Escape From Alcatraz 2019

Just off Alcatraz Island, San Francisco 9^th June 2019 7:34

As I shuffled towards the 3m drop, triathletes were throwing themselves off the giant paddle steamer five at a time at both the stern and bow exits. The sea, previous flat and undisturbed was a churning, foamy mess as each jumper bobbed back to the surface, already swimming furiously.

With a solid press of bodies behind me there was no time to hesitate, I picked my spot and hurled myself at it, throwing myself into a rapid crawl as I came back up, trying to make sure I didn’t get landed on.

It was only seconds ago I’d been watching dolphins playing off the side of the boat – now I was fighting for a space as two thousand swimmers tried to pick a line that would allow the current to drive them to the swim exit, 1.5 miles away.

One idle afternoon last year I’d entered the ballot for the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon – it’s one of the most iconic triathlon events in the world, and in the same way I enter the ballot for the London Marathon I never expected to get a place. When I did, I had to come clean to Jo, who as always was incredible – telling me it was a once in a lifetime thing and I had to do it.

It’s an expensive trip (hotels in San Francisco are ruinously costly) but with careful planning I’d managed to make it work. Although Jo and Dom would have loved to have joined me it was term time, and there was no way I could justify him missing four days of school; the result was I was in San Francisco on my own.

The hotel I’d booked into looked horrific from the outside, and the room was dated, but the bed was new and it was immaculately clean. I didn’t really need anything else.

I’d decided I didn’t want the hassle of hiring a bike box, breaking down my bike and reassembling for the race and then reversing the process to get home, so I’d hired a 105 equipped Cannondale Supersix from one of the large sports shops in the area. First thing Friday morning I walked the 2 miles to the store, and within ten minutes had collected my steed for the weekend.

Giving it a quick shake down, I noted that the brakes were the wrong way round, but didn’t seem to be particularly fierce so I was unlikely to throw myself over the handlebars grabbing the wrong one. Everything else worked fine.

Having done some grocery shopping (lunch and breakfasts) I returned to the store for the ‘Pro Tips briefing’ which was helpful; but I couldn’t help but worry – there was a lot of emphasis on the shockingly cold water – if I’d done my maths right it was going to be between 13 and 18 degrees, and I couldn’t see this causing a major issue for anyone who’d been training in Open Water.

Was I missing something?

Nearing San Francisco Bay, 7:57

The swim had been challenging. I’d watched the videos but none of the suggested landmarks had resonated, so I had no idea where I was going. Although I was following a mass of swimmers they were spread out over about half a mile from side to side, and despite the available room there was a definite ‘take no prisoners’ attitude.

I had had two clear as crystal moments – a friend had recommended I take thirty seconds early on, roll onto my back and just take in the Island, the paddle steamer, the sheer spectacle of what we were doing. I’d done so, but kept it to a more race focused five seconds.

The second moment came when I suddenly realised I couldn’t see any other swimmers – I sat up and made sure I was still heading in the right direction; I still don’t know what happened but after a half minute of peace and serenity, I quickly found myself back in the battle.

Every now and again I was aware of a shift in temperature as I entered a different part of the current, but nothing had caused an issue, and as I neared the city the river current was shoving me sideways with contemptuous ease and speed. I was very glad it looked like I wasn’t going to overshoot as it would be deeply draining fighting your way back.

As I dragged myself out onto the shore, I hit the transition button on the Garmin – 36 minutes was around ten minutes faster than I would have expected for the pace I had set.

As Saturday dawned, I got up and set out to explore – still nursing a sore ankle after the previous weekends exertions at the Blenheim Weekend Warriors I was trying to minimise the strain I put on it, but checked out a chunk of the run, bimbled over the Golden Gate Bridge and just generally enjoyed being a tourist.

San Francisco is amazing – full of character and variety, I think it’s one of few places in the world I would uproot myself for.

At 11, registration opened and I was there early to make sure I knew where everything was. The organisation and scale of an event for only two thousand competitors was amazing and we were quickly shuffled through an assembly line decking us out with all the standard stuff needed for a triathlon, but also an array of freebies that went some way towards offsetting what is an expensive event to enter.

We’d had an opportunity to build our own bundle of goodies – I have a friend who loves his branded souvenirs and he would have been having fits over the event specific stuff available in the store as well as the goodie bags.

T1, Marina Drive 8:48

There was a ‘T1a’ area as you exited the water – we’d had the chance to drop a bag that would be staged here so you could put on shoes for the 800m run to T1 proper. I’d decided to skip this step, but I did look hard at the ‘wetsuit removal helpers’ before running on.

I’d got to T1 at 4:00 in the morning and set up my bike and kit as usual – it was a relief to run in and find the racers on either side of me hadn’t messed with anything. Despite the length of the run I was off and riding well inside of my slowest transition at Blenheim, so mentally chalked that up as win – ignoring the mini transition was definitely the right thing to do.

As I picked up speed along the coastal boulevard I looked up -there was no cloud cover at all and you could already feel the heat. This was going to get tougher….

Registration completed, I grabbed what I thought was a fizzy drink – it was, but had alcohol in it, which was probably the last thing I needed. I mentally shrugged my shoulders and made myself comfortable on the field as the mandatory safety briefing kicked off.

The organisers were doing a good job of starting to build a positive buzz and shared a lot of helpful advice (marking your spot in transition by noting the particular house over the road opposite was a good example). There was much more of an emphasis on literally reading out of the rulebook when it came to things like drafting, but everything was familiar.

I was glad when the briefing wound up as there was no shade and I was starting to feel the sun. As soon as I could I scrambled for the air conditioned refuge of my hotel room that was less than half a mile from the athlete village.

