Turtle Crawl Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

If anyone read my race report from last year, this one will be somewhat boring as there were no fish, jellyfish, or sharks to deal with on the swim. It almost made the swim boring. I had nothing to take my mind off of the swim or to think about during the swim. The water was much calmer than last year. In addition to no fish, jellyfish or sharks, there was not even any waves. We may as well have been swimming in a pool... a dirty pool where you can not see the bottom... a pool with super fast jets propeling you forward kind of like one of those endless pools with the jets only faster. I am not much a swimmer, but I can ride the current with the best of them. :)

The only thing I had to occupy my mind was this one guy who was just a little faster than I am but not nearly as good a navigator as I am. He kept bumping into me for about half the race. He would swim into me and after a short wrestling match he would look up and get his bearings straight and take off. After 30 yards or so we would do it all over again. I should have gotten on his right side after the first several bumps. Then he would have swam up on the shore with me not being there to stop him. He needed some lap lanes :).

This is a GREAT place to do an open water swim. If you want much more help from the current than this, you would need to swim off of a waterfall.

I was very impressed with my transitions. Britni/Kris was yelling at me telling me how much faster everyone else doing their transitions. I said I did not care. I don't...

This is a great bike course. You do two laps around the island under the shade of the trees with the Spanish moss hanging down. The trees form a canopy which makes for a really pretty ride. Although, I am not that fast I did pass a lot of very expensive bikes as I cranked it out on my $700 tribike and only had a couple of road bikes pass me. I like that. Not only is the course very pretty, it was very smooth, flat, and fast. So if you are a good bike rider, this is the place to show your stuff.

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The run is also completely flat. It initally runs along a jogging path along the ocean then it turns a bit and goes by the road in the shade. I am not sure which is better. The beautiful view of the ocean or the comfort of the shade. After a couple of miles, it is not hard to decide. The shade was wonderful after you heat up a bit.

Not much of a warm down. I took a shower with my race clothes on in the beach shower.


I swam a bit faster this year... I rode a bit faster this year... I ran a bit faster this year.. My daughter came and watched... What more could you ask for... Life is good. :) This is the best race that I have been too. I did it last year and I will do it next year. The ONLY thing that was not as good as last year is that they did not have the festival afterwards although not many racers stayed for it last year. We went to the turtle rescue center and asked why they did not do the turtle release as they did last year and she said they made a scheduling error and committed to another event on the same day without realizing it. They released a couple of turtles at the other event instead. Watching them release the rehabilitated turtles last year was very cool. I told them to bring back the festival with the live band, guy dressed as a turtle, and the turtle release.

If I only did one race a year, it would be this one. DO THIS RACE! Ask anyone who has done it. It does not get any better than this.