A Fin to What....where's my Triathalon?

So, many of you might know that I was planning on competing in my 2nd Mermaid Sprint Triathlon yesterday...

Well, that wasn't the case...
CHP notified the Mermaid officials last week that due to the state of California's budget they were not going to be able to provide Mermaid with the required 15 CHP officers needed to help keep the bikers safe on the bike route.  Mermaid tried everything they could to figure out a solution and keep the tri and duo going, but things were out of their control and they had to cancel the bike portion...so now what?

They decided to make it a "Fin-to-Foot" race and increase the run from a 2.5 mile to a 5K...(3.1 miles, so about .6 more miles...not bad)....the Duo was changed to a 10K...

When we all got the email (or call from a fellow Mermaid) on Friday evening..and some not until Saturday Morning...about the change of plans we were all very frustrated...
angry...
sad...
disappointed...
...relieved that the scary "challenging hills" course was a NO GO....

I have to say I was all of the above...
I really wanted to finish my second tri
and was really excited for the group of ladies I was going to be doing this with...
and then I saw the bike course...
THE dreaded "challenging hills" was even worse than I had imagined!
...and I was more than a little relieved that I wouldn't have to be facing those...
not yet anyways...
maybe if I change my training for next year...
maybe not...

I was also so proud of all the ladies in our group that had signed up and planned to do either the Santa Cruz Sprint Tri or the Duo-athalon all decided to go through with the change of plans and just go for it...
(amazing for our one and only Duo-athalon Jennifer who was informed that rather than a run-bike-run she'd be doing a 10K...a 10K...she hadn't even trained for a 5K let alone a 10K...she rocked her first 10K and had us all doing the ugly cry in tears when she crossed that finish line!)

So...

now that we know the bike portion has been canceled and wrapped our brains around the change of plans...

the family and I go and check out the location for the swim and run...

a beautiful beach with sea lions hanging out at the end of the pier and ship that we were swimming around (the cement ship at Seacliff State Beach in Santa Cruz)

...

"Are our mommies REALLY going to swim out there?"

Brandi's son Sammy on the left and my son Wilson on the right.

wait...
did you say sea lions....
as in the lions of the sea....???
swimming with large lions????
not sure I signed up for THAT!

oh, and wait...
what is that hanging out a few 100 feet off the pier?
a whale...a full grown WHALE....
yep...
okay so the morning of the race the whale was no where to be seen, but she'd been hanging out in the area for the 3 days before....

the lump in the water to the right of the cement ship is the whale

oh, and what is that?
There's 7 flights of stairs from the water to the transition zone...okay so I know that I live in a stair master, but I was not prepared for THAT many stairs after just swimming 1/4 mile with sea lions!

from the top looking down the stairs, you can see the pier and cement ship too

 at the bottom of the stairs...you can see them in the background...that's just the 1st "flight"

OH...AND now I have to get to run a 5K
and so cool...the finish line is at the TOP of a killer hill!...
yep a hill...
how fun, I get to finish a race running UP a hill!

me smiling at the top of the killer hill

so lets recap....
*bike portion of my tri canceled
*running portion turned into a 5K
*sea lions
*whale
*7 flights of stairs (150 stairs to be exact)
*5K ending at the TOP of a hill

a few months ago...or maybe a year ago...
all of this would have been more than I could wanted to handle and I would probably have opted out of the whole race, blaming it on the fact that the bike portion was now canceled...

and I will say there was a few minutes during the drive down (we got the call at the half way point of the 5 hr drive) that I was considering turning the car around and heading home...
it would save of us $ if I just opted out...
still haven't paid for the hotel
and the remaining gas
and all the food that we would not have to buy...
etc...

but I've said this before and it's SO true...when you train with other ladies...in person and via facebook...you are part of a team that you know you HAVE to do this...and I know that anyone of us had lots of reasons why we should, could, and would have decided to not compete in this Mermaid event...
but EVERYONE that was planning of doing the race as of Friday morning (before we learned of the change of plans) all bucked up and took the change with a great attitude...
I was praying about my attitude during the drive down
praying that I would have a decent attitude about the new plan.

a few of the ladies early on race day cold and nervous about the swim

lf-rt Me, Diana, Michelle, Yanna, Rayna, Gail

more ladies...sun is up and the swim is getting closer...

lf-rt back row-Amy C., Rayna, Me, Leslie, Michelle, Yanna, Riki, Amy B, Maddy, Kerri

front row-Diana, Brandi, Gail

and I have to say that not only did God give me decent attitude, he went above a beyond and by Saturday afternoon I was just so excited that we were doing this new adventure...

at first I was angry at Mermaid for not letting us know sooner (they were notified the beginning of the week)
shouldn't they have told us then...but maybe just maybe they were trying to find a different solution...(okay God)

I was upset that I had put out all this money...(hm...I got this race for free and I didn't buy a new bike like a few other fellow Mermaids did...)...and then Mermaid sent out an email saying that they would give us a free...FREE...race in the future...(okay God)

I was mad that we had these CRAZY scary stairs at the end of the swim that were going to mess up my swim time...I REALLY wanted to beat my Alameda swim time and NOW I was going to have to add a nice little climb up 7 flights of stairs to my swim time...SO NOT going to do better now...maybe Mermaid had thought of that and the stairs would be timed separately...(okay God)

I prayed that God would change my attitude and he did...
...and it's almost like he knew all my fears and frustrations BEFORE I did and helped me see thru all of them...

I had the most amazing time for my FIRST 'Fin-to-Foot' race...
I swam out in the ocean...next to sea lions...and I took it all in...
I kept saying, "wow ladies, look around, look at what we're doing!"
I was so much more relaxed during this swim...I was down right chatty!
I didn't break any swimming records*...expect my own from Alameda!  But I enjoyed the whole swim it was so amazing for me...okay so the slight smell of dead fish at the end of the cement ship I could have done without, but the rest was just so fun!
and I LOVED my 5K...I did better than I thought I would and I even held myself back because I was scared of the killer hill at the end...and boy, it was a killer hill...but it felt good to reach the top and run across the finish line.

a few of us at the finish line

lf-rt Jennifer, Becca, Rayna, Michelle (front), Amy (back), Me, Yanna, and Brandi!

showing off our ages on our legs...

lf-rt Yanna, Rayna, Gail, Maddy (she's 12!), Kerri, Me, Brandi, Michelle, Jennifer

and I couldn't do races like this without my husband and kids supporting me...love them!

*two of the ladies on our facebook Triathletes-In-Training group came in 2nd (Amy Brown) and 4th (Riki Copeland)...