Mermaid Womens Triathlon and Duathlon Santa Cruz Official Website

The "Nitty Gritty" Details (User Opinions)

Marlene S.
Redwood City, CA

  (09-25-2011)

"Complete blog post, pictures and video here: http://www.accentfitness.net/accent-fitness/2011/09/3rd-in-a ge-group-2011-mighty-mermaid-olympic-triathlon.html

Very excited to complete a fun 2011 Mighty Mermaid Olympic Triathlon down in the beautiful coastal town of Capitola. It is an interesting story about how I ended up doing this race. After Nationals in August, I have every intention of doing at least a couple more races to close out the season. But due to circumstances and illness, I ended up missing Pacific Grove triathlon on 9/11 and was unable to do any run training for over 3 weeks. I was so sick that I lost all sense of taste and smell for 9 days! It was longest 9 days of my adult life...not being about to taste any food was so depressing. Talk about losing the will to eat! I was thinking the whole time that I'm surprised no one has made a diet pill which suppresses your taste buds. People go to such extremes like plastic surgery, stapling stomachs stuck and wiring their jaws - all in the name of losing weight. Even if simply just take their taste away, I can guarantee they would lose weight. I digress but to continue the story.. I got better by Wednesday so that basically gave me 3 days to get ready for this race. I knew I would have to bank on major base training since there was nothing much more that could be done with such short time.

Overall, the race experience was good. The swim start was located on the Capitola Beach, to the right of the wharf. We swam around the wharf and then made our way back up to the transition area. I was 3rd female out of the water and 2nd out of transition to the bike course. As usually, one of the challenges about being out in front is that there is no one to follow. I was quite confused and worried that I was not on the proper course several times. I missed one right turn even though there was a volunteer there...so I had to u-turn around. I continued on, hoping that I would stay on the course. It was much more hilly and technical than I had expected so in retrospect, I should have used by rear 404 wheel instead of the disc wheel, since that didn't add any value. I could definitely feel the effects of my lack of training on the bike since I felt tired earlier on. However, once I caught up to the first place girl and passed her, I felt more energy.

Of course, I knew the run would be the hardest to keep up a pace since I had no base miles in me for weeks. I actually end up with the reverse problem of too high heart rate..my heart rate was too rate but combined with the feeling that it was high.. so not a good combination for holding pace. It didn't help that on the run course, I was again worried about taking a wrong turn. When we returned to the beach for the first time, participants who were doing the shorter sprint distance crossed the finish area.. our group had to turn left and do another 3 mile loop. This turn was marked but I was worried as I was running on the beach that it would even be there... I asked a couple volunteers but no one seemed to know what I was talking about. Then I started back up on the hill for the 2nd loop. Unfortunately, I took a left turn and starting heading down a hill when John yelled that I had taken another wrong turn. So I had to backtrack and head south for an out and back. This definitely added 3-4 minutes on to my time, which was lame. I wish a volunteer or anyone had corrected me sooner about the wrong turn.

The run in general was pretty scenic, running through the town and residential areas before finishing on the beach. Not a huge fan of running in the sand..the girl in my age group literally passed me in the sand within meters of the finish line. In any case, I was glad to be done!

There were some areas for improvement in this race, mostly in marking the bike and run courses more clearly since I took wrong turns on both. I also got to catch with an old friend of my pre-Madison,pre-triathlon, going out clubbing in the city days. Funny how our lives evolve and we reinvent ourselves as women. Overall, the energy and spirit of Mermaid events is great so I would definitely recommend them!

RANK: 3rd in Age Group, 5th Overall Female
TOTAL TIME: 2:51
SWIM: 24:36 - 3rd fastest overall swim
T1: -
BIKE: 1:19 - 1st fastest overall bike 2011 Mighty Mermaid Olympic Triathlon Bike Course
T2: -
RUN: 1:01 2011 Mighty Mermaid Olympic Triathlon Run Course"

Reviewed by a: First Time Participant for 2011

Kelly e.
campbell, CA

  (09-29-2009)

"This is my fifth year doing the Mermaid event in Santa Cruz. I've done the triathlon twice and the Duathlon three times. I really like this course as it's such a challenge. You get a great crowd and spirit, the gorgeous ocean plus stairs to climb, people to dodge on the run and a good, tough, technical bike course with lots of undulations and turns but spectacular scenery. I also do the Fremont Mermaid in June which is also fun but more about going fast as it's a flat course.

Having won the Fremont Duathlon in June, I thought it would be fun to try the repeat performance for the Aptos race but the competition had other ideas. I was in second place after the first run (which was supposed to be 1.5 miles but we got confused to where the turn around was, didn't see any volunteers -- I think the need for a duathlon first course volunteer may have been overlooked) and we turned around where we saw a turnaround arrow on the ground. I'm not sure if that was the right spot as I did the first run in 7:22 -- not likely for 1.5 miles :-). I did get passed by one person going up the 125+ stairs to transition (I need to work on my stair climbing, I'm always slow) and then it's onto the bike. On the bike,a third lady passed me just hauling you know what. Turns out she was a professional bike racer and she rocked. This put me in fourth, which I comfortably held through the bike course. I really like this bike course in that you have to have your wits about you as the hills, while not long, can be steep and sneak up on you so gearing and preparing is key. There are also a couple of sharp turns. Kudos to the Highway patrol and course monitors on the bike course for traffic control, the cars were well behaved. A couple of the volunteers at key turns needed to do a better job at paying attention and I had to yell at a couple of them "which way, talk to me" and they did eventually... I didn't get lost but the bike racer ahead of me took a couple of wrong turns but would quickly right herself and come charging by. I think she may have been able to come in 2nd or first overall if she hadn't gone off course. Turns out those volunteers are teenagers... not sure about having teens as course monitors...having one myself, I know they get distracted.

Onto the run, I was comfortably in fourth place and at the first turnaround (two turnarounds on the run) I saw there was no way to catch the top three, they were hauling. There was a lady in 5th running hard so I decided I better push to hold fourth. The last run is pretty and a good challenge. You go down a big hill, out and back about a mile, out and back another mile the other direction and finish with a "character building" push back up that big hill to the finish schute. Heidi, the race director/announcer teased me as I had a brain lapse and tried to run back down the stairs when I started my run instead of down the hill... how many times have I done this race-- all five? I must have "race brain" :-)

Afterwards, the Mermaid crew do a fantastic job -- free pancakes and fruit, lots of sponsors with giveaways and good things to buy, raffles and awards that are definitely worth waiting around for... lots of fun to be had by all!"

Reviewed by a: Repeat Participant for 2009