BlogJune 5, 2007 Escaping Alcatraz Last Friday I headed off to San Francisco for the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon with mixed feelings. My last race had been the Disney 70.3 and I hadn't faired that well. Since Florida I'd struggled with a sore throat (just a cold) and a strained left calf, which happened somewhere during the race in Florida. So, a little under the weather and having not run for about 15 days, I still couldn't pass up the chance to race in one of the most prestigious triathlons in the world. I'd planned to fly out on Wednesday and enjoy the cool late-spring Nor-Cal weather. Michelle and I ended up getting booked for three days of work with K-Swiss so we changed our flights and flew to Oakland on Friday morning. Arriving in the Bay Area was awesome, I love the feel out there. To me it seems very much like a European city. It's changed a little since I was last there. One thing that shocked me was that every third car in San Francisco is a Toyota Prius. Usually they have a lot of bumper stickers on the back of them, too. Perhaps I'll bug Jay Francis at Toyota and try to get a Prius instead of the 4-Runner. The '07 4-Runner I've been driving gets 18 miles to the gallon, which is pretty good for an SUV. Apparently the Hybrid Prius gets something like 60 mpg! There also appears to be room to put my bike in whole if the back seats are put down. I've not thought too much about America's addiction to fuel, but if I could personally save 70% annually on gasoline maybe all my friends would get cooler Christmas presents. After a very early breakfast I boarded the ferry that takes the triathletes out to Alcatraz. Under-trained and with a sore throat I was ridiculously optimistic about my chances. I spoke with young American triathlon stand-out and new Oakland resident Greg Remaly as we waited on the ferry for the triathlon to begin. At Alcatraz the horn goes off and you jump into the cold-as-bells water and start swimming toward land! There is no warm-up, no getting situated in your wetsuit or adjusting your goggles. As soon as the horn blows, the clock is ticking. Greg advised me to swim right, he said the majority of people swim too far left and end up wasting time swimming with the current toward the end of the swim. He said, "The fast guys would take a more direct line." At this point I'd now talked myself into not only doing well here, but I was THE FAST GUY. Among the male and female pros in the first wave to jump, I saw the Bachelor guy Andy Baldwin. After seeing him on TV and reading about all of his triathlon stuff it was pretty cool to see him racing with the pro wave out here. I heard a few various pros thanking him for putting triathlon on "The Big Screen". I felt like saying something similar, but he looked nervous and I figured I wouldn't bother him. So off we went into the Bay. In this swim it's recommended that you attempt to swim parallel to the Bay Bridge and end up exiting closer to the Golden Gate Bridge. The water current pulls you right along as if you were swimming across a river. The current today was strong even for this Bay, over 5 knots! I took off and stayed right. Soon into the swim it became extremely rough and the chop was a little overwhelming. I never was uncomfortable, but all my new Johnny-refined swim technique was certainly out the window. This was becoming a survival swim. I found a female pro to swim with for most of the distance and knew I wasn't having one of my better days. I figured I may feel better later on and to just get to shore without losing too much time. As we approached the end it was clear that I had swum way too far to the right. I was fighting the current a bit just to make it to the swim exit. If I were to miss the swim exit there's no way to get back there as the current is too strong. Apparently I'd followed the wrong line and was paying now. Jan Sieberson and Andy Potts lead out of the water in 24 minutes and change. I was over three minutes back but among some decent professionals. I'm pretty sure the female pro (she had a pink cap) I was swimming with was defending champ and excellent swimmer Becky Lavelle. I read a mention to the press later that she had swum a bad line and ended up having a bad swim time as a result of this. She's a fantastic swimmer and if you'd told me prior to the race that I would swim and get out with her I'd have been ecstatic. I don't think physically I had a terrible swim, I just went the wrong way! As we ran the better part of a mile to our bikes I got to see some of the other pros coming the other way all ready riding. Potts was way ahead, I probably wouldn't be seeing him until the finish. As I ran into transition uber-biker David Thompson was boarding his rocket for take-off. I thought perhaps if I could catch up