Escaping from Alcatraz

 

Alcatraz lived up to its notorious reputation.   Cold water and strong currents.  

 

Brad and Andy are driving down today (Monday).  I wimped out and flew back last night.  (I am sure that I will hear about the killer steak dinner but that is another story.)

 

Brad had a disp water proof camera.  We took some neat pics.  Cant wait to see how they came out.

 

We all had the same experience.  The swim was a real mental teaser.  Before we boarded the boat, the race director told us to avoid the notorious currents, we should follow the lead out motorboat.  As we sailed over to the infamous Alcatraz, the captain of the boat said that we were lucky because it was “slack tide” in the SF bay meaning no currents.  It started out in near fantastic conditions except that we had to jump ten feet from the boat into the who knows how cold water.  With the obvious conclusion that no one gets to chicken out and get back on the boat.  Truly the conditions were good.  Clear.  Light chop.  58 deg water.  Relatively good visibility.  For the first mile of the 1.5 there was no detectable current.  We swam like fish ......unknowingly into our fate.  The whole group followed the lead out boat that was on some tangent which was clearly not our target landing zone. Our target was a small protected harbor with a jetty protecting the entrance.  Gradually, you could see the whole swim crowd start to give up on the leadout boat and aim for the target landing zone.   As we approached, it became apparent that something was not quite right.  What no one told us was that the current ran right along the shoreline.   When we got close enough to see the actual harbor opening, it was too late!  We were caught in a current that swiftly ran towards the Golden Gate.  It literally felt like a tractor beam was sucking you in.  Every time we looked up to sight, it got exponentially worse.  At first, it was a ten degree angle correction then thirty then 45.   Disbelief was setting in as each correction seemed to be doing little.  Within moments, we were forced to swim parallel with the jetty to keep from being swept into the pylons.  The jetty was supported by concrete piles that were encrusted with barnacles waiting to shred us to ribbons.  The streaming blood surely would send the approaching sharks into a feeding frenzy (Ok so I am embellishing a little!)  Brad was the smartest (relatively speaking which isn't saying much)  He turned around and swam back out to avoid ending up under the jetty.  I remember swimming parallel to the shore and every breath I would look up and see the same person staring down at me from the jetty.  “Oh crap! I am not going anywhere.” I thought.  So I doubled my speed and just barely escaped being swept to sea.    Andy took the brunt of the punishment (probably as a lesson to him for jacking with the 10 mile Wednesday routine, just so he could get in more swimming)   A check of the race results will yield a confirmation that Andy spent an incredible 10 minutes swimming like a salmon upstream to get back into the opening of the cove.   I am convinced that if it was anyone else in our group, we would have had a burial at sea on our hands (and quickly Rock-paper-scissors for their Tri gear!)   Andy the superhuman man-fish was quoted as saying,  "I never swam so hard in my life!  It was worse than any repeats I've ever done in the pool."  I can't confirm or deny that I wet my pants during the whole ordeal but you should have seen all the water pouring out of the legs of my wet suit as I emerged from the water.  I'll let the facts stand for themselves.

 

I would like to say that the bike and run were anticlimactic but they weren't.  There wasn’t a flat spot on the whole bike course.  Up and down.  Up and down.  Lowest gear to the highest.  Nothing between.  Do it three times!  It was like a sick roller coaster that we all wanted to get off.  The best part was that there was a good crowd, beautiful views and great weather.

 

The run was special too.  Out of the transition, there is a 1/4 mile of flats and then straight up the hill to the Golden Gate.  We crossed under the entrance and headed out to a trail that ran along the ocean.  Dropped down about 400 ft elevation for a refreshing run across the beach in deep sand.  There was a break from the sand as we climbed back uphill for about two miles to an elevation about 800 ft.  When that fun was over, it was back to the beach again.  This time the exit from the beach was the infamous Sand Ladder.  It really is a set of logs cabled together 100 yards long straight up a sand dune for an elevation change of 200 ft.  Thankfully, at the top there was a cup of water and another climb of 200 ft  in elevation.....but there was a fantastic view of the bridge!  The view was hard to appreciate due to the tunnel vision of oxygen debt.  From the bridge, there was a steep charge back to the finish line.  This just shifted the misery form the quads to the knees.  It was a great finish.  1/4 mile of flat trail lined with cheering fans.  And of course the reason why we all subjected ourselves to this epic saga, A FANCY MEDAL AND A FREE T-SHIRT at the finish.

 

PS

On the way back to San Diego, we stayed in Monterey.  We decided that we were not in any rush to get home so did at “cool down” ride along the coast.  It was such a pretty ride that I remember thinking< “Why did we pay for the triathlon when we could’ve done this ride for free?”  Alas, this story of woe and misery would have never made history.