Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

- Not an easy swim to begin with.
- I'm not a strong swimmer to begin with.
- I forgot to grab my ear plugs from my tri bag, but fortunately, thinking back to the swim, I don't think that I needed them.
- I think I had a great swim start. I wasn't hesitant about jumping in at all. If anything, I wanted to push the person in front of me into the water because I thought they were waiting too long (They try to get all the athletes off the boat in 10 minutes!).
- I held on to my goggles and jumped feet first into the frigid San Francisco bay. I opened my eyes for a brief moment while I was below the surface and all I could see was green murky water. I popped right up to the surface and started swimming before even sighting.
- I got a few good strokes in so I could swim away from the boat and not have the next person jump right on top of me. The water was cold, but not so cold that I couldn't feel like swimming. I looked up, found Sutro tower and tried to keep it at my 2 o'clock position.
- About 3/4 of the way into the swim, I started to fatigue. I found a kayaker paddling near me to my right. I could see just behind him the Golden Gate bridge. Two thoughts immediately came to my mind: 1) I'm swimming too slowly and I'm going to miss the beach landing. 2) The bay current is going to carry me under the Golden Gate bridge.
I thought I heard him yell "swim harder!". Whether he yelled it or not, I started to put some extra effort in my stroke again, but with it came more fatigue.
- As I got closer to the beach landing I could clearly see the orange buoys and tried to get closer to them, but I then realized that I was too far down the swim course and was right in the current. The water temperature dropped fast and felt really cold at that point. I wasn't sure if that was a sign of the fast moving current, but at one point I came to the conclusion that I was just fighting it and swimming against it. What's worse is that I think I spent a good amount of time with that fight instead of just swimming past the buoys and heading for shore.
Once I made the decision to swim for shore instead of swimming to the buoys, I was actually surprised how fast I got to shore. And before I knew, my fingers touched sand.
I'm disappointed on how much time and energy I spent trying to get to those buoys instead of just sucking it up and heading for any place on the shore.
- So I missed the official landing area by about 200 yards. It wasn't too bad and I still got to run along the sandy beach instead of the rocks if I hand landed to far ahead. I did have to jump over a couple of rocks, but overall it was an uneventful swim exit and still very happy to have finished the swim from 'the rock'.

- Only three things come to mind if I had to do anything differently in the swim.
1) Relax more. I had some fleeting moments where my stroke felt efficient. When I forced myself to relax and took the extra half second to 'glide', and let my front hand just hang out there before the catch, it really felt like I was moving. But it didn't take long before I went back to my old style of just muscling my way through the water, stroke count be damned, the more and harder strokes the better. And with it the fatigue.
2) I should have kept sutro tower more to 3 o'clock like I planned. Why I didn't, I don't know. Maybe it was just poor sighting.
3) Sight more frequently. I'm typically all over the place in open water. One of these days I need to swim with a GPS on race day. I wouldn't be surprised if after uploading it to a map I'd find a perfect zig-zag pattern. When I did remember to sight more frequently (sighted every 5 or so strokes), I actually did better going where I wanted to go. gee. what a concept.

Accepting that I'm not a strong swimmer to begin with, I'd say that overall my swim was 'average'.

The T1 transition consisted of a half mile run from the swim exit to the bike transition area.

I had a difficult time getting the wetsuit off at my wrists and ankles. I normally don't have any issues with getting the wetsuit off at the arms, but I found my self really getting at the wetsuit and trying to rip it off around my hands. Getting the shoes on for the .5 run was perfect.

Ran into the bike transition, found my bike, put the bike gear on and ran the bike out the transition area. But once on the bike, I had some trouble clipping in and getting going. As soon I clipped in I was off and pedaling.

Looked at my HRM and saw it was at 90%.

Practice getting the wetsuit off while standing up, especially stepping on it to get my legs out. I made sure I put a generous amount of body glide around my wrists and ankles. I can't imagine that putting on any more than I did would have really helped.
Maybe it's time to try a different glide-like product.

Coming back into the transition area was a re-energinzing point for me. Seeing the streets lined with people on both sides, cow bells going off, the yelling and cheering...the person that could put all of that energy in a bottle would make millions.

The issue of wearing a relatively new tri suit on race day bit me.

There were times I could not find the back pocket.

At one point on the bike course, I was riding with half-eaten cliff bar w/ wrapper in my mouth because I couldn't find the pocket in the back and I didn't want to just toss it on the bike course.
Quite a challenge going down hill fast with something clinched between your teeth and something flapping against your nose. I ended up shoving the cliff bar and wrapper in my aero drink.

I also cut the plastic drinking tubes on my aero drink bottle too short the day before.

The lack of long training rides, especially on the hills, speaks for itself.
I just have to get out there and ride.

Finding my rack # and the overall transition went smoothly. No issues.

I found my wife waiting with our dog at the transition area. Of course I spent a few seconds or so while I talked to her and gave her a kiss. I didn't get a chance to kiss the dog, though.

For some reason I didn't get a T2 time which also meant I didn't get an actual run split. Timing mat/chip malfunction?

Nothing.

I was cautious on the first mile as my quads were feeling tight.

Unfortunately it wasn't until the run turnaround on the beach that I felt my legs really felt comfortable running and I could hold a good stride.

The first time I ran the course 2 years ago I made the mistake of running without socks and as soon as the sand got in my shoes it was like running with very course sandpaper for socks. My running shoes still have the blood stains from that race. I made sure not to repeat that mistake today.

As soon as I reached the run on the beach, I could feel the cool sand starting to make it's way inside my shoes, but wearing socks kept the sand away from my skin and it never became an issue for the rest of the run.

I had a plan to run on the beach (stay as close to the water where the sand was packed) that worked pretty well for me. While everyone was taking a direct route to the turnaround point on the other end of the beach, I made a direct route to the water to get to the packed sand.
Although it may have been made my run a little bit longer, I think it made up some overall time because I was able to run more efficiently on stable ground.
When I got the the last aid station coming back, one of the volunteers yelled 'one mile to go!", and that's when I decided to kick it up a notch and finish strong. At one point during the last mile I looked down at my watch and saw a 8:30 pace (on par with my training run). I just hoped I had enough in the tank to still cross the finish line with a smile.
About 200 yards from the finish line and just before entering the finish chute, I heard and then saw my wife and friend cheering me on. I took a moment to wave to them before making the sprint to the finish.
Both fists pumped up in the air and a photo-finish smile just as I crossed.


train! For me, It doesn't get any more clearer than that.

none. Unless gathering and packing all the gear counts. and then walking with everything back to the car.


training!

Definitely need longer workouts.


The Escape from Alcatraz is definitely my favorite race yet (although I have high expectations of Ironman Florida this year too).

The scenic course, the outpouring of volunteers, and the people and tourists cheering everyone on is spectacular.

I hope to do this race again next year (and plan to be better prepared with the right training!).