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Gregg Gordon

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Escape From Alcatraz and Spring Couples Relay

Posted by Admin on May 11, 2010 in Training

As usual, I’m taking forever to get posts up on this site, the potential result of which is another entry with pages of content.  I don’t want to do that to my adoring public (cough), so I’ll bullet point the highlights of the last two weeks:

Escape From Alcatraz:

• I didn’t do any pre-race training like going into the water to test out the temp or the wetsuit.  Roya and I were too involved in doing our own thing as it was our first vacation together.  I did drive part of the bike course but I figured I was off-course because I couldn’t imagine that the real course could be THAT hilly.
• Saturday night, Roya wasn’t hungry, so I got my pre-race pasta meal to go.  It seemed to be no different than what I normally eat, but that night, my stomach was upset and I couldn’t sleep.  I almost never get pre-race nerves, but I wound up being so apprehensive that I only slept 2.5 hours or so.
• Sunday morning, I bid adieu to Roya and rode to the course.  I was lucky that my hotel was a half-mile away.  I’m a seasoned pro when it comes to the transition set-up, so I was done setting up quickly and spent the rest of the time admiring bikes.
• I got onto the bus that takes athletes to the boat and immediately saw my new friend Mike, a Terrier Tri teammate.  It was good to have a familiar face with whom to hang in the half hour between our arrival at the pier and the boat departure.
  

  SF Hornblower

• While on the boat, athletes were sprawled out everywhere.  It was chaotic and calming at the same time.  I found my little spot, and upon self-reflection, realized that I wasn’t nervous at all.  In fact, I had no fear, apprehension, anxiety, or apathy; I was happy to embark on this adventure.
• As the boat neared the launch point, I found a friend I made while at Ironman Brazil.  Steve was with a bunch of his buddies and with this now larger circle around me, humor and levity took over.
• Finally, as athletes got closer and closer to the side doors from which they jumped into the water, I couldn’t help but compare the experience to skydiving and watching friends jump from the plane.  When it was my turn, time seemed to stand still.  I jumped and remember not feeling the water temperature for at least 5 seconds.  When it finally hit me, I was already swimming the breast-stroke so that I wouldn’t be in the way for another athlete jumping in.  I hate when I get landed on!
  

  Ready to jump

  

  The Hornblower by Alcatraz

• It took me four minutes before I actually started swimming freestyle.  My goggles malfunctioned inexplicably and once fixed, I had a hard time keeping my face in the water.  Once acclimated though, I was comfortable and kept my sights on certain landmarks as best I could.  I did stop twice to look around and take in the amazing view that was unique to where I was; bobbing up and down in SF Bay between Alcatraz and SF is something that very few people get to experience.
• Turns out my swim time was atrocious; something like 90% of the athletes covered the distance faster than me which is both embarrassing and disappointing, but I have my reasons including the aforementioned tourist-like stops in the middle of the bay.
• Once on land, I found my first transition bag but upon trying to get out of the wetsuit, I realized that I had searing pain by my armpits and on the back of my neck, both due to wetsuit chafing.  Guess I wasn’t nearly as liberal with the anti-chafing cream as I should have been.  It therefore took me forever to recover from this pain and get my butt over to the bike transition area.  I got to see Roya though and she has a couple of good shots of me coming out of the water.  Her two local friends joined her, as well as a few other bystanders, in keeping watch for me; “He’s wearing a sleeveless wetsuit, a green cap, is white, and has a goatee.”  That’s all they had to go on.  Turns out that there were surprisingly few men with this description!
  

  Coming out of the water

  

  Swim Exit

  

  Swim to Bike transition

• I got out onto the bike quickly and immediately attacked the first hill.  For that matter, I attacked every hill.  I rarely felt fatigue and instead found myself strong and recovered quickly.  Not a single athlete passed me on the bike leg while I must have passed 200+ people.  On several occasions, an athlete raced me at the bottom of the hill, only to be passed by me at the end of the hill.  Guess all that work on hills paid off!

  

  Out of the saddle

  

  One of the few non-hilly sections

  

  Golden Gate Bridge in the background on the return trip

• It was cool to see the professional athletes biking back (while I was biking out), and running out while I was biking back.  I recognized Hunter Kemper in first and Andy Potts in third as well as Jenny Fletcher and a few others.
• I saw Roya on the return of the bike, and again as I began the run.  When I saw her on the run, I made a little detour to kiss her to which the crowd collectively said, “Awwww.”  If nothing else, it helped distract me from how uncomfortable I felt thanks to an uncooperative bladder.  I did find a little out-house on the course and timed my pee break:  45 seconds.  Not bad!
• The first two miles, though totally flat, were slow.  My stride length was short and I didn’t feel particularly strong.  Shortly thereafter, we had to climb stairs along a cliff, run uphill, run on trails, climb other cliff stairs, then run down a steep hill before arriving at Baker Beach.  The sand was black and deep, and while I followed the rest of the athletes to the water’s edge, it was only marginally better in terms of traction.  At the turn-around point, I began to find some rhythm.  About a half-mile later, we arrived at the infamous Sand Ladder.  It features 400 sandy steps up a cliff.  I went up two at a time and passed about a dozen people.  Couldn’t believe it!
  

