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Woohooo.. Well, I successfully completed the 2007 Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon and yah, that was kind of hard. It was a foggy and cold (ie.. normal) day here in SF, which actually was kind of nice… At 4am, I headed over to the Marina, where I joined 1600 other crazy people to jump off a perfectly good ferry, swim to San Francisco, and then bike and run around the hilly parts.

Here are my splits — I didn’t finish last. I actually beat 6 dudes in my class. Yay. There were 163 dudes in the 30-35 age group.

Total Time	Swim Time	Swim Trans	Bike Time	Bike Trans	Run Time	Sand Ladder
4:01:32	0:50:22	0:12:49	1:14:45	0:02:35	1:41:01	0:03:40

I met up with a bunch of peeps from my triathlon club on the ferry, so that was kind of nice to have some people to talk to whilst I awaited my doom.. It seemed like an excruciating wait between the time that we actually boarded the ferry and the starting gun.. As the moment neared, we all crowded toward the starboard side of the ferry, causing it to list severely to that side.. And then… like lemmings, people started jumping off into the bay. The cold wasn’t as shocking as I expected — I guess those training sessions at aquatic park paid off.. What was surprising was how far the city looked off on the horizon. Crap. That’s far. What the hell have I gotten myself into? Hmm. I hope I don’t die.

I started swimming, and as expected, I started off at a pace that was WAY too fast. But again, I knew I would do this from my practice sessions in AP, so I consciously tried to slow myself down as to not tire myself out too quickly. As I swam into the channel, things got kinda choppy. Literally. The swells started getting bigger, maybe 6 feet or so. Not huge huge, but still, a lot more than I had ever seen. Freestyle got tiring. I switched to breast stroke, which I knew was a bad idea cuz it uses your legs a lot more. But, who cares as long as it propels me closer to home. Hmm.. let’s try sidestroke — I read somewhere that it was super efficient or something. Some dude behind me was doing elementary backstroke and he looked pretty happy, so I tried that one too. But damn, that’s so slow. So, I finally settled into a good rhythm. 5 strokes of freestyle, then, 2 breast strokes to sight land and straighten myself out…

But.. apparently, my sighting wasn’t working that great. The race is timed such that the ebb current pushes you out towards the Golden Gate. So, you’re supposed to sight towards Fort Mason, and then the current will push you right into the finish. I apparently need to aim at Oakland. All of a sudden, a dude in a Kayak yells..

“Hey YOU! Go LEFT!”

I stop for a sec, look around, and realize that the ENTIRE field is to my left. Oops. But (thankfully) the exit is now in sight, albeit like 300 yards to my left now, which, of course is now against the current. Crap. I put my head down and swim hard for the exit and after a few excruciating minutes, I creep slowly towards the exit. Woohoo. I made it. Legs are wobbly as I stumble onto land. My transition bag is easy to find because, well, I was pretty slow, so most everyone had already gone ahead of me.

I jog the half mile back to the transition area, happy that I didn’t die somewhere back there. But now I get to bike and run. Great.

The bike portion was super fun. I’ve done the bike course a ton of times, so it’s my home turf, so I felt quite solid and strong on the bike. I actually passed a bunch of people, cranking pretty hard up the hills and then bombing pretty fast on the downhills. My new Ksyriums and the Specialized Pro tires were super solid and instilled a great deal of confidence in my riding, so that was pretty cool.. So yah.. hooray for biking. I felt pretty damn good. Zoom zoom. I biked above my swim/run rank, since I was ranked 1,175 in the bike, and well into the 1400s for the swim and the run.

The bike course took us from the Marina, up past the GGB, over to the Legion of Honor, down around the Cliff House, down Ocean Beach, around Golden Gate Park, and then.. all the way back.. It’s an 18 mile course, but super hilly. I passed a bunch of people that were from out of town and were completely taken aback by the sheer hilliness of the bike course. Apparently Chicago… not so hilly. So yah, I guess all of that fixie riding around town paid off..

Then.. the run. Ouch. I hate running. It’s painful, and I’m not very fast. I’d blame my broken ankle, but honestly, that was the only part of my legs that didn’t hurt today. The run was an 8 mile run, from the Marina, to Baker Beach and back… with a climb up the deathly Baker Beach sand ladder. All in all, it really sucked, but I actually jog/ran most of the course, which I’m actually quite proud of myself for doing. Then again, I don’t think my running is *that* much faster than my walking. The slowness of my running was exemplified when, at the turnaround, I was passed by a 71 year old dude. Man, that old guy could move.

