Yesterday my wife Julie finished her first Escape from Alcatraz triathlon in San Francisco. Considered by many to be the most challenging triathlon in the world, the event features a 1.5-mile swim in the 55 degree water of the San Francisco Bay, followed by an 18-mile bike through the hilly streets of San Francisco, and ending with an 8-mile run to Baker Beach and back that features a 300-step climb up the infamous sand ladder.
I know that training for an endurance running event is difficult, but having to establish the required fitness to complete not only the run, but also the swim and the bike makes triathlon training that much more challenging. To make matters even more difficult, flat-as-pancake Chicago doesn’t provide the hills encountered in the Alcatraz course, and winter makes open-water swimming and outdoor cycling almost impossible. Julie logged dozens of hours in the pool, on the bike compu-trainer, and running the stairs in the local forest preserve to get ready for the Alcatraz challenge.
I am unbelievably proud of her for finishing the race, but even more-so for putting in all the time to training over the past six months.
It was a gorgeous day in San Francisco, and it was a thrill watching the race. I started at the swim finish, watching the athletes come ashore after the cold swim from Alcatraz. The biggest obstacle for the swim wasn’t the cold water, but the current. At the pre-race course overview, swimmers were cautioned to swim to shore (south) first and let the current take them west to the beach. Unfortunately some didn’t heed this advice and as they swam straight towards the swim finish, they were carried out towards the Golden Gate bridge. Thankfully, the race had a number of kayaks, jet skis, and boats in the water to prevent anyone from drifting out to sea, but it was estimated that several participants swam up to an extra half mile by misjudging the current. I can’t imagine how frustrating that must have been for those swimmers knowing they still had the bike and run ahead of them.
After the swim I headed to the main transition area where I could see the athletes head out and back on their bikes and again on their run. It’s always fun to be at the finish of an endurance race watching the exhausted elation as athletes cross the finish line.
Shortly before Julie finished, a runner came across on two prosthetic legs. When Julie and I were out in San Fran in February we walked the beach part of the run course and the sand ladder that is so daunting. As you can imagine, running on beach sand is tough and climbing the sand stairs is even more difficult. I cannot fathom what it must take to run through the sand and climb the 300-step sand ladder on prosthetics. Watching her cross the finish line was an amazing, inspiring sight.
After all my races this spring, it was fun to be a spectator for a change and awesome to cheer on Julie for her big race. A day later she’s still on cloud nine, and I couldn’t be happier for her. And if I had to guess, I’d say there’s a good chance we’ll be back again next year.