Day 11: Escape from Alcatraz

4 June, 2022

The Pre-Day

There was an athlete meeting at 12:30 and 4pm with a couple of people attending it.

Athlete meeting

We had to pick up the BIB package and were also given the option to drop the bike off. I consulted with my coach if I should do it or not - had mainly safety concerns. He said it was safe - I guess I was just afraid as I have never had to do this a day before my race day. It certainly seemed like a smart choice, not to have to worry about it on race morning especially coming from Oakland to San Francisco. We were not allowed to leave anything else but the bike.

Bike docked - no shoes, no nothing else.

They recommended checking out what house was lined up with our bike so that it would be easier to make our way back to it. These two were mine:

The house(s) to sight

5 June, 2022

The Day: Let's tri to escape

Getting ready to go from Oakland to San Francisco

The day started early with the alarm going off at 3:10am. I got up immediately to turn it off, Csabi did not make the move. Or at least so I thought as I went to the bathroom. By the time I got back, he was also up and about. We made all the last arrangements: two bottles for the bike ride: 1. ISO+water 2. 3gels+water, soft flask (0.5 dl) filled with water, smaller soft flask (0.3 dl) filled with 3 GU gels and water - since traditional gels in gel packages were not allowed and during the Pro Panel on Friday, they recommended using this small flask and filling the gel into them. It was due to the restrictions in Presidio and Golden Gate Park national parks and the fact that there was too much littering in the past that we were not allowed to consume them from their original package. Long story short, all things were ready to go. We stepped out and got into the pre-booked Uber.

The Bay Bridge in the Uber

Only to notice that it had rained. "Awesome, it has rained during the night but isn't anymore. By the time I get on my bike, the sun will probably have dried up the roads - it will be a perfect day for racing!", being fully optimistic, I thought.

The ride to Marina Green

I thought I would fall asleep because that's what I do in car rides - like a baby But I couldn't. Instead I made the driver stop 2 minutes after we got in to double check if my wet suit and goggles were in the transition bag. They were. All good. Feelin a little nervous. No. Very. Never mind. But somehow there was a degree of quietude settling along with the excitement I felt. All was good: I made it. I'm awake. On my way to the race.

Transition

Could finally do the full docking - placed everything I wanted: the gel to consume right after the swim, the shoes for bike and run, the helmet, the sunglass, my race belt with the infamous BIB number on it. In addition, Jon lent me gloves, a hat, arm warmers and I added my Berkeley Half Marathon pullover - all in case I got cold.


Bike prepped for race: all wet.

I always need a photo with my bike once prepped

Air pressures - tyres: in or out?
A girl let some air out of her tyres on Saturday. I asked her why she had done that and she said that the sun shining on them, could end up in leaving you with a flat overnight, it had happened to her before. I consulted my friend, Yumi quickly, who was luckily still awake (past 10pm in Hungary) when I docked my bike on Saturday and said that he did not find that likely to happen. So I left them like it.
Flat on Sunday?
Well, no. I did not get a flat. However, last time I pumped air into my bike was Friday, so I lined up to check the pressure and pump more if necessary - and it was. It went down to 6 bars, so I adjusted. And my God! This race! There was an entire crew fully equipped to do any adjustment for you in the last two hours. Not in vain! There were bikes lining up for the repair stand - some racers facing issues with switching gears or flats that they were getting fixed. I felt lucky not to have to deal with that so close to the race but I must say: I have never seen a race that was so well prepared to help racers - all for free.

Finish line: we were to run down on
Hungarian flag was 5th on the right

Me feeling ready to race

Numerous transition bags or neoprene socks?

There were two transition bags. Number one: you drop off after they take you to the boat. So all the things you need for the bus ride, could be dropped off before you get on the boat. I decided to give Csabi all those things. Not needed. I got on the bus in neoprene and my neoprene shoes with a banana, a GU waffle and a gel stacked inside my neoprene to choose from to eat before we jump and of course the two swimming caps and the goggles. Number two: mini-transition area set up for after swim. Post swim, we almost had to run a full mile to the bike transition zone. So this bag could contain: shoes, towel, warm layer and water. I asked if this was compulsory (the last thing I'd like to do is look for a bag after landing on dry land, and we are not on a luxury trip but racing, right?!), and they said no. Just wanted to make sure I was not going to get disqualified for this. However, I was worried to run barefoot on concrete for so long, so I ran after the race organizer following the pro panel on Friday and asked about the type of bootie he recommended. The staff at Sports Basement rather recommended these neoprene socks with a firm sole that allows you to run without getting your foot injured or messy. It was by far my smartest decision to go for them.

