Race Report: Escaping from Alcatraz
After swimming :36 second 50s with ease on Wednesday and holding 217W for 4 minutes at the end of my ride last Saturday, I knew I could have an amazing race this weekend, but it was going to be hard. Saturday, I was still stressing about “important” issues like whether or not to wear shoes for the 3/4 mile run after the swim and when to jump off the boat.
My wave was supposed to jump off the boat first, but I’m so sick of being out in front of my age group, thinking I’m doing awesome and then it turns out I got my assed kick by a bunch of 32-year-olds that I never saw. I was completely convinced that if I jumped off first I would be out in the middle of the Bay by myself, waiting to get passed on the bike, and never seeing the people who beat me. I also knew that Rachel was going to go, um, really fast.
So, my master plan, was I’d wait and jump off with the 30-34 year olds.
Um, kinda.
The race is weird. You get there at 5:45 am and on one hand you have over 2 hours til the race starts, but on the other hand you were already supposed to be on a bus to take you to a ferry to go circle the island. I’m also still not used to being at races by myself. It’s not that I don’t know lots of people at races from training and other races, but its rare that I have a race buddy anymore, like everyone else seems to. Obviously, this has the perk of not having to deal with other people’s freakouts. Downside, I can’t reach the middle of my back with sunscreen.
We all got on the boat and I was completely overwhelmed by the pseudo-casino feel and the mass of people sitting on the ground and everyone seemed to be with their bestest friend ever and I hadn’t really thought through the whole putting on the wetsuit before getting on the crowded boat thing. I was already starting to get dizzy, but I found Zach from Cal Tri who was in from New York to do the race and, instead, I totally overwhelmed him with my constant talking.
The race started, everyone began jumping off and I was stuck at the back of the boat. Per my master plan, I was going to jump off with the ‘fast’ people, but I was already realizing that was not going to work out so well. No one told me all the fast people rush to the front, regardless of age, and had already jumped off while I was still zipping up my suit.
This was my big, probably only, mistake.
I jumped off the boat and started swimming hard, I was flying past people, I thought I was doing so great, then I realized they were doing breaststroke. For awhile I passed people like crazy, no one passed me, but I had no draft, no one to follow, and no idea how I was doing. I ran into a couple groups that were, um, ‘enjoying the scenery’ and had to weave through them. I may have just swum directly over a few backstrokers. 10 minutes in I realized it was going to be slow. The waves were rough. I was hitting air on some strokes and swallowing water on most others. I could barely see the shoreline over the waves when I would site.
By halfway through, I was by myself. In retrospect, probably not a good sign when there should be 2000 people with you. But that’s the thing: even as I kept swimming and swimming and swimming, I really didn’t think it was going that badly. I really, really thought it was just probably sucking for everyone. I had no reference to realize I was going that slow. I could see people way over on my right out of the side of my eye, or I would see someone up ahead on one breath and then they’d be gone the next. I think I was weaving like mad. And, eventually, the beach came into sight and then it didn’t get any closer. I think I swam in place for 10 minutes -- literally, that’s possible with the crazy currents and waves and bullshit.
My last few races I struggled with motivation getting out of the water, but I have never been as excited to get on my bike as I was this time.
I chose the take off the wetsuit and put on shoes option for the 3/4 run (in case you were wondering) and ran really fast and jumped on my bike. And then I started weaving trying to figure out why my bike wheel was making weird noises and staring down at my wheel. I stopped after a minute of being ‘that’ girl and realized I had rolled over a helmet sticker on the ground and it was stuck in my brakes. Problem solved.
As soon as I started pedaling again, I saw a pro woman right in front of me. See, see, my swim wasn’t that bad! (Kinda.)
The bike was straight up and straight down. I would lose ground to this one woman on the uphill and make it up on the downhill. Over and over and over. It’s not that I wasn’t trying really, really hard on the uphill, but I’m not really an awesome sprint-coast-sprint-coast person. That’s why I do triathlon. I felt like my bike hadn’t been amazing, but I pulled into transition after 58 or so minutes, 15 seconds behind that woman.
I kept waiting for Rachel and Katherine to pass me and when they didn’t I was really confused. It, honestly, never even occurred to me during the race that they would have started ahead and still be ahead.
The first mile of the run was flat and it wasn’t until after that that the woman I had been biking back and forth with caught me. I picked up my stride and went with her. We started climbing and climbing. We caught the pro that had been in front of me on the bike. We ducked under overhangs, ran through a tunnel, hopped up ledges and down stairs, then they made us run a mile along the sand. It was almost so hard and ridiculous that it didn’t even matter that I’m not in awesome running shape, because this wasn’t running. Then we walked up the sand ladder.
She dropped me on the climb after the sand ladder (it just kept going up and up). I pushed the downhill back to the Marina so hard and was flying. I hit the flat and Eileen was right in front of me.
My legs crumbled then. Going downhill so hard and then 1.5 miles still to go on the flats and my legs just fell off. I was so tired, I started to bonk, I knew I would make it, but I didn’t want to have to walk. I kept focusing on Eileen’s back and one girl went flying past me with less than a mile to go, then another. Maybe it’s a sign of how tired I was, it never even occurred to me to go with them. I just kept running along. It was really confusing trying to tell who was beating you and who wasn’t and there were relays mixed in, because everyone had started at different times.
Finally, I saw the red arch in the distance and I told myself you can make it to the arch, you did it after the swim, so I picked it up. I got to the arch and there was still another 150m to go. Agh! I thought I was going to cry.
But I didn’t. And I finished - a little slower than expected. And, yes, all those 32 year olds that I never even saw kicked my ass. Eventually, they won’t. Maybe.
11th amateur, 1st 20-24, 2:49. And, you know what, no one under 30 beat me, so there.
Keeping it together:
Monday, June 15, 2009