Escape from Alcatraz

Alarms went off extra early for Dani and me... Race Day!!  Race morning is a bunch of weird logistics.  Walk to shuttle.  Shuttle to transition.  Bus to pier.  Ferry to Alcatraz.  It was still dark when we got to transition and didn't spend too much time setting things up - after all, I wasn't biking so I didn't even have that much to do!  I decided to head to the bathroom once before putting on my wetsuit and the strap of my garmin broke - uh oh.  I searched around unsuccessfully for some duct tape and wasn't sure what else to do so joined Dani on the bus to the pier.  I did not want to lose my garmin!  As I was putting on the various parts of my swim ensemble, I realized that I could pull the neoprene sleeve down over my wrist and that would hopefully secure the watch.  Hopefully.  Time for the ferry.  It was an hour from the time the boat pulled away from the dock until the time we'd be jumping into the water.  Luckily time passed fairly quickly.  I turned on my garmin while keeping it tucked under the wetsuit, but it never found a gps signal.  I am not sure if that's from being inside the ferry, or being under the wetsuit material or both.  I heard from several others that they were having trouble finding the gps also. 

Then... it was time to jump!  There was absolutely zero time to second guess yourself as you stepped to the edge of the boat.  In no time at all I found myself dropping 6 feet into the San Francisco bay again, only this time I was getting tossed around... a lot.  I remembered the tips from my practice swim and only spotted the towers for a few minutes before shifting my focus to the piers.  I kept slamming into people and people kept slamming into me.  I suppose it was normal given how many people were doing this swim, but in the wide open bay, how was I on top of people so much?  It really started annoying me.  It also occurred to me that my watch had not buzzed at all alerting me of my laps - did I remember to hit start?  Was it still attached to me? 

At one point somebody passed me perpendicular on their way to Japan.  I paused to yell at them but by the time I got my bearings in the middle of all the waves, the person was too far away to hear me.  The good news for them is that there were a ton of boats out there.  In fact, Dani reported that the race directors didn't feel they had enough watercraft support given the conditions (small watercraft advisory and 2 foot swells, which I didn't find out until later) and had solicited the help of a bunch of fisherman who happened to be out.  I kept going, still getting tossed around pretty good.  I realized that I was probably more than a football field away from that rocky shoreline.  I tried with all my might to adjust my course but was no match for the current.  I overshot the finish by about 20-30 yards and rather than try to swim upstream, I got out on the beach and ran back up to the finish.  I was not alone as there were a bunch of people running up the beach.  45 minutes for the official race time.  My garmin was indeed still on my wrist, and the timer was going, but the gps signal never picked up. 

There was a half mile "run" to transition from the swim exit.  I chose to skip the gear bag that we had been allowed to store at the swim exit in favor of walking in my neoprene booties.  I had thought I would jog part of this but the booties just didn't provide very much padding on the cement.  I walked up until we got to the edge of Marina Green where transition was located and was able to run the last portion that was on grass.  I yelled to Lucy who was ready with her bike.  She asked someone to take a quick picture of us and she was off!  I grabbed some water and stood there for awhile to cheer in case Tommy or Dani as behind me.  As luck would have it, I got to cheer for both of them as they came in from the swim and headed out on their bike.  I took off my wetsuit, got my run gear together, had a couple snacks and generously applied anti-chaffing cream.  Luckily the chaffing wasn't much worse than I'd started off with.

T1 - out of the water and Lucy is about to head out on the bike

Lucy had predicted her time to be about 2 hours, but I wisely got ready much earlier - good thing too since it only took Lucy about 80 min to return to transition. I grabbed the timing chip from Lucy and headed off on the run.  There were crowds lining the streets for the first half mile so I jogged.  It was getting warmer and I knew this was going to be a challenging course, so I slowed to a walk as the crowds thinned and I headed towards Golden Gate Bridge.  It was a slight downhill and I was a little worried how it would feel on the out and back course going uphill for the last mile or so.  At least I'd be almost done.  I trudged along, walking some, jogging some, and then we turned a corner and I saw a staircase.  A steep staircase.  I knew there was going to be a staircase and I recalled the documentation saying that it was narrow and not to try to pass people.  I didn't want to be a hindrance for the people behind me so I made sure to keep going as fast as I could and no breaks.  I got to the top and the run course continued to go uphill.  Then more uphill.  And more uphill.  Geez!  I was at about 3 or 3.5 miles now and glanced up to see Tommy coming the other direction.  I'd somehow missed him coming back through transition on the bike - he must have done really well on that bike course!  I yelled at him and he looked absolutely drained! 

What goes up must go down, right?  The downhill finally arrived.  We went down and down and down and I ran the whole thing.  May as well take advantage of gravity!  The course popped us out on the beach and I made my way close to the water edge where the sand was harder.  I grabbed some water or electrolytes or whatever they handed me at the turn around, which was also in pretty deep sand, and headed back down the beach.  There were piles of sand in my shoes now! 

And then.... the dreaded sand ladder.... There was a timing mat at the bottom and a timing mat at the top and I know that it took me 6 minutes and 23 seconds to painfully drag myself up, using every bit of the cable that I could to pull myself along.  Finally at the top, the course continued uphill.  I recognized this part of the course as where I'd seen Tommy when I was going the other direction.  No wonder he looked so drained!  I'm sure I looked near death.

Sand ladder!  Photo taken from race facebook page.

I was walking along and got to talking to some other racers.  I jogged when I could and honestly I jogged a lot more than I thought I would, especially after how grueling the course had been so far.  There was another staircase, some very steep downhill sections that I considered getting on my butt and scooting down, and back on that long gradual uphill that signified the final couple miles.  It was getting pretty hot but the knowledge that I'd soon be done kept me going.  Lucy and I had discussed crossing the finish line together, and she was waiting for me with about a third of a mile to go.  To be honest, I hadn't planned on running the final third of a mile but the excitement was too much and I just kept going!  We ran down the finishers chute and high-fived as the announcer called our name - so much fun!

We got some water and made our way into the bleachers to cheer for Dani.  She had passed me going the opposite direction when I had about 2-3 miles left.  We didn't want to risk going back to transition and missing her.  It was really cool watching people finish and we cheered for every person.  Once Dani crossed the line we started the tasks of cleaning up our transition areas, dropping off Lucy and Dani's bikes, and most importantly taking pictures!  We escaped!  There was no nap for us as we headed back to the hotel for lunch, shower, drinks and then to meet up with Lucy and Paula for a celebration dinner. 

Oh yea... that's me... climbed onto the dump truck :)

I was exhausted as we finally turned in for the night, and I dreaded the extra early alarm I'd set for my 5:20am flight back home.  The flight change required a layover in Chicago and I was lucky that all my flights ended up on-time.  Jon picked me up from National airport and we proceeded directly into DC for game 4.  We had such a good time watching that win, it was nearly midnight when Jon finally dropped me off at home.  We'd made plans to get together with some friends to go to the viewing party for game 5....... and to fast forward a few days......... we won!!  The Caps won the Stanley Cup!!  What a week!!  #ALLCAPS  #ALLOURS  #WEBELIEVE  #THECUPISOURS