Neoprene socks: very comfy to run in!

Line to the bus

There was a huge line to the bus. I was thinking about acting Hungarian quickly making friends with people halfway through to skip half of the line. But then I thought "Ahhh, nooo, I'd rather be a nice American today," and decided to walk to the end of it. Lucky me, as I started talking to some really funny guys who kept me entertained while queueing.
"It's gonna be a challenging race, right?", I asked.
"You bet! Where did you come from?"
"Hungary. And you?"
"Hungary? Wow! Me? From that house across the street," he said and then he, the other guy and I, we all burst out laughing. Those houses are billion dollars' worth and it just was not likely that he was actually coming from any of those. "I mean I wish. But no, still I live in San Francisco - much closer than you were."
"Must be nice! But you know what made this race even more challenging? I just got my period two days ago."
"Awesome, know why? You're gonna be the bait for the sharks!", he said laughing.
"Oh man, exactly what I was thinking - you're so mean!! I was not afraid of them so far...but NOW"
"Oh yes, I mean, did you know that they can smell blood from a mile away??"
"Stop it!!! YOU!" I said poking him at his arms as we could not stop laughing.
"I mean they can but they are also more than a mile away. So you're good. And next thing you know is that," he quickly closed his feet and pulled his back out straight looking like he was grieving and making a speech, "Well, Nusi seemed a really nice person, we met briefly in line...", he said looking seriously pretending to be at my funeral.
"You are so BAD!!!" I exclaimed and just could not stop laughing. And once he stopped, I went on with other silly ideas, "You know we were also joking with my friends about you know how they track me through the app: what if they suddenly notice something strage in my route - Hey Nusi, Nusi STOP! That's Golden Gate, you passed the transition area, where are you going? Wow, so fast?!"
"It's the shark, right? Taking your foot with the chip on it!"
"Yes, haha, bit it off and took it with him."
That's probably enough to show you how much fun we had until we finally got on the bus. Time passed without noticing. The bus ride was long, however, I sat next to a nice lady in her 50s, a school teacher. She warned me about pot holes on the road after the golf course on the way back to transition during the bike ride - how kind of her. Yet, at this point, everything just started to suck the life out of me, including speaking. I needed to rest. And shut up. For once.

The boat ride - San Francisco Belle

As we walked towards the Hornblower's San Francisco Belle, an organizer was yelling at us "Come on, hurry up, you're late!" But all I could think to myself as my jaws dropped looking at Belle: "This is it. I have not missed the boat and it is just as beauitful as it was on the demo videos." The lady and us being late... I mean, there are over a 1000 participants for this race and we constantly lined up to get on buses but sure. I decided to go up to the second floor and found people sitting all over on the carpeted floor (no tables or chairs luckily), looking like some escapees - (no) pun intended. Some were sitting, some lying down and sleeping, "That's gonna be me. Just give me a sec." I used the restroom first, ate my GU waffle and 2 minutes later, it was me. Oh yes, I was lying on the floor, placing my swim caps and goggles on my belly, waiting for the boat to get going. And once it did, I fell asleep for about 15-20 minutes. Since, suddenly, I felt unwanted cold air sweeping through the room and when I looked up to check , I noticed that many people had disappeared: some standing up looking out the window, some going outside checking the water, assessing what was ahead of us.
Standing still - are we going now?
I decided to get up to my feet and caught sight of Alcatraz for the first time on the boat. The sight of it immediately sent shivers down my spine, "It's happening. I'm here." It meant two things: I did not fall asleep, and did not miss the boat. I was actually here. A feeling of excitement and longing combined with fear came over me. I could not believe it.
After a while we got unsettled and somebody said "We're circling around Alcatraz." Or at least in its vicinity. Not sure what was going on but I decided to consume my gel. "They said they needed to alter the swim route," another racer said. "I'll just follow the crowd, I guess," I thought to myself, "I am going to get out somehow and nothing can scare me or stop me beyond this point."
Crew
I mean, I knew that there would be helpers along the swim route but had no idea how many. I saw a police boat nearby, "Oh, wow - we are safe." There were about 4 police boats, 8-10 kayakers and a couple more regular boats. "If you die, it's because you got a heart attack due to the cold water, or get lost in this race, you probably screwed something up big time. But it's definitely not the organizers' fault." No offense but it seemed impossible. We looked at the volunteer kayakers trying to stand still as they were facing the opposite direction from our swim route - constantly paddling hard to stay in place. "Oh my, can you see how hard they have to paddle not to get swept away?" I asked the guy next to me. "The current is in our favour. It's gonna be a great!" we duly noted. Unfortunately, I could not skip my routine and ended up going to the toilet like 5 times before it started.
Because it soon did.

