Escape from Alcatraz

Coming to a TV near you soon.... next Sunday, June 4, I will be competing in the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon. The EFA triathlon is a major event with approximately 1800 athletes, many of them professionals, throwing themselves off a boat and into the bay to swim from Alcatraz to Marina Green. After that we get to cycle to Golden Gate Park and back, and finish off with a run to Baker Beach. Part of the run involves running along the beach and up the infamous sand ladder. However, the swim is the most daunting part for me as it will be the longest distance, 1.5 miles, that I have done in a competition. Also, rather than easing my way into the cold water, I will be jumping straight in from the boat along with hundreds of others. The Bay is currently around 54 deg which is rather refreshing. The big unknown with the swim is the current which can be a big help or a big pain and will make or break the day! I am trying to find out which station it will be showing on so stay tuned for more information. Maybe I will be on the telly!

Fundraising Update

The good news is that I have raised $6500 to date, and that our team total is now over $400,000.

The not so good news is that I still have to raise at least $1000 more, and have run out of steam. So if any one has any exciting ideas or would like to make a donation (there is a link at the top right hand of the page), please let me know! The money will be going to help fund the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. One of their major functions is to provide funding for research into finding new treatments for leukemias and lymphomas. If you want to find out more about their activities check out this link:

http://www.leukemia-lymphoma.org/hm_lls

Thanks! John

UVAS Triathlon

On Sunday I participated in my second proper triathlon of the year at the UVAS 14th annual south bay triathlon. This was held by a reservoir near Morgan Hill which necessitated me getting up at 4 AM to travel down to the event. It was made harder as we had had a fun night out bowling with Chuck and Karen at Presidio Bowling - check it out - it has a kind of dated eighties feel to it and they serve beer and deep fried foods - perfect for a nice healthy night out.
There were about 600 people taking part in the triathlon with 87 in my age group (40-44). The swim was a little more enjoyable than before with the water temperature being higher than the air temperature. I swam the 0.75 miles in 26 mins, a slightly faster pace than my previous open water race at Wildflower (0.9 miles in 32 mins) but very slow compared to the winner who did it in 14 minutes! The transition to the bike was quick and efficient and I was out on the 15 mile course in about 5 minutes (no splits were provided). As it was a short ride, I pushed hard along most of the course keeping my speed up over 20 mph for most of the time. I had some fun passing and being over taken by 3 other guys at numerous times over the course - I think that they must have thought we were racing or something. The ride was slowed a little by the weather as it rained for most of the morning - this was weird as it rarely rains in May and we were in the South Bay area. I completed the ride in 52 minutes according to the race results with an average speed of 18.2 mph. In contrast my bike computer indicated that I did it in 45 minutes at an average speed of over 20 mph - I cannot explain the difference - I know that I rode faster than 18.2 mph as I did a ride at that speed the day before at an easier pace. Not much I can do about it. I took the 5 mile run easier as I am still recovering from my calf injury - this felt a little tight for most of the run and was quite uncomfortable afterwards. My run time was 38 minutes - 7:40 minute miles.
Upon reflection, I am not sure if I would do this event again. It was a hike to get there from SF and not worth splashing out for a hotel for. Although the event was run reasonably well, it didn't have much of an atmosphere but that could have been the result of the rain. One interesting aspect was that they gave you a beer with your post-tri food. A suprising number of people indulged considering that we ate at about 10:30 AM.

Calf Update

Many of you will have heard me moaning on about my calf over the last few weeks. So I am sure that you will be nearly as pleased as I am to hear that I am back running again. I had run for the first time in several weeks at Wildflower last week which went reasonably well. After that my coach suggested that I rested it for another week and substitute my runs with pool running. If you have ever tried pool running you will know how incredibly boring it is. There is not a lot you can do while you creep from poolside-to-poolside other than day dream.
The plan for last Sundays workout included a one hour swim in Aquatic Park followed by a 2.5 hour run. I knew that I couldn't just jump back into things full on so I planned to run for an hour and see how things felt, and maybe run for another 30 minutes or so after that. As it turned out, I headed out with John, Kim, George and Sussi and managed to hold a reasonable pace, although we let George go at the first hill. The course included running up from Fort Point and down to Baker Beach where we had to endure the nudist (no they were not attractive), and the sand stairs. The latter is a very steep sand bank with some logs pretending to be steps. The only way up is to walk it. This was an interesting experience as it is part of the Escape for Alcatraz course which I will be doing in early June. Jenny, who I ran the second half of the course with, told me that her tri club practices on these by running up them with a backpack full of sand. Apparently it makes the race seem relatively easy. After completing 1.5 hours of running with the group I still felt good, so I decided to push it a little further to complete about 13 miles in 2 hours - all without any discomfort in my calf.
One of the key parts of my recovery has been the deep tissue massage therapy that I have been getting from Jenny at PSOAS. Without this I think that I would still be hobbling around. I would strongly recommend her if you need any body work.

