Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon - TriathlonOther

I love this swim. I can't explain why but it is just a ton of fun to jump off the boat in the middle of the bay and swim to shore. Water temp felt good. A little cold at first but than I warmed up. I'm really happy with my sleeveless suit it just feels a lot more comfortable on me than my full sleeve suit and if I can use it for this swim than I can use it for any other tri that I might do.

There was a lot less current flowing out of the bay this year than last so sighting was more straightforward (quite literally). I basically aimed just left of the swim exit the whole time and just kept swimming. The water was choppier than I remembered from last year (maybe a freighter had just gone through) but not too bad. Thanks to what I learned from last year I didn't cut into shore until I could see the steps so as to avoid the rocks just before the steps.

Not have to pee so much. For some unknown reason I had to go 5 different times during the swim. Way too much! Also, I would make sure to hit the timing mat on my way off the boat. I'm pretty sure I missed it since my time does not reflect anything other than the 2 minutes until our wave was scheduled to jump off the boat rather than the actual chip time it should reflect. No matter that just means I must have been even faster on the swim than the time reflects. : )

This is a two part transition area. The swim exit is half a mile from the transition area so there is a small transition area where you can take off your wetsuit and put on some running shoes for the run to the main transition are where the bikes are. Got out of my wetsuit and into my running shoes quickly. The change into bike attire also went well so overall a good transition.

Put a bottle of water with my running shoes to clear my mouth of the taste of the bay during the run to the main transition area.

Much better than last year! I still need to get a little more comfortable on this course. While this year was much better I'm just not quite as willing to bomb down these hills like some others are. In addition, most of them out climb and out cycle me so I still get passed by a significant number of people on the bike. This is all about improvement and as I said in the beginning I did much better than last year.

Check my bike again. For some reason the front deraileur was acting up and would drop the chain into the granny gear when I was running in the middle chainring with the big cog in the back. I ended up working around it but it did impact my shifting decisions.

Transition went well.

Forgot to put on my race belt with my number on it. No one said anything about it so I guess it didn't matter probably because they had already bodymarked both hands, biceps, and thighs. I'm still trying to get all the marker off of me.

I was hurting at the beginning of the run. I had rubbed a blister the day before walking around the city. In addition, both of my hamstrings have been sore but the right hamstring more so than the left. In addition, I did not have my watch so I had no idea how I was doing. My general impression was that I was going extremely slow since I seemed to be getting passed by a lot of people. The uphills were painful but the downhills hurt even more because my hamstrings were just trashed.

The sand ladder kicked my butt but I knew it would so I just hunkered down and went up it as fast as I could while holding on to the guideline. Without the guideline I would have definitely gone down given my fatigue level, lack of balance and the instability of the ladder itself. Time 3:40 (overall rank: 961)

All that being said the final time was right around what I expected so I'm very pleased with the run overall. Go figure! You couldn't have convinced me that I was running sub 9 minute miles while I was running but I'll take it.

Remember my watch. Train more on the run. Wear better socks leading up to the event to avoid rubbing the blister on my toe. Use a bush during the run rather than hoping to find a portajohn.

Walked around and tried to find my friends who did the tri and my friends from SF that came to watch.


Training. That being said the training is working and as long as I stick with it I should continue to improve. Next year sub 3:00.


Time last year was 3:21. My goal time for this year was a 3:05. Overall time was a 3:02 for a 19 minute improvement over last year and 3 minutes faster than my goal. I'm stoked! : )

Overall this is a great race and I will do it again if possible. However, if I could I would change two things. First, I would have more portapotties accessible to the athletes during the event so you didn't have to scamper off into the bushes. Second, it would be nice if some parts of the bike and run courses were a little wider since it can get very congested and quite scary especially on the bike.