The jump

7:18 - the Pros finally jumped or doved in, blue swimming caps. We watched and cheered for them from the second floor. Then pink, orange - "Whaaat? No!! That's us. Oh my God. It started." I walked closer to the stairs, sometimes jumping up and down on two feet "I wanna go, I wanna go." I was pumped and eager to go so much so that some people let me get ahead of them. I don't understand how we could not share the same excitement. Were they all not so pumped? The bottom deck had to be emptied first. Once it did, they opened the door and we could start floating down to the two exits. As we rushed down the stairs, organizers were pointing us to the other end of boat to jump in sooner as less people chose that exit. So we ran across the empty boat with food remnants and empty bags lying around all over, "Oh my God, it's just like escaping Titanic, so cool!" I said to the girl running next to me. She didn't really respond but it's okay cause next thing I knew was that I was next in line. Holy shit, this IS HAPPENING.
Swim cap from colleagues on, goggles on, pink race swim cap on top - ready!! Standing on the edge, I got one arm on goggles, other one out, half T... whatever. And JUMP!
Goodness, this ... is.... cold. I quickly started the activity on my watch and got away to avoid people jumping on top of me. Started my swim with bilateral breathing. It took me some time to get used to the cold water but once I did, I switched to normal breathing, warming up took me about 5-10 minutes. The neoprene socks were great providing heat to my feet. My watch clocked every 500 meters, as usual. But it clocked too soon, "The GPS is probably wrong," I thought, not checking the times to avoid discourageing myself but focused on keeping a steady and comfortable pace instead. And for a second, I thought about all those people around the globe who were following me live - for the first time in my life. It felt unique.
Either way, the swim was unproblematic. Mild waves to get through with a strong current and some swimmers coming of out of nowhere, having no idea where they were going, crossing my path from left to right heading towards "Alcatraz, dude?! Wrong turn. What are you doing?" I reflected within. Incomprehensible.
Bottleneck close to the shore. I never experienced something like this in a race. Coming closer to the shore, the density of the crowd increased. A swimmer started gently tapping my feet, out of the blue. I waited for him to notice and stop. But he did not. So I started going hard, adding some leg moves to get going and out of his way. Success! I got rid of him, for a few minutes until tip-tap-tip-tap... it started again. I was getting really annoyed this time, so I speeded up again and then he eventually remained out of (foot) sight. Am I ... No, I am not an agressive swimmer. But please sight, and move into a free lane. There's just an ocean out there to suit us all.

Out of the water

I felt great, by looks not so sure you get the same feel

Out to T1

Finally, got out and soon after I started to hit it hard. I managed to pull my neoprene down to waiste line as I ran up to the transition zone. I could speed up pretty well but damn it was far away. Once I got to my bike, I cracked the planned gel open and pretty much swallowed it, and once I had my shoes, helmet and sunglasses on, I was so pumped that I ran out.

Bike

Ran out with my bike leaving the infamous BIB number behind. There was a fast girl biker, "Oh shit, my BIB, I forgot it. I think you did, too."
"Oh, dammit! I did but you know what? I did that last year, too, and it didn't get me DQ-d."
"Good to know, thanks." Later on, I noticed that many had forgotten it.
Oh yes, and the rain and the sun? 0% sun, 100% rain. Last time I raced in rainy conditions was in Lengyeltóti. It was pouring down so heavily that we had to be very careful.
You know, I always wondered where the pros are on the course at the given point where I am and then we saw them... HIM!
"Oh my God, that's them, right? Is that Ben?"
"Go, Ben! Yes, that was him." Making his last 3km back as we just started to head out. What a thrill to see them. We saw the 2nd and 3rd pros on their return speeding downhill like it was the last day of their life. But no, just more experienced.

