After two years hiatus (cancelled in 2004 due to Hurricane Ivan and shortened to a 5K run in 2005 due to Hurricanes Dennis and Rita) the Santa Rosa Island Triathlon is back! Venerable race director Anne Knight has handed off this race to Premier Events Management after 10 years as RD and the death of her husband and helpmate, Charlie Knight. Although we miss Anne, PEM did a creditable job of running the race, despite continuing less than ideal road conditions from lingering storm damage.
The race date was moved this year to early October (10/7) from late September, and what a difference 2 weeks made! First, the change removed a conflict with a popular local 5K run. But more importantly, it made a big difference temperature-wise with race morning temps in the high-50’s/low-60’s. With water temps still in the low-80’s, however, the conditions were near ideal for racing. The water race morning was a beautiful clear aqua-green with a good view of the white, sandy bottom throughout the swim. A stiff north-east breeze cleared out most lingering late-summer jellyfish.
The transition area was well laid out, but a bit of a longish run from the swim. Unfortunately, the bike course had to be shortened to 12 miles from the planned 18 due to ongoing road construction. The bike course was also in pretty rough shape, although improved from what I had seen on a pre-race ride a couple of weeks earlier. The outbound leg of the bike was into that stiff north-east wind. I’d rather have dealt with the odd jellyfish! There was also considerable drafting and blocking going on among the many apparent neophyte riders. The turn-around point and the entry back into the TA off Via De Luna were also a little dicey with a couple of riders who didn’t slow enough going down, but nothing of a serious nature that I saw or heard of.
The run this year went out to the west instead of east through the Pensacola Beach neighborhoods as is traditional. Again, this was probably due to the rough street conditions. The run back to the finish was into the wind, but temps were beginning to rise a little by this time, so the breeze was welcome.
The post-race party was up to usual standards. The beer flowed like, well beer, and there was red beans and rice to be had by all. Unfortunately I couldn’t stay for the awards ceremony, which is usually superfluous for me anyway.
Consider putting this race on your calendar for next year. We are being promised the roads will be fixed by then, and PEM should be able to iron out the issues created by the adverse conditions.
