Escape From Alcatraz Triathlon, June 4th, 2006

It is 4am as I sit down to write this race report on the Escape From Alcatraz event. I went to bed at 9pm absolutely shattered but woke at 2.30am and couldn't get back to sleep and I have been awake ever since. Jet Lag - it is a wonderful thing.

I have gone from chocolate to boiled lollies in the space of a week. After the creditable performance in Bintan, where I finished not too far from the head of proceedings over a tough Olympic distance event, I have finished close to 14 minutes behind Matt Reed yesterday in the "Escape" event. Although tougher overall than the Bintan race, I didn't expect to be smashed so comprehensively in this one. I thought that if I scraped into the top ten, it would be a fantastic performance for where my fitness is at the moment, but I was still some 8 minutes off that pace. I think that the Jet Lag, together with a bout of sinusitis that made breathing difficult for me since the Bintan race, conspired to rob me of my best race day performance. I am going to look up the Guiness Book of Records to see if there is a mucus production category because over the last few days I think my mucus production rate would give the existing record a shake - in terms of both quantity and texture. I guess the bottom line is leaving Oz without any structured, consistent training under the belt in the 12 weeks prior to the race was the greatest factor in the result - it was a miracle that I finished fourth the week before!

No more racing for the near future, time to set up camp in Boulder and get some training done. I managed a 2 hour run while here in San Francisco without inflaming my nerve injury too much, so I think I am pretty much back on track.

I arrived here on Tuesday evening after spending a night with friends in Hong Kong. My first mission was to reccy the race course, so on the Wednesday morning I incorporated the run course into a 2 hour run. I wouldn't normally run for two hours this close to a short course race (or any race for that matter) but the original plan was to race Eagleman 70.3 on June 11th, and the longest run I had done in the last 3 months was 1 hr 20 mins. The Alcatraz run itself is a classic,12+k out and back with a bit of everything - flat gravel road, steps, single track trail, beach sand, pavement and the infamous sand ladder that takes you from the beach up to the road again for the 5k journey back to the finish.

In the afternoon, I rode the cycle course. It is an interesting "out and back" with a loop at the far end through Golden Gate Park. It is only about 30k, but it is tough. It incorporates four major small ring climbs, plus plenty of tight bends and a couple of downhill 90 degree turns to challenge the technical skills. The road surface is pretty horrible, but that adds to the charm of the event.

On the Thursday I planned to ride and swim, but my body had other ideas. I woke early, had breakfast and then had to go back to bed at 7am, I was absolutely shattered. I woke at 4.30pm and decided to give training a miss for the day.

Friday, after a reasonable sleeping effort, I rode the bike course again in the morning and had a pool swim in the afternoon.

Saturday was time to test the waters of San Francisco bay. The water has a reputation for being cold and..... it is. I lasted all of five minutes before exiting for warmer climes. I couldn't put my head into the water without getting a frost induced headache and I was wearing a wetsuit and cap. To say I was concerned at that stage was an understatement. My homestay host had a neoprene hood that I borrowed for race day, but, as it turned out, my fears were unfounded. I didn't even experience the "lungs full of air" response as I dived off the boat into the water at the start of the race.

The race starts in the waters adjacent to "the Rock". Competitors jump from a moored passenger ferry as their wave is signalled to start. I found it to be a unique and charming experience. Unique as I have never had to walk through urine to get to the start line of a race before. A good proportion of the 1000 athletes go potty in the wetsuit prior to the start - dirty scoundrels! Ok ok, I'll admit it, I did too - but at least I drained it over the side of the boat!

The swim route is a diagonal line from start point to finish on the southern bank of the bay. The current is always assisting but it varies from year to year. Two years ago the fastest swim time was 21 mins, this year it was high 28 mins - I would have preferred two years ago. There was a brisk westerly blowing creating a sizable chop which we had to swim into. Luckily there was a guide boat, as, otherwise, I am sure the whole field would have ended up in the pacific. There are supposedly sea lions and great white sharks in the bay too, but I didn't see any, ha ha. If I did, it would have been more than urine dribbling down the leg of my wetsuit.

I got off to a reasonable start and it took a while for the guide boat to sail off into the distance. Although only the back markers, I was always in touch with some of my wave. The swim seemed to drag on forever - for good reason too - it took me 30.48, but, to my surprise, I wasn't as far behind the leaders as I first thought. There is about a 1200 metre run to the transition area and there is the option to place shoes at the swim exit. After consulting with some fellow pro's I decided against wearing shoes and ran to the transition in barefeet. It is difficult to say which is faster but I will wear shoes if I do the race again, the pavement was pretty harsh on my tootsies.

As I was entering transition from the swim exit, the lead guys were getting on their bikes. Not such a bad situation until you realise that you have to run allllll the way down to the end of the transition area before returning to transition from swim to cycle. What seemed like 4 mins at the time was more like 2 mins, but 2 mins is a long way!

I raced with my Powercranks for the first time in this race. I knew I wasn't riding at my best and being out cycled by the leaders by over 2 mins came as no surprise. It will be interesting to race on the PC's when I am race fit. In the lead up to the Perth race, when I was able to get some quality training done, I noticed that I was able to produce more power with the PC's over shorter intervals than with normal cranks. Obviously a sustained time trial is totally different, but I can't see why, with training, I can't achieve a similar result.

I also met the Powercranks marketing guru's while here in San Francisco. They have their offices in a place called Walnut Creek, not too far down the road from here. They bought me lunch, which was nice, and had some pretty interesting stories to tell about PC's and who has used them. I plan to do more with them in the future.

So, after killing myself on the bike and making no impression on the leaders, I had hoped for a credible run to finish things off on a positive note. My run in Bintan gave me some hope that I may be able to put together a decent run but the lack of k's in the legs dictated the run proceedings. When I first started the run, my breathing was very restricted due to the sinusitis and mucus formation. As a result I developed a stitch and had to walk. It was only for 30 seconds or so and when I recommenced motion, the stitch was under control and my breathing had become more fluent. I attempted to up the anti to at least get a decent workout, but that didn't last too long. At the top of the first climb, 4 kilometres into the run, which is a set of stairs followed by single track trail, my breathing was under immense pressure and I was barely moving. It was at this juncture that I decided to turn it into an aerobic training run. No point flogging a dead horse. This meant I did the beach run and sand ladder while in training mode and it gives me a reason to return and do them properly.

I can't shed too much light on what was happening at the front of the race because I didn't see any of it, but there was some controversy at the head of affairs. Craig Alexander refused to obey a race officials request to perform a stop/go penalty and was disqualified. Results are on the Tri California website - www.tricalifornia.com.

After hobnobbing with Simon Lessing, Simon Thompson and Dave Scott after the race, it was time to head back to my homestay accommodation to sulk. Nah, just kidding. I was fully expecting a result like this so was pretty well mentally prepared for it. What I wasn't mentally prepared for was packing my bike up again - it is such a pain in the butt.

Looking forward to getting to Boulder to set up camp and get some work done. However, it seems that jetlag is going to slow me down a bit initially as I can't remember ever having such interupted sleep patterns in all my travels over the past four years. I will survive of course, it will just be a matter of time. The same can be said about the sinusitis, it is still pretty bad but I will get on top of it when I get to Boulder.