 2 (he was on mile 4). He was setting a blistering pace matched only by a group of Kenyan marathoners who happened to be doing a training run down West Cliff at the same time. Chris said he chatted with the Kenyans for awhile, but dropped them due to their slow training pace of 4:45 minutes per mile. I saw Janine heading out on the run when I hit mile 5 and gave her a big smile and thumbs up. I suspected she was not having her best day when the look and gesture she gave me in return was not something I would interpret as a reflection of our undying love. At this time, Bart was still at Starbucks waiting to start the race.

I finished the race in 2:14:12, about 3 minutes faster than lastyear. It put me in 16th place out of 106 competitors in my AG, 54th overall.Chris finished 2nd in our age group (35-39) with an astounding time of 2:00:20. Of course the French competitors accused him of doping,so the drug tests are still pending. Janine finished the race with a frown on her face thinking she did not have a very good day. But, itturns out her iron will, tenacious grit, and steely determination powered her to a 3rd place in her AG, up 4 places from last year.

At this time, we believe Bart is still waiting to start the race.