Wildflower

Over the last couple of weeks I have been recovering from a minor calf strain that I sustained while I was out on an easy short run. The injury was a flare up of an old skiing injury that I acquired about 4 years ago. It had been fine for the last year but the stress of constant training took its toll. Also, it sounds like I had not been keeping up with my nutrition which contributed to the problem. So for the last 2 weeks I have not run while my leg recovered. To help things along I have also had several deep tissue massage sessions at PSOAS, and have been icing and stretching.
So with this behind me I headed down to the annual Wildflower event with Graeme to participate in an olympic distance triathlon (1.5 km swim, 40 km bike and 10 km run). Wildflower is a huge triathlon festival held in the middle of nowhere (40 miles SW of King City) at Lake San Antonio. Being about 1/2 way between SF and LA it attracts thousands of athletes from all over the state as well as many from all over the US and beyond. In addition to the olympic distance there is also a 1/2 ironman and a mountain bike event. In all, over 6000 athletes compete in events over the weekend.
Originally, I had also entered the 1/2 ironman in a relay team so that I could get some additional swim experience but we lost our runner to knee surgery last week, and I ended up being the only member of the team at the event. Fortunately, I had also entered the olympic distance as a secondary event just to get some more race experience. Graeme had also entered the olympic event as part of a TNT team.
Since our last trip to Lake San Antonio a few weeks ago, things had warmed up. Instead of rain and fog, we were exposed to temperatures in the 90s which is a bit of a shock to the system after the long wet winter that we have had in SF this year - not that we ever get temperatures in the 90s. Still, the area was still green and lush, and there were plenty of wildflowers in bloom which made for a pleasant environment.
As there were over 2500 people competing in the olympic event, the start was staggered. Every 5 minutes a wave of athletes would entered the water for the 1.5 km swim, each wave having a different coloured swim cap - mine was yellow! My group, male 40-44, started in two waves at 9:45 and 9:50 with me entering the water in the second wave with about 100 other guys. Swim starts can be rather intimidating with everyone trying to find their pace among the crowd, and it is not unusual to get beaten about a bit. I purposely headed to the far right side of the pack to minimize this but I still ended up colliding with some of the slower swimmers in my path. The swim course was a rectangle marked by bouys. The other challenge I have with swimming is keeping a straight line but I found that by swimming on the right side of the group, I stayed closer to the line and did not drift to the left due to the mass of swimmers in my way. The swim went reasonably smoothly. A couple of times we were caught up with by the fast swimmers from one of the groups behind. The first I usually knew about this was when one of them hit my feet - this is annoying as it breaks your rhythm and my natural inclination is to look back to see what is going on. Still, I survived and managed to complete the swim in 32 minutes.
From the swim I ran into the transition area to pull off my wetsuit and put on my cycling gear. Once we had mounted our bike, we were greated by a steep mile long hill that took us up to the main part of the park. The bike course was a series of hills with little flat ground. I decided that I would do most of my work on the bike to compensate for an anticipated slow run. The upside of being a slower swimmer is that you get to overtake many more people on the bike. All of the competitors have their age written on their calfs so you can see who you are overtaking. I enjoy seeing the ages go down as the ride progresses. By the end, I had started to catch up with some of the 20 somethings - most satisfying. I completed the ride in 1:21 with an average speed of 18.3 mph which was reasonable considering the difficulty of the course.
On to the run which I was feeling a little anxious about. My calf felt good but I had not run for 2 weeks so I was determined to take it easy. Also by now it had got rather hot which made things very uncomfortable. So I headed off along the lake shore at a steady easy running pace hoping that nothing would go astray. As the run progressed I settled into my pace and tried to focus on keeping my strides short and my cadence up. The middle of the run was basically a long steady hill on tarmac which made the heat more intense. Fortunately, at the water stops they were spraying us with water which gave some brief relief from the oppressive heat.
The last section of the run was a mile long downhill section. Potentially, this was the most dangerous part of the whole event for me so I cut my stride length and focussed on keeping my speed consistent. It worked and I got to the bottom without any drama, and entered the finishing cute to hear my name over the PA. After crossing the finishing line I had a medal thrust upon me, a wet towel slapped over my head, and my timing chip removed all in a matter of seconds. Then I was spat out into the post-run area with a drink in hand where I waited for Graeme to finish. I look at my watch and registered that I had finished in 2:50 - I had set myself a goal of sub-3 hours so I was pleased with this. After a quick calculation, I realised that I had done the run in 8 minute miles rather than the 9 - 9.5 minute miles that I had planned - my leg felt good.
Graeme finished about 30 minutes later as his wave had started after mine. He put in an impressive 3:08. Hopefully, this will encourage him to do another event later this year.