Legion of Honor Museum 10:20

I’m not built for hills and I should have hated the Alcatraz bike ride. I wasn’t hating it at all – I was loving it. I didn’t know the roads, I didn’t know the bike and to a certain extent that took some of the pressure off – I was also determined to enjoy every part of the triathlon.

The course was brutal, with a number of category four climbs and kilometers of 6-10% climbs; the steepness of the climbs on what was an out and back course also meant that the savage descents often had you on the brakes. I had just had a moment where the back of the bike tried to overtake the front as I furiously tried to scrub off speed for the corner in front of me.

Despite my determination to take it easy I had found myself racing over 60km/h before slamming back into the little chainring at the front as I hit the next climb. I was surrounded by some really expensive kit as well – I’d been playing nip and tuck with a disk equipped Cervelo p5x the whole ride, and certainly didn’t feel intimidated by what was out there.

In a nice touch, as I raced past the sports shop where I’d rented the bike, a big posse of staff were cheering people on; one yelled ‘Hey, that’s one of ours!’ and I got a bigger yell from the team.

Already, I had witnessed two spectacular crashes – As you ride through Golden Gate park there are a number of speedbumps, and I can only assume the rider who was cradling what looked unmistakeably like a broken collar bone hadn’t been concentrating as he hit the first, and further on a rider had panicked as he came around a tight bend onto an inexplicably wet road, sliding out but quickly remounting.

It was a struggle to maintain full concentration as I was continually distracted by the amazing scenery – dipping down to the coast one moment, rounding a bend with the golden gate bridge appearing in front of you or gliding past the remnants of the Presidio army base – there was always something else to look at.

One thing that had concerned me as I walked around the athlete village was the seriousness of most of the competitors. It felt like 80% were wearing ironman tattoos, and an even higher percentage wearing iron or half iron distance finishers shirts. I lost count of how many national kits I saw, and there was some amazing bike hardware being hung in transition.

I rang home a bit depressed, feeling out of place. Jo reminded me that this was no ordinary event, a bucket list triathlon with people spending years trying to get a place in the ballot. She helped me remember that I wasn’t trying to win the bloody thing, I just was there to take part, survive and enjoy. Happiness reset, I crashed out early, knowing there was an early start the next morning.

Approaching the Golden Gate Bridge 12:02

I wasn’t enjoying the run as much as I’d enjoyed the ride. I was hating the run. I’d studied the elevation map so I knew what to expect – but expecting and experiencing were not proving to be the same thing.

The first and last four k of the run were dead flat; but that four k that this left in the middle – Oh my god. We had covered everything – tarmac, gravel, dirt and roots, loose sand (which was the worst), wet sand, tunnels you had to duck for, steps and metal bridges. And that was before you even got to the infamous sand ladder – a ferocious log staircase hacked out of the sand that in places feels twice as steep as a domestic staircase.

Lets talk about that run in a little more detail – the first three and half k are flat and straight, running along the Marina Drive, past the hollering spectators and towards the golden gate bridge. Thanks to the bike ride, I knew that the run rises to the level of the bridge, but as I got closer and closer I was becoming uncomfortably aware that we were still at sea level.

Eventually I could see the point where the athletes turned away from the coast and started climbing – first on steep tarmac road and then winding up steps through a wooded pedestrian area. Even when I reached the top of the steps the path keeps going up and up and up. Eventually I found myself looking right, down on the bridge and in front of me, thankfully, the path started to descend.

Almost as soon as I crested the hill I was aware of runners coming up the other way, exhausted, and I realised this was what I had to look forward to. The run spent some time heading down the road that we’d just slogged up on the bikes, then eventually turned right and headed onto the beach – we’d spent all that hard won altitude and after slogging up and down the beach, with its treacherous shifting sand, we had to fight our way up the sand ladder.

With over 400 steps this is the sort of obstacle you’d have a couple of rests on in a normal day; I wasn’t able to run this but forced myself to keep stepping and actually forged my way past a couple of other racers on the way up. At the top of the sand ladder, the path, now a gravel trail, turned right and kept on going back up towards the bridge, still not visible behind the hill we were climbing. From a morale point of view this was crushing.

There were water stations every mile, with water and electrolytes, but it just felt like I couldn’t get enough down me to bring down the temperature; and the constantly changing terrain made it impossible to find a rhythm. It also made it near impossible not to walk – and that’s my kryptonite – once I’ve walked once, it’s so much easier to walk again.

Eventually, we made it to the top of the climb. I knew it was only down hill and flat from here, with abut 5k remaining… but the path down was just as steep and challenging as the way up and I could see many runners were already broken by the course.

There were a couple of points on the run where you could see the riders still out on the bike course and I was glad to see there were still a steady stream of cyclists even though I was now well over an hour into my run. The sun had been beating down and I was really feeling the heat and exertion , but I certainly wasn’t going to be last.

As I finished the descent back onto the coastal path I knew all I had to do was find the energy to run the final flat 3k back along the path we’d already covered on the way out. I could feel the beginnings of heatstroke and found it a huge challenge to drag myself back into a run for the finish.

I finally managed a medium fast jog down the boulevard and into the finishing straight, to claim a suitably high quality medal. It didn’t matter how hard it had been, I was an escapee.

The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon really lived up to it’s billing as a once in a lifetime experience. Getting here from the UK has been expensive and I think it was probably a tougher event than the half iron I did last year – but it was an incredible thing to do and I’d suggest, if you are ever tempted to give it a go that you do so without hesitation.

There are so many moments that I’m never going to forget. It wouldn’t surprise me if I idly find myself entering the ballot again one day.