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Sandman Triathlon Returns for Its 30th Year

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Sandman Triathalon
Sandman Triathalon

The Sandman Triathlon returns for its 30th year this summer! The Sandman Triathlon is a fundraiser for the Santa Cruz State Parks Lifeguard Association held at Seacliff State Beach.  This year, the race will be held on Sunday, August 2nd at 8:00 AM.

The Sandman Triathlon is a USAT sanctioned event.  It begins with a .75-kilometer ocean swim around the historic SS Palo Alto, followed by a spectacular 13-mile bike ride through redwood forests, Seascape and Rio Del Mar. To top it all off, the race finishes with an strenuous four mile run on the beach.

The Sandman is a sprint triathlon and designed to be a super fun and a family friendly event, it is the perfect triathlon experience for athletes that are new to the sport.

Registration for the 2015 Sandman is now open on Active.com. Athletes can sign up for the sprint triathlon, a duathlon or the one-mile kids’ fun run.

The Sandman Triathlon is one of Santa Cruz County’s oldest triathlons. Its inaugural race occurred way back in 1986 in the infancy of the sport. The Sandman was originally conceived by the Santa Cruz State Parks Lifeguard Association to be a positive Aptos community event that would raise funds for the association, who supports the junior lifeguard and lifeguard operations in Santa Cruz, including providing scholarships for kids from low-income families that otherwise could not afford the cost of the 4-week program. Over the past three decades, thousands of dollars have been raised for the Santa Cruz State Lifeguard Association to help provide high-quality water safety education to hundreds of Santa Cruz County youth.

See also:  http://www.sandman-triathlon.com 

Sandman Triathalon Swimmers
Sandman Triathalon Swimmers

A Walk on the Beaches of Aptos

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A Walk on the Beaches of Aptos
A Walk on the Beaches of Aptos

I’ve always enjoyed going on a nice walk, and Aptos is a wonderful place to go for a stroll. For those looking to seriously exert themselves, there’s always the lovely Forest of Nisene Marks State Park, which has miles and miles of hiking trails through this 10,000+ acre forested beauty. However, many folks instead choose to go for a walk on the beaches of Aptos.

There’s no shortage of great beaches for walking in Aptos. The other day, I wanted to go on a walk, and I thought I would start at New Brighton Beach, then make my way down to Pot Belly Beach, and then Seacliff Beach, before cruising up the Aptos Beach Gate path before eventually making my way back home.

Aside from just exercise, I had another objective. I wanted to go to a place I hadn’t been to in years – maybe a couple of decades, actually. Back in my college days, when I was living up on the bluff above the Cement Boat, my friends and I would go to the beach now and again to hang out. One of our favorite spots to go was this really cool ravine, which is at the southern end of Pot Belly Beach.

I thought it would be a great place to take my kids sometime. Since I hadn’t been in a while, I decided to take a moment to reconnoiter, since I was in the neighborhood. Back in the day, my friends and I would wander quite far up the ravine, but on this trip, the creek was so high that getting up into the ravine would have involved getting wetter than I was planning on.

So I didn’t make it up the ravine, alas, but I took a few pictures and I’ve made a note to come back soon, with the kids. As I was standing there looking at my phone, I happened to notice that the ravine is actually the end of Borregas Creek Gulch – which, coincidentally, was also the original border of Aptos Rancho, back in the 1840s. Small world!

The ravine itself is very cool, with sandstone cliff walls climbing dozens of feet above the creek bed. It’s really cool to look at all the sea shells embedded into the walls of the ravine, and I can’t wait to go back with my kids to explore and talk about our local Aptos geology.

Memorial Day at Seacliff Beach

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Aptos has a reputation for being a foggy place. Blame it on the Monterey Bay, which has the second deepest ocean canyon in the world, with lots of super cold water that generates when it’s hot inland. I personally think it’s somewhat blown out of proportion – yes, we have a lot of foggy mornings, and the fog can roll back in around 3 or 4 o’clock if you’re right down there by the beach. But it’s not usually foggy all day, and of course, the further from the beach you go, the less fog you’ll find.

And then there are days like Memorial Day 2014, when there’s not a wisp of fog to be seen, even at 9:00 AM, when my wife and I took a walk down Seacliff Beach. I’ve been trying to get in my 10,000 steps a day – it’s all the rage these days – and it seemed like the perfect morning for a walk along the sand. We started out at the parking lot at Rio del Mar beach – which was already full – and ended down at the Seacliff Memorial Wall, an Aptos Gem.

It was a gorgeous, sun-drenched day. The picnic tables which line the beach were already full, and the BBQ grills were already going. The RV campground was full, too, and lots of folks were sitting out in front of their RVs, chatting with one another and watching the sunbeams play on the waves. The lifeguard tower on the pier declared the climate that day as being “sunny/nice” with air temperature between 60 and 75 degrees. The pier was loaded with fisherman, dozens of them angling to catch something, but probably not caring too much if they ended up empty-handed. The SS Palo Alto was loaded with seagulls and other birds, who have painted the deck white with their guano.

It seemed like everyone and everything was out at Seacliff Beach for Memorial Day. We’re so lucky that all of this is just a five minute drive from our doorstep. I love Aptos!