to him I could work my way towards the front of the field. Onto the bike, I started hard. This ride is 18 miles, very hilly, very technical. On the early climbs I went by a few dudes but definitely wasn't rolling fast and I certainly wouldn't be seeing Thompson. About 5 miles in somewhere in the Presidio I caught Canadian pro Michael Simpson. Michael is a very good young professional. Two years ago he smashed a star-studded field to take a big win at the LA Triathlon as a relative unknown and other good results soon followed. Now I was becoming more optimistic and I continued to ride hard. A pack of maybe six guys was riding with me and out toward the turn around I dropped all these guys and was now all alone. Nobody ahead I could see, nobody behind I could see either. Not a good place to be in, especially when I knew there were at least ten more to catch. On the way back coming up the steep climbs I figured it was time for some calories. Whoops, dropped my energy gel. That made me angry and I used that anger to catch three more guys in the next mile. No big names as far as I knew. Back into transition I realized I'd had an "ok" bike but my legs were more than "ok bike" tired and now I was in for one of the hardest run courses in triathlon. It was clear now, similar to Florida, I was going to have to really WORK for a top ten finish. I took off running hard as the first two miles of this race are dead flat. The run is 8 miles and the first and last mile are crowd-lined, sometimes 5-6 people deep. This aspect of the race was very cool! I could feel my lack of running over the past month in that the coordinated effort of running felt awkward... Two miles into the run I started to feel like my blood-sugar was low and that the inevitable "bonk" was coming. Having filled my water bottle on the bike only with water, and dropping my energy gels during the bike, I now hadn't taken in any calories for over 3.5 hours and 90 minutes of hard racing. A huge mistake on my part as I wasn't planning ahead. So, the next aide station I stopped and chugged a few cups of energy drink. On the hills near the turnaround lots of guys started to run by as my bonk continued, one was Michael Simpson and he was running pretty fast. Apparently he ran his way into the top 10, which is pretty cool considering he was with me with only a few miles to go. I made my way up the sand ladder and back to the finish to come across in 18th, somewhere not far into the top half of the male pros. All things considered, I'm not too disappointed with the result. Three years ago I came here fresh and healthy and only finished 25th, ahhhh the sweet smell of progress! Seriously though, I think if I'd just taken in the necessary calories on the bike I may have been able to pull out a top ten. This is including my choice to take an awful line on the swim! Thankfully my sore calf didn't give me any problems out there. The evening post race I was feeling like the sore throat was getting much worse and I was regretting my decision to start. A race like Alcatraz is very hard to pass up and I would have had to have been pretty sick to just hang out and watch the thing. It's my mentality to be optimistic. I never start races thinking about my inabilities or things I lack, I'm sometimes positive to a fault! It's a good thing there aren't Vegas-style betting rings involving triathlon, I'd probably go broke betting on myself. Lately, it wouldn't take long! I do vow to come back to Alcatraz really healthy and well trained. I'm going to take the correct line on the swim, drink some Gatorade on the bike, and give the leaders a good run for their money! On a brighter note Michelle and I got booked for more work with K-Swiss in Denver next week. I'm going to take a little breather from triathlon and focus on some other aspects of life for a couple weeks and let my body recover. When we get nagging sore throats and injuries it's clear our bodies are tired and need rest and recovery. This is where I'm at right now. It's always hard for me to admit, but it's time to take it easy. I've been going HARD since January and my results and sensations have been steadily declining the past six weeks. The writing is on the wall, it doesn't take a rocket scientist... Even though, I am a rocket scientist. Perhaps San Diego International will be my next race on June 24th. After that, Battle of the Midway, Carlsbad Tri, ITU Long Course World's in L'Orient France, NYC Triathlon, and Newfoundland 70.3... I need to be ready and rested to race well almost every weekend in succession during July. I may exclude a couple of these races, as all solid schedules require a bit of flexibility. Thanks again for reading, see you at the races! Cheers, Lewis « Back to Blogs |
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