In the Name of Neptune’s Nethers: Race Report from Escape From Alcatraz

Group mug shot.

My friend, Chris Van Luen of the Oakland Triathlon Club, demanded an answer from me after the Escape From Alcatraz Triathlon. “Sarah Cypher and Erin Lopez: How in the name of Zeus’s butthole do you keep crossing the finish line together!?” After much consideration, a few good nights of sleep, and thorough discussion with my wife, I am compelled to inform Chris that divine nether-regions may be indistinguishable at close range, but the problem orifice on Sunday definitely belonged to Neptune, god of the seas: Erin would have beaten me by several minutes had it not been for the choppy waves separating Alcatraz Island from the swim exit on shore.

By way of context, before the race I told Erin–my training partner, wife, and best friend–that we would probably be separated on the swim. That we would not see each other until later in the race, probably during the run. Unstated was the assumption that I would be the slower swimmer; Erin generally goes faster in races than I do. And the Escape From Alcatraz Triathlon is a tough storm to predict, precisely because its swim is a 1.5 haul across the Bay, with initial cross-currents, winds, and lack of on-course sighting buoys. You can get lucky and use the current to your advantage, or you can be carried off course and miss the exit.

And there was the chaos, too: The last time I saw her before the race started, a volunteer was shoving an athlete over the side of the San Francisco Belle. The athlete disappeared over the bow, and one second later, Erin jumped after her–joining 1,999 other athletes in the 58-degree waters. I was two athletes behind her. Two seconds later, by the time I stepped into the shrill and constant beeping of the timing mats, I was too nervous to pick out her red cap in the thrashing mess next to the boat; I held my goggles to my face, and jumped.

Here’s what happened in the next three hours and five minutes.

Boat:

Rewind a few hours. This part of the race was nothing but raw anxiety. Our contingent of OTC-ers boarded the boat around 5:30 a.m. We didn’t get underway until 6:30, and the race didn’t start until 7:30. The waiting was the worst part. A high fog kept the water almost dead-flat until we approached Alcatraz Island, but the wind picked up, and the water started to get choppy. I stepped out on deck and warmed up with some jumping jacks and shoulder exercises. Ten minutes before the start, I put on my wetsuit, and was mindful to be taking full breaths. As I approached the jump, I got a fix on my first sighting targets (the two towers behind Aquatic Park and the trees of Fort Mason). Erin and I held hands all the way through the mass of gathering athletes, and wished each other a safe, happy race. This is our little prayer that we both say before races, open water swims, and bike rides, because we have both seen our share of accidents over the years; and the promotional materials for this race like to tout the “frigid waters” and “shark-infested Bay,” etc.  The athletes around us were almost completely silent, but the scream of timing mats and splash of bodies swallowed the sound of our last few words to each other. Then we were jostled apart, and pushed toward the starting mats.

Swim:

As my golf instructor once told me of my (rather poor) short game in high school, “Ugly, but functional.” As soon as I surfaced from the jump, I got completely battered by the other swimmers and found myself arching my back sharply to sight over the waves. People were nuts. I got kicked, grabbed, pushed under, and jostled—THE WHOLE TIME. And as the wind picked up and threw water into my mouth every other time I breathed, I swallowed a ton of water. Spontaneously, I decided I was never going to swim across the Bay again, but tabled the thought for later because it was a negative one. As cheerily as possible, I talked myself through the choppy parts; and said that it was okay if I couldn’t draft or get into a rhythm at all: Just stay on course and get to land. In relation to the piers next to Fort Mason, it seemed like I was stuck in the same place for a long time—but suddenly I could pick out the dome of the Palace of Fine Arts, and a few minutes later, the red-roofed yacht club beneath it: the target. A three-knot current carried me quickly toward it, and I swam hard directly toward land, exited on the first flat part of shore, and staggered onto the sand.

I looked around for Erin and didn’t see her, and figured that she was somewhere way out in front of me. Next thing I saw were the OTC volunteers cheering like crazy, and Coach Raeleigh Harris holding out a cup of water. I felt better immediately, and rinsed the saltwater out of my mouth as I ran for T1.

T1:

I still assumed Erin was in front of me, but when I saw fellow OTC-er and really good swimmer Angela Yu running out of the transition zone, I knew my swim must have been much better than I thought. (I expected the swim to take 45 minutes, and I’d learn later that I did it in just over 40.) As for my transition time… Sometimes I’m focused, but this time, not so much. I ran in my neoprene swim booties, which allowed me skip the mini-shoe-transition along the water’s edge. I thought this would save time, but I got passed by athletes in shoes on my way to T1. There, I fumbled around with my wetsuit for a while, redid my ponytail because it was falling out, and had a moment when I started putting on my running shoes instead of bike shoes. At that point, I looked up and saw Erin running to her bike. She said hi (but now, later, she says she doesn’t remember seeing me). Anyhow, I felt instant relief, got it together finally, and exited T1 in a glacial time of 7:22.

Bike:

This is a VERY technical bike course, owing to sharp turns, a variety of terrain, headwinds along Ocean Beach, and of course, the hills. If you are aiming to do well in this course, you cannot ride it too much beforehand. Suffice to say, my new fear of wiping out on the downhills held me back, but I was extremely grateful for the two practice rides I attended in the months before (via the Escape Academy and with the Oakland Triathlon Club). I had a 16.7 mph average overall, but could have gone much faster had I not braked so much on the downhills. I was keeping an average of over 22 mph on the flats, and passed a lot of people on the climbs, but they all came flying by me on the downhills, especially after I saw a fallen cyclist getting loaded into the ambulance near the Legion of Honor.

I jockeyed back and forth with teammates Onyanga Dean and Sam Suttle a few times, chatting a little to see how their swims went and how they felt—both were looking really strong. I chased Onyanga for a little while in the hills, but I ran out of steam for a few minutes when I hit the headwind on Ocean Beach (note: next race, I am going to drink more calories as soon as I get on the bike). Onyanga zoomed off into Golden Gate Park, and I used the next 5-10 minutes just to take in some sports drink and recover. Erin caught up to me, whereupon we picked up our pace while talking, and then leapfrogged back and forth on the up- and downhills for the rest of the course. Sam ended up riding with us, too, which made for a very cheerful (and very neon yellow) trio of Oakland riders.

T2:

Got my focus back and kept this one snappy–the only way to make it faster would have been to run harder. I exited T2 about 30 meters in front of Erin.

Run:

I kept an 8:20-ish average on the flats on the way out, having gotten a HUGE boost from the cheering OTC volunteers. My legs felt better than I thought they would; I guess it was true that staying in the aero position on the bike as much as possible would make for a stronger run transition. In short, I felt good, and I kept it together pretty well for the whole run. The sand ladder was tough, of course, but that was the only time I walked. On downhills I ran in the low 7:00 range, and on the flat section to the finish, kept an 8:00 pace. It was there that Erin and Sam caught up to me again, and we paced each other across the finish line. I’d wanted to run an 8:45 average, and managed an 8:42.

So, that was how Erin and I crossed the line together again. Five years ago, I remember our first bike ride together along Marine Drive in Portland, Oregon, and the joy of discovering that we were pretty much the same speed. Across five years and five states, we have been each other’s best training partner. We have different goals—Erin’s is to qualify for the 70.3 championship, and mine is just to have fun racing with OTC and feel good—but the one fact common to all endurance sports is that a race is only the tip of the iceberg. The rest of the time is all training; and there isn’t much that Neptune can throw at us for a measly 1.5 miles that all those thousands of miles on weekends, lunch breaks, and the wee hours of the morning can’t overcome. So, bring it on!