Robert Swanwick – Escape from Alcatraz – Sunday, June 3, 2018

Beautiful weekend in SF. Sunny and 70 both days with a good breeze. Got to hang with Lisa both before and after. She was a featured athlete for the race! Also randomly met Alan (MMTC member, but not sure last name) on the boat. 🙂 It was my first time in this race and I really didn't understand the swim strategy instructions. You were supposed to be sighting for things on the land as you drift very fast sideways with the current. That didn't make any sense to me so I figured I would just try to stay with the crowd. With fogging lenses and a lot of swell that was tough too so I ended up overshooting the finish a bit and having to swim up current a bit. Also lost a few minutes getting off the boat so a very poor swim put me in the back 1/2 of the pack. I had opted to skip the mini-transition and run 1/2 mile over gravel and pavement to the bike transition with barefeet. Good call I think; feet were fine. No major issues in transition to bike, but not super fast either. Rode my bike like a demon. Was passing people at what felt like about 5 mph. Beautiful scenery and tons of ups and downs: a perfect ride in my book. Kept the heart rate around 150. Had the road bike and was glad for it. Probably passed about 600 of the 850 people ahead of me. Was 4th in AG (out of 179) on the bike. Run started out tough. Was flat, but strong headwind. Still passing everyone so nobody to tuck behind to get out of wind. Next was series of steep hills including a set of uneven custom wood steps…hard to get a rhythm. As if the hills weren't hard enough, course dumped us onto the beach. Running on wet sand was tough, but getting there over the dry sand was like people grabbing at your feet. Turnaround forced another trip over the dry sand. Then, after a third trip over the dry sand comes the sand ladder. Logs placed in a path straight up a hill with sand filling in-between and on top. My goal was to jog this portion and I would say I managed something between a jog and a power walk. 2nd in AG for this little section which made me feel better about not hitting my jogging goal. More hills, some weird steps, a stoop to get under a tunnel (all very strange) and another trip down the oddly spaced custom wood steps and we were back to the flat fast downwind runout to the finish. Picked up the pace and finished as strong as I could without a full all out kick at the end (I really avoid that if I can). Passed 100 or so more people during the run and was 5th in AG for that portion. The 50-54's were more competitive than the 45-49's and I lost several mins getting off the boat so I felt decent about 9th; though I had been hoping for 5th or 6th type finish. Beautiful scenery and I got to fit in some friend visits while I was out there. One of them made me do a 90min hike up a mountain in Woodside later that day!