  Up the Sand Ladder

• At the top of the Sand Ladder, I found myself launching into an aggressive pace.  The path was only one person wide, but I managed to skirt the cliff edge and pass people.  Descending the various cliff stairs was easy and when I finally got to the final two mile flat stretch, I found myself pouring on the intensity.  I saw a few guys ahead of me in my age group, so I made it my strategy to pick off each one, one by one.  When I did, I also realized that I wanted to make a statement and not enable them to pace off of me, so I picked up the pace even more.  With each small acceleration, I was able to sustain the speed.  When I looked back at my pace, I calculated that it was 6:28 per mile for the final two miles!!  My fastest pace EVER in a multisport race!!
  

  The final miles

  

  Building some speed

• As I approached the final straightaway, I had it in my mind to do so with a sprint.  As I picked up speed, I saw Roya and her friends rooting for me and gave them my ritualized fist pump (no, not like Jersey Shore).  Her pics of me in that stretch are pretty cool as are the ones from the official race photographer.  I finished strong and felt great!
  

  Going strong

  

  Straightaway run

  

  Sprinting

• In the end, I finished in the 52% percentile, which is to say that 52% of the participants were faster than me.  Oh well, guess I’m not that fast after all.  The swim clearly put me in this bottom half, but I did get to enjoy the views!  Completing this race was never in question for me and frankly, it was more of a celebratory moment than anything else.  Finishing my 70th triathlon in such grand style will be a lifelong memory.
  

  The Finish!

  

  Another Finish Shot

  

  I earned this

After the race, Roya and her friends took me to lunch where we drank a lot and shared a great time.  That meal took us to a couple of other places and eventually dinner.  Trust me when I say that I slept well that night.  Exhaustion and alcohol has a pretty good effect!

The next day, we headed to Sonoma for yet another amazing day.  Perfect weather, beautiful scenery, and great compatibility made for a relaxing day of recovery.  The wine helped too!

A week later, I competed in the Spring Couples Relay.  It consists of a male and female team where one party runs 2.2 miles, the other party bikes 12.2 miles, and both parties row around the pond in Central Park.  I’ve had lots of different partners in the past, and to be honest, I always look to find the fastest woman I can to run.  This year, my buddy Fernando’s friend Carin signed on.  She’s a very talented runner who is probably faster than even Fernando!

• Carin set out in the run pack and made it back in 6th place.
• I had my full aero set-up on the bike and went out hard.  I passed two competitors, but got smoked by another one.  I was at my limit and couldn’t counter his effort and before I knew it, he was gone from my view.  Kind of disheartening, but I remember him from years past and remember that he has great cycling prowess.
• As I dismounted the bike at the transition area, I passed the second of the two athletes and sprinted in bare feet to my bike rack area.  I tagged Carin, and told her to start running to the boats as I quickly put on my sneakers.  I caught her right at the boats and as soon as we were pushed out, I began rowing.
• The guy I passed at the dismount line was about 20 seconds behind us but he made up the time quickly.  Just before the halfway point of the row section, he passed me.  I thought about blocking him a bit, but that would have been poor sportsmanship, so I just tried to row harder… but it was to no avail.
• We eventually finished in 5th place and seemingly 2nd in our age group.  But, another team got penalized for a cycling infraction by riding in the pedestrian path, so the couple that beat us (who was in our age group) got moved up to the 3rd overall position, thus enabling us to get first place plaques in our division.
  

  Carin and I get our awards

• Very good friends John and Deanna, doing their first such race, finished 21st overall and 3rd in our age group, so they too got plaques.  Good for them!
  

  John and Deanna get awards

Next up is potentially the Silverlake Sprint Triathlon in Houston.  I’m headed there this weekend to meet Roya’s family and she found this race.  I’m working out some logistics right now, but it’s super short and could be a lot of fun.  It features a 400 meter swim (1/4 mile), a ten mile bike, and a three mile run.  The cost is manageable, but I’d have to fly with my bike and incur a per flight fee of $100, thus making it an expensive proposition just to do a little race.  Then again, I do want to pump my numbers up and get to 100 triathlons as soon as I can, so I’m seriously considering it.

Ultimately, I’m focused on the Eagleman half-Ironman event on June 13th.  I will probably be fine on the swim and bike, but I need to get more distance runs under my belt.  I have been feeling great all year while running, so if it comes through for me on race day, I’ll beat my goal of 5:30 by a good portion!

That’s it for now.  So much for brevity.