Careful ride or race? Had to do both...

Boy those slopes! I would have liked to go down hard on them, instead all you could hear was squeaking brakes and people slowing down. What a damn pity!
The bike course was indeed hilly. With no mileage shown, I had no idea where I was in the 28k, just roughly guessed. I sometimes checked my watch to see but was generally afraid to look anywhere else but on the road. Super wet. I could neither check in with my planned heart rate for the race - so had to go by the feel. Tried not to overdo it, which seemed almost impossible due to the conditions. Had some brief chats as I was passing racers or they were passing me.
I carefully switched gears up until the last uphill section: my chain fell off. I quickly pulled over to the side of the road, turned it upside down and while fixing it, numerous athletes passed me by "Oh man, I just passed you, and you, and you..." The list went on. One of them asked me if I was okay but I clearly did not want anyone to stop because of me - I could handle this. After the fix, my thighs felt rested and I was a bit mad about the chain, so I hit the slope really hard and "I got you, and you, and you.." until I reached all of those who passed me during the chain fixing. Making my last miles back to T2, I was trying to let go and go slower, flushing my legs out for the run but finally that damn road was just flat. So I opted for an intermediate intensity that allowed me to keep up with the tempo but avoid anaerobic efforts.

Back to transition: holding on to the brakes

Golden Gate and the bike!

Transition

Quickly in and out. Bike on! Shoes changed, small soft flask in my back pocket, water soft flask in my hands aaaaand OUT! "Shit, my helmet!" I was rushing out so much that I started the run with my helmet on. I ran back to drop it off and headed out WITHOUT my race belt on. The BIB number was luckily tattood on arms so I had to let it go.

Run

Csabi waved as I ran out of the transition. "All I need to do is run now!!" I yelled happily. Yes, I survived the swim and the bike. It's always such a relief to get through those.

Jon ran a few hundred meters with me!

However, the bikes got the nerves out of me, so I did not feel like running, AT ALL. I wasn't too tired but simply was not looking forward to running. I started to make use of the smaller soft flask with 3 GU cold brew coffee gels in it.
Don't try new stuff on race day. A mistake I keep making. I tried to twist it open to start sipping the gel out but as I twisted it, the whole top part twisted and damn! Half of its contents spilled out. Well it was why I had three in there I did not actually need for this race. Sticky coffee gel floated over my hand - but at that point I was too muddy too care and luckily not all of it came out, just half.
Running husband - Catch my ryhthm.
My first km clocked 4.25. Even though, it did not feel fast, I was fast. After that I slowed down a bit to make sure I had enough energy for the rest of the race. Until I met the guy. Don't know his name, or BIB number (unfortunately). He was the best to run with. My goodness. He appeared out of the blue after the first kilometer, somehow came in running by my side and we started hitting it together. Literally, side by side. Our shoulders almost touched. As my foot landed, his landed, as I breathed, he did. If there was a puddle, we got around it and came back close together again. We were in synch so badly. For 2 damn kilometers. So romantic. Had he asked me to marry him after the finish line, I would have said yes. I wish I could at least thank him. Shame on me and the stairs to tear us apart. After that I never saw him again. I don't even know his hair or eye colour. What a pity. (I wonder what his version of this part is but knowing guys, it must be something like "There was a fast girl we ran together with for 2-3kms. It was nice." Haha. He definitely did not want to marry me.)
Up on the stairs, through a tiny tunnel that eventually shrank - we literally had to bend and go down like midgets. We kept running on trails until it was downhill on concrete, then back to a trail to descend to Baker Beach. Almost two full dreadful kilometers on sand. Rain made it somewhat easier...I mean, SOMEWHAT. After Mile 4, HALFWAY, we went down to the part of beach that is more wet making it a bit easier to run on, so I added some speed. Suddenly, a pain stroke through my chest keeping me from adding tempo. "So I didn't die in swim, get eaten by a shark, nor got a flat or fell during my ride and I get a heart attack before I even get the chance to hit the sand ladder?" Now I know, that that pain was fatigue (4,5 hourse of sleep), either way, I wanted to be able to keep runnning, so I slowed down. I was getting a bit tired.
Sand Ladder
Making a right turn, away from the waves and nicer surface, the much dreaded sand ladder came. It wasn't bad at all. I knew it was smart to walk it but it didn't feel particularly bad or tