Santa Fe Triathlon

  The Santa Fe Triathlon is held at the Genovena Chavez Community Center which is a grand facility.  I just can't explain how nice this place is!  First of all it has an Olympic size swimming pool, a kid pool with a river raft area, and believe it or not a hockey rink with ice. 

Running to the pool after T2

  This event is a reverse triathlon which has a mass start.  The first half of the run is slightly down hill so make sure to warm up and stretch before the start of the run.  This year the route for both the run and the bike changed from previous years, but I would say for the better.  The run starts off on one of the main streets in Santa Fe and that is why the event starts so early in the morning.  On the bright side the entire street is completely closed to traffic most of the way (How nice it must be to have a city that is so supportive of living a healthy life style! Even the mayor and a city council member participated in the triathlon).  Of coarse that means that the second half of the run is slightly uphill.  The second half is on a paved running trail and part of it even goes under a tunnel which was cool.  There were two water stations along the run, one at the half way point and the second was just past the mile two marker.  I finished the run at a slower than usual pace (28:00) because of a knee injury, but I am just thankful to God that I can even compete. 
  The transition area is basically half of the parking lot of the Community Center and I purposely placed my bike at the far south end so I would not to have to run as far to the pool after T2.   That means that it is a longer run for T1, because the transition area flows in one direction only.  I had a decent transition and started off on the bike.  The bike coarse starts off with rolling hills for the first three miles, but for the next three miles it is a gradual climb that can take the wind out of your sails if you push it.  The bike route is out and back so the second half of the bike was really fast on Rabbit Road because of the down hill.  It took me about 36:00 minutes to complete the coarse but, both T1 and T2 times were lumped in with the bike split.  So everyone will have a slow bike split which can be misleading when you review the results.

Coming into transition after the bike

  Again, I had a long run through transition because of the one direction flow, however, it is a long run to the pool so I thought it would be best to place my bike closest to the pool entrance.  I had a fast T2 and ran with shoes to the pool because every other year I have done this event I ran barefoot which was a pain.  The pool is not exactly close to transition so if you do this event I recommend running with shoes to the pool.  The nice thing about this event is that a volunteer will have your shoes ready for pick up after you get out of the pool.  The swim is in an Olympic pool and is one direction in each lane.  For the first time I had a great swim and even managed to pass a few people.  Since each lane was only one direction it was not crowded at all.
  After the event athletes are provided with all sorts of good food.  Bagels, cream cheese, meat trays, fruit and water were available.  They also held several drawings for prizes such as gift certificates, helmets, and bike jerseys.  The awards that they gave away were medal style but made out of wood.  Also athletes who placed were given a prize which was really nice.  This is a well organized triathlon that had several police and volunteers on the coarse.  I heard that there were over seventy volunteers for this event.  I would just like to thank every one involved who put on such a great triathlon.  I would especially like to thank my wonderful wife who is always so supportive of me with all the training and events that I do.  If I had to complain about anything I would really have to look for something to complain about which would be the T-shirt.  I have done this triathlon for the past three years and each year it is a white cotton T.  Not a big deal I just wish they would change the color next year.  I highly recommend this event, not to mention Santa Fe is a great city to visit.