Race report: Escape from the Rock duathlon

Posted by Rachel

Over the past couple of weeks, I have had quite a bit of anxiety about this event (specifically, the swim). I've been swimming for a really long time and everyone told me that the swim would be fine. It wasn't the distance I was worried about, but all of the unknowns in the Bay- the current, the lack of buoys/sighting, and the possible sea life.

Fast forward to today, and I don't know what I was worried about- I had a BLAST! The morning started at 4:10 am when I woke up and ate a giant breakfast. I was careful to not hydrate because I knew that we had a long time between our last opportunity to pee and the start of the event. We lucked out with parking, signed in, and set up our transition area.

The cap we got for the race- awesome!

About an hour after we arrived, we began the "march" over to Pier 39 to get on the boat. When I got on the boat, I couldn't believe that there was a long line for the men's room and NO line for the women's room, so I peed once more for the hell of it. We went to the top deck to enjoy the view during the boat ride, but it got a little chilly so about halfway to the island we went inside. When we got to Alcatraz we circled the island but had about 20 minutes to hang out before we had to jump off (yep, you heard that right). I started getting a little uncomfortable at this point because I get seasick REALLY easily, and we were sitting on an unmoving boat with a bunch of police jetskis going by causing the boat to rock. Before I knew it though, they announced it was time to get in water.

The way this works is that you go to the door and just jump off the boat (it's ~ 6 feet). The event was male dominated (if you didn't infer that from the bathroom line scenario) and whenever the guys would hesitate the volunteers would pretty much just push them off. When I got up, the volunteer was really nice and he said "you're going to be fine" (how nervous did I look at this point? I don't know). I jumped off and the water was actually quite warm for the Bay (62 deg). Once I jumped off the boat, I relaxed a lot. It was SO COOL being out there with all those people next to Alcatraz, and I think at one point I told a random stranger "this is the craziest thing I have ever done." Having Travers, Matt, and Mark there with me was helpful as well. Before I knew it, the horn went off and we were off. It was a "mass start" of about 500 people but I was pretty passive on this one and only got hit a couple of times. Before long, there were only a few people around.

They did have one lead boat that had a couple of orange buoys on it that we were supposed to use to sight. I knew that we were supposed to aim to the left side of the breakwater in order to get in with the current, but I couldn't see anything except that damn boat so I just kept following it. I felt like I was much farther to the left than many swimmers, but I kept reminding myself 'better left than right'. At some point, the water got a little bit choppy but it wasn't too bad. I just stayed relaxed and kept going, although I did swallow a disturbing amount of Bay.

As we approached the breakwater, I felt like I was way too far to the left. I don't know what the hell happened, but all of a sudden I was inside the breakwater (no idea how I got there) with about a quarter mile left.

Last time I swam in the Bay, my cap line chafed REALLY badly. So of course, this time I Body Glided the crap out of it. Unfortunately, in this last quarter mile my cap kept slipping off indicating that I may have gone overboard on the glide. I had to stop about 3 times to pull my caps back on (I had doubled up), but it wasn't that big of a deal. Also toward the end of the swim both calves started to feel like they were cramping up, but I stopped kicking and it was a complete non-issue on the run. Then, the swim was over! According to my Garmin, I swam 1.56 miles (the course was supposed to be 1.5, so not bad! in 39:09 or 2.4 mi/hr).

I may have gone a little overboard on staying left, but ending up in the right place was a huge win so I can't complain

This race was transition neutral, which was FANTASTIC since I am a notoriously slow transitioner. I made sure to rinse off all possible chafing areas, fix my hair, drink some water and eat a Gu, and casually make my way to the run chute.

For the first 3-4 miles of the run, my feet were completely numb. I don't think it was affecting my pace, but my form felt kind of random. The run was pretty uneventful for the most part. There was a big hill over Fort Mason within the first mile which damn near killed me, but the rest was flat and I settled in. I was trying to run comfortably and enjoy my second favorite sport. I really like out-and-backs when I'm doing an event with people I know because I get to see them all at some point. Also, the turn-around was super cool.

We had to touch Hopper's Hands at Fort Point/the Golden Gate to turn around. I should mention this photo came from artandarchitecture-sf.com because I am kind of new at blogging and don't know what sort of copyright laws exist with regards to use of random internet pictures on personal blogs. 

The run was great and it was a little bit short of 7 miles (6.76 miles on my watch, 6.80 on Matt's; Garmin pace 7:48). I felt really strong and was very happy at the end. If anything, I left a bit too much on the course (both swim and run) because there's so way I should've felt that great after an hour and a half race. I even ran over to the porta-potties to "cool down" and my legs felt quite fresh. But, I'd much rather under-perform and have as much fun as I did than die and hate the race :) I would most definitely do this event again!

I love the gear for this race!

Of course, afterward we had the obligatory brunch:

Check out Matt's sandwich behind my omelet

My plan for the rest of the day: do nothing.

Thanks to Katie for driving us this morning AND rowing a volunteer kayak to make sure we stayed on course/didn't drown!