Looking back - Escape from Alcatraz
My last race and consistent training was far too long ago - June 2004, Escape from Alcatraz Triathalon. While I am not an experienced triathalete, a couple friends of mine convinced me to enter Alcatraz. Since I had only done three triathalons in my life before Alcatraz, I was a little intimidated to say the least.
To begin the Escape from Alcatraz, all 1300-1500 participants jumped off the boat into the San Francisco bay within six minutes. As I was jumping off, I partially landed on someone. I got hit in my goggles and swam over by a faster swimmer. The start of the race was very overwhelming. Imagine the experience of jumping into 58 degree water with 1300+ people 1.5 miles off shore. WOW!
The end of the swim was the beach near the SF Yacht Club (the red roof building). Safe! It was great to be on dry land. Notice the mass exodus from the bay.
Viewing Alcatraz from the swim exit, you can see the race leaders. I finished the swim only 9 minutes behind the leaders. Sadly, this was the closest I would come to them the rest of the day. I finished the 1.5 mile swim in 29 minutes. Yes, we swam with the current which helped everyone's time. I was very pleased with my swim - even though I swam off course!
Below are a few pictures of me during the bike portion of the race. Even though the bike leg was a relatively short 18 miles, I simply was not prepared for the hills of SF. My goal was to finish the bike under one hour. I finished six minutes slower. Check out these hills and views.
Finally the run where I feel much more confident. At one mile into the run, I feel good. This portion of the run is flat paralleling the SF bay. You can see the Golden Gate Bridge to my right. The next portion of the run takes me into the GG park which has narrow trails and more physically challenging.
This is the only other picture of the run. You may notice, I'm in pain. The finish line is less than 100m ahead. When the race announcers called out my name, I felt compelled to give one last burst. I finished the 8m run in 59 minutes. Total race time was two hours and 46 minutes. I was pleased, but tired!
If you are interested in seeing my swim, bike, run, and transition times, here they are:
Overall Place: 434
Finish time: 02:46:45
Swim time: 00:29:19
TRANS1: 00:09:29 (included a 1/2mile run from the beach)
BIKE: 01:06:58
TRANS2: 00:01:58
RUN: 00:59:01
SWIMRANK: 375
SWIMmin/Km: 00:11:43
BIKERANK: 827
BIKEMPH: 16.1
RUNRANK: 177
RUNMPM: 00:07:22
Posted at 10:20PM May 19, 2006 by phil in Running | Comments[0]