Escape From Alcatraz: Race Recap

For me, this race has always been a bucket list race. I raced it last year, and even though the conditions were brutal, I absolutely loved it. I was excited for a chance to go back.

I flew into San Francisco Friday night. Being my first race of the year, I generously overpacked, but made it through the flight and hotel check in with no issue. Of course, my first stop after checking in was the grocery store before checking my bike over and finding some Thai food for dinner.

The day leading into the race went smoothly, rode a bit of the course in the morning, walked to the pre-race meeting, and did a short media Q&A before heading back to the hotel. I was happily surprised to find out a few of former training mates who live in Pocatello were at the race as well. We caught up over an early Italian food dinner. I tend to be a stress-ball race morning, so I like to lay all my stuff out the night before, so I can grab and go in the morning.

Most of my career, I’ve raced short course races, which usually start at a leisurely hour. Sometimes it was 10am, sometimes it was 2pm, it was lovely. The 4am alarm really makes me think I miss short course racing. But I poured a cup of cold brew coffee and tried to get down some peanut butter toast. I put on my race tattoos and headed for T1. Pro Tip: put tattoos on at the last minute and take them off immediately after finishing. They come off much easier when they haven’t been on long.

The race start is unique in the sense that it’s difficult to do a warm-up close to the start of the race. You need to be on the shuttle to the marina by 5:45am, and on the boat by 6:15am for a 7:15 am race start. I accepted that a normal warm up won’t be possible and figure I’ll just do some dynamic stretching and let the caffeine and adrenaline do the rest of the work.

The boat takes you up close to Alcatraz. This year the weather was clear and there’s a clear view building on the island. Before I knew it there wasn’t much time before race start. They called us down to the starting gate. I tried to line up close to Vittoria Lopes, who, if you don’t know, is one of the fastest swimmers in triathlon. Don’t get me wrong, I know how to swim, I swam collegiately for a division one program, but she might as well be faster than the sharks in the water.

The gun goes off and chaos ensues as we dive off the boat. I landed on top of someone (sorry about it) and tried to get on the feet of Vittoria and the pack of pro men that started to the right. I didn’t even notice the cold as the only goal now is to find the group and push hard to stay in the draft. This worked… for a moment. But I painfully watched the gap between myself, the group, and the lead boat grow larger. Luckily, I wasn’t totally alone. Another male pro had been dropped from the group as well. We swam side by side for a moment, before I dropped back and hopped on his feet. Admittedly my swim orienteering could use some work as I haven’t done any open water swimming yet this year. So, I hoped that he’s got a clear view of the lead boat and is setting us in the right direction.

Now, when I say this swim was long, I mean this swim was long. We started significantly farther away from shore this year compared to last year. Despite a faster current, we were in the water for almost 35 minutes. I saw some Strava reports of 3km+ swim distances. I started to get nervous that I was on a bad line since I’d been in the water so long. But finally, I spotted the Yacht Club signaling that we were almost at the finish.

I got up the beach, happy to be out of the water, and headed for T1. It’s a long run to transition and I knew Vittoria was probably way up the road, and some strong bike/runners not far back in the water. I accidentally dropped my thermal cap as I’m running, but didn’t realize it’s out of my hands. When I realized I didn’t have it, I debated just leaving it, but I saw it 30m behind me and I didn’t want a penalty, and I didn’t want to buy a new one, so I ran back.

I got to T1, which went smoothly. I mounted my bike and as I’m pedaling away I saw some of the other pro women running into transition. I tried to settle into a solid pace on the flat section. This course is full of punchy hills and technical corners, so my goal was to push the uphills, and have confidence and lay off the brakes on the downhill sections.

I spent the majority of the bike ride alone. Normally, I like riding with others to help push the pace, but the positive is that I got to use the whole road in the cornering sections and didn’t have congestion. I’d forgotten pre-race that that course doesn’t allow for gels. They don’t want athletes littering intentionally or unintentionally on the several speed bump sections along the road. So, I sipped on double strength Gatorade to take in some fluids and calories when the course allowed.

Onto T2, I felt pretty good. I decided to put socks on as I didn’t want the sand tearing up my feet. I opted for non-carbon plated shoes this year. With the variety of running surfaces, plus soft sand, I wanted a shoe with a bit less stack height. I felt great coming off the bike, a rare and welcomed occurrence. I focused on keeping relaxed and keeping my cadence high. Within the first couple kilometers, someone gave me some splits that Vittoria was in a league of her own up the road, but Danielle Lewis was 2.5 minutes behind. I don’t know about you, but I don’t know of anyone who would feel comfortable with Danielle running them down. Her track record shows she’s a phenomenal athlete.

I quite enjoy this run course because you get a bit of everything, some flat road, some twisty trail, some sand. It keeps your mind engaged in the moment. I saw Danielle after the turnaround and knew I couldn’t lay off the gas. I got to the sand ladder, a short section which is basically a hill climb on soft, deep sand with a few misplaced logs as “stairs”. It felt especially brutal this year, because once you get to the top, you must keep running uphill on trail. My heart rate spiked but I knew once I reached the top of the trail, it’s only 3 miles of downhill or flat ground to the finish.

The trail was congested with athletes who were on their way out to the turnaround section. I tried to be cautious while also trying to run at full speed down the path. I appreciated the cheers from fellow athletes as I made my way towards the finish. Finally making it to the line, I ended up in 2nd place on the day.

This is one of my favorite races, because it’s unlike any other event out there. Afterwards, you get to enjoy the city of San Francisco. It was nice to get a good result here. What’s next? Still to be determined, probably lots of nutrition articles in the meantime, but I’m hoping to keep the good momentum rolling!

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