After St. Anthony’s I decided to spend a little bit of time in my home state visiting friends and family and generally having a ton of fun in Florida! Here is a little bit of what I did:
I stayed with my coach Jen Hutchison in St. Pete for a few days. She made me a pancake breakfast the day after the race – apparently I was on a diet.
I borrowed Jen’s sweet Jeep Grand Cherokee and drove to Orlando to visit my Mom and Dad. This is my Mom’s dog Cosmo – ferocious!
After a short stop in Gainesville to visit friends (and get some of my favorite pizza at Satchel’s) I made my way up to Jacksonville to help out at the YMCA First Coast Kid’s Triathlon. This is me hanging out with some future triathlon stars the day before the race.
Here are some of the “celebrity big kids” as we were known for the weekend. There were about 10 of us big kids and we were celebrities for various reasons. From left to right: Sophia Every from the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, Jacksonville area fireman Raleigh Zike, Don Redman (completed 650+ triathlons in his lifetime), me (token professional triathlete!), Ty Dickenson (Jacksonville area policeman), Don Davey (ex-NFL football player), and Dustin Crawford, a Navy ensign.
I got to be the big kid for the 8 and under age group.
Here they are parading on over to the start.
We big kid’s had our own race and guess what, I won! Unofficially I completed the 100 yd swim, 3 mile bike and 1/2 mile run in 12 minutes and 45 seconds. Here I am with another of the big kids – Mark Woods, a journalist from the Florida Times-Union. He got third. Don Davey (the ex-NFL football player) got second. Pretty fast for the biggest guy in the field! He’s training for Ironman Austria.