My legs started cramping up somewhere near the 6 mile marker. Ouch. I gulped down some cytomax, and that seemed to help, but that wasn’t very pleasant. I just tried to keep on truckin’ and eventually, the finish was visible in the distance. I kicked hard for the finish, and when I got there, I was met with Mom, Dad, Andy and Meredith at the finish line. Thanks guys for coming to support me!

Despite my slowness on the run, I decided that I would book up the sand ladder as quickly as possible. I got what I think is a pretty respectable (compared to the people that finished near me) 3:40 for the sand ladder. I can’t run too good, but sure.. stairs? Done.

So yah.. I do admit that I did think to myself that I wouldn’t be too disappointed if “something” happened and I couldn’t do the race. But, I’m glad I did it, and I don’t think I’m gonna do that again. I think I’m gonna do more biking now, and maybe some more swimming — but limit that to a pool. Oh, and I guess I’ll still run, but only to beat Carlo and Sunnia in our Nike+iPod challeges. The SF to LA Aids Ride started today (Go Dana! Go Chad! Go Steph!), so I think I’ll do that next year.

More photos from Dad, Andy, Meredith, and Brightroom.

I’ve got 4 days left until my big race. Yikes.. I hope I’ve done enough training. According to my records, I’ve swam 23.18 miles, biked 271.04 miles, and ran 113.52 miles… which probably isn’t anywhere near enough… but, I guess there’s nothing I can really do about it now.. eep.

I’m excited and nervous about the whole thing — in particular the 1.5 mile swim from Alcatraz to the city… Hopefully it will be calm and glassy. The weather forecast for Sunday is partly cloudy with a high of 61… Anyway, Sunday morning, I’ll be boarding the ferry to Alcatraz at 4:15am, and at 7am, I’ll be joining 1,600 racers as we all jump into the bay..

So, here’s a cool thing — if you want to track my progress during Sunday’s race, Accenture (the main sponsor) has set up a site where you can get alerts (either via email or text or voice call..) whenever I finish the swim, bike, and run.. Neat. I’m aiming for 1:00 swim, 1:00 bike, 1:30 run.. but we’ll see… I’m gonna be super happy just to finish..

So, I survived my second Wildflower Triathlon.. I’m pretty sore today. The weather was fantastic this year. Unlike last year’s 100 degree heat, this year was a pleasant 80 degrees or so.

I finished this year in 3:58:54 — almost 11 minutes slower than last year’s 3:48:04.. Well, consdering I trained much less than last year (I did NO running at all), I suppose that’s ok… I need to train more for the next one..

My splits for each year…

I knew it was going to be a long day when I put on my wetsuit.. I was struggling a bit to get into the suit, thinking to myself.. “crap.. have I really gotten that much fatter?” After about 1o minutes, I managed to get the wetsuit on, and I made my way down to the boat ramp, where everyone was milling about, waiting for the race to start. I looked around at all of the other competitors, nervous excitement filled the air..

I had my wetsuit half-on, as was the custom since it’s really hot in the wetsuit. I noticed how neat it was that when the wetsuit is half on, the logo of the wetsuit is printed on the inside of it, so that everyone can see what kind of wetsuit you’re wearing. I then looked down and thought to myself.. “hmm.. that’s weird, my logo is upside down.” — then it dawned upon me. I had put on my wetsuit on inside out. Oooooops. That’s why it was so hard to put on! Instead of the neopreney side next to my skin, the rubbery side was there… Argh! Well, at least I noticed before the race.. had I jumped into the water with my inside out wetsuit, who knows what would have happened.. ugh.

I was able to get my suit on properly before the start, luckily, but the problems didn’t stop there.. after the race started, I started to settle into the swim, when I realized I was having a lot of trouble breathing… Well, it turns out that I’ve added a few pounds since last year’s triathlon, so, maybe my wetsuit fits a lot tighter than it used to, making it sooo hard to breathe. I started freaking out and hyperventilating a bit, but after I flipped over and backstroked for awhile, I was able to calm down and start swimming again… ugh. not fun. I was able to paddle my way in around the 0.9 mile course.. somehow.

Thankful that I didn’t drown in the lake, I hopped onto the bike for my favorite portion of the tri (I must have been really eager since my swim-bike transition was the ONLY time this year that was better than last year).. the bike… Man, I really do love the bike part. You don’t really get to ride for 25 miles without stopping, except for in a race. The Wildflower bike portion is legendary for being hilly and grueling, but the good thing about riding UP a hill, as that you get to ride DOWN it later.. wee! This year, my top speed was 44.7 mph.. wahoo! That was super fun. Anyway, right around the turn-around for the out-and-back course, I really, really, really had to pee.. The way back is basically one long hill followed by a medium hill and then a huge hill… After the second hill, I just gave up and stopped and pee’d at the side of the road.. people kept riding by and joking that I was “lightening the load”.. haha.. i really did feel faster this year, although somehow, my time last year was faster..

And then.. the run.. Now, I haven’t trained running AT ALL this whole year, I’ve maybe run 3 miles in the past six months. Well.. it showed.. I speed-walked most of the “run” but somehow ended up with a time that wasn’t THAT much worse than last year.. strange.. Every time I tried to run, my legs would cramp up, so I just walked most of the way… The run course is 5 miles uphill and then 1 mile downhill.. Walking downhill kind of sucks more, so I ran that last mile all the way to the finish line…

And so.. I made it.. Mehul did very well with a 3:20 time, and Kristin beat me by a few minutes with a 3:55… next year.. maybe I’ll train a little harder, enough of this slacker training stuff..

Well.. my “slacker tri team” training paid off, and I finished my first triathlon yesterday… I’m a bit sore, but really happy I did it. (supposedly tomorrow i’ll experience more pain) The weather was excruciatingly hot.. it was in the 100s all day.. I did almost what I expected… I finished in 3:48:04, 1866th overall, 224th out of 251 in my division. I was looking to do 3:30 (30 minute swim, 2 hour bike, 1 hour run), so I did close to that..

As I learned in my first open water swim a few weeks ago, I do NOT swim in a straight line. I kept veering off course, getting kicked in the head as I cut across several (faster) swimmers’ paths. For the first leg of the swim, I was so pumped up that I was going all out (staying near the front of the pack), and ended up tiring myself out by the first turn. I had to flip onto my back for a little elementary backstroke whilst I regained my composure for a few minutes. After I resumed a more sane pace, I was able to finish out the leg freestyle.

I was really happy with my bike portion — thanks to my brand new bike computer, I was able to see that I hit a max speed of 43.5 mph.. that was soooo fun.. and, my turtle horn was quite a hit with the fans. The bike was definitely my favorite part, though I think I need to see if my bike really fits me properly. Granted, I’ve only logged about 25 miles prior to raceday on this bike…

The run part was the worst — I wouldn’t really call it a run.. more like a run/walk.. I’m actually quite surprised that I actually had 12 minute miles. I was quite delirous and I was making little deals with myself the whole way like “ok, the faster we go, the sooner this is over” and “ok, run to the next hill, then we can walk” (who is this “we” anyway?!?). I also tried to pace myself with some of the various other racers, so thank you camelback-guy, thank you big dude in a too tight race suit, and no thanks to the really cute girl that just flew by as if it wasn’t the last leg of a grueling triathlon in 100 degree heat.

Oh.. and one more thing… why is it that at the end of the race, they put a “false end”.. meaning this.. I’m running for (what i thought was) the end.. and.. it TURNS.. and there’s like another 200 yard gauntlet for you to run through.. and here’s what sucks, you’ve already given your all to get to what you just thought was the end, and now you’ve got another frikkin 200 yards to run, and it’s full of people watching, so if you stop to walk, they all get to point and laugh. so, what do you do? you keep on running. and it frikkin hurts. but they did give me a nice medal at the end. yay!

Actually, I lied about the worst part. The worst part of the day was the walk back to the campsite after the whole thing was over. I mean, honestly, it’s not as if we hadn’t done anything all day. The campsite was over a mile from the finish, and uphill about 1,000 feet. Add the 100 degree heat, carrying all of my gear, and my bike and you can imagine how frikkin annoying that was. They should really put in a chairlift or something.

Anyway, I’m already looking for the next tri.. I figure I already have all this equipment, so why the hell not. Maybe i’ll train harder next time.