Eventhough this race was one of my life goals I didn't take it too seriously. I didn't train too hard for the race, plus I've been eating like crap. Going into the race I told myself I was going out there to have fun. I didn't care how I did as long as: 1) I finished the race, and 2) I finished close to 3.5 hours.
I didn't stress too much about packing for the race and the night's stay in the City. When I did my Ironman Race I started packing four days in advance, checked and rechecked everything I packed. This time I just threw things into my transition bag and called it a night.
I spent the night at my friend's place in the City. He and his girlfriend live in a nice little studio in Nob Hill. It was me, my friend Cecilia, and the two who live in the Studio (Alex and Natalie). My bike and gear made for a tight squeeze.
Alex is a super good artist. He's making some extra cash painting shoes. I know it sounds weird, but people are willing to pay upto $300 for a pair of shoes. Here's a pair he's currently working on:
Cecilia and Natalie decided to go out last night. They didn't come back to the studio until 1am. Of course they came home drunk and loud which woke me up. They stayed up for a while talking and laughing. They finally went to sleep about 1:30am. As soon as they passed out Alex started to snore, and it was SUPER loud. I couldn't fall back asleep. He finally stopped snoring around 2:30am; that's when I finally passed out.
I woke up at 5am. I had my hammer shake and 1/2 bagel with Nutella. I grabbed all my stuff and headed Down
n to the race site.Race day morning started off looking beautiful. The sun was shining and it wasn't too cold. I went to the transition area (TA) and found my spot on the bike rack. The space allowed for individuals to set up their TA's were super small. It made organization a requirement.
I threw all my gear down on my TA towel: running shoes, race belt, helmet, and I racked my bike with my bike shoes attached to the pedals.
After setting up my spot in the TA I jumped on the bus over to Pier 3 where we would load onto the ferry to Alcatraz. The ferry was full of nervous energy. Some people looked as if they were on the boat ride to storm Normandy beach.
I wasn't worried about the swim. The only thing I was nervous about was the water temperature. It was reported to be 55 degrees, and that's freaking cold.
The ferry pulled up next to Alcatraz. That's when we were told to jump overboard. I
wanted to get it over with, so I jumped within the first couple minutes of the swim start.I hit the water and started swimming immediately. The water wasn't too cold, but that didn't stop people from freaking out. Within the first 50 yards of the swim I could hear people yelling to be pulled from the water.
About 10 minutes into my swim my goggles started to leak. It made it difficult to spot landmarks to know where I was swimming to. I stopped about four different times to drain my goggles and figure out where I was supposed to go. I also had to stop a couple of times because I swallowed a lot of water. There were some rolling swells, but other than that the water was relatively calm.
The swim went by quickly. Once I reached shore I had to run 1/2 mile to the TA. I decided to run barefoot. I thought "It's only 1/2 mile. Plus it will be on grass". Unfortunately it was on cement, and it was rough cement. Towards the end of the short run I could feel the bottoms of my feet start to feel a little raw.
I quickly found my bike, threw on my helmet and took off on the bike course. By now the fog had rolled in and it was overcast. The cooler weather turned out to be a blessing; it prevented my from overheating.
I didn't push too hard on the bike, but I didn't take it easy. I kept my power output around 270 watts. I was surprised at how many people struggled on the small hills around the Legion of Honor. I pushed a little harder on the uphills to pass people.
One thing I wasn't used to in this race was ability to draft off of people. I'm used to keeping a 4 meter gap in between bikes. The ability to draft off of others made passing a lot easier. What didn't make passing easy was the roads.
The roads on the bike course were so jacked up. I wish I was riding a bike with suspension. A couple of times I felt as if I were going to be bounced off of my bike. I'm just glad I decided to ride my older bike without my race wheels.
There was a lot of people out there that had their super expensive bikes with super expensive race wheels. They must have been freaking out on some of the rough roads. I've heard stories of carbon race wheels breaking on this race course because of the rough roads.
The fun thing about the course having some steep hills was going down them. It seemed like a lot of people had a hard time descending. Not me, I just peddled harder. My max speed on a downhill was 40mph.
The return course back was uneventful. As I followed the course back the towards the TA, I could see the majority of people were just starting the bike leg of the race. Heading the opposite way I could a steady flow of people. It looked like a mid day's flow of traffic on a freeway. People were trying to pass each other any way they could. I'm sure there were a few crashes on the course.
As I approached the final straight away of the bike course I peddled harder. I was going 26mph on the flat road towards the TA. Once I neared the TA I unstrapped my bike shoes, took my feet out and put them on top of the shoes. This allowed for a quick dismount at the TA.
I ran into the TA, racked my bike, put on my running shoes, and took off onto the run course. I forgot t
o put my heart rate monitor on so I had no idea how hard I was pushing myself. I pushed myself at about a 7 on my RPE scale. I loved the run course. I used to run that area all the time when I lived in San Francisco, I lived .5mi from the run course.I hit the 4mi mark and stepped up my pace. We were running on the beach so it made it a little more difficult. At the end of the beach there was a sand ladder. A lot of people struggle on it, I know I did. However, I ranked 17th overall on the "Sand Ladder Challenge".
I maintained my pace up until mile six, that's when I turned it up again. The last two miles I was pushing hard. I finished in 2:41:24.
After the race I still had a lot of energy, which leads me to believe I could have pushed harder earlier on in the race. That is something I need to learn to do. Overall I achieved my goal of going out there and having fun. Maybe next time I can take the race more seriously and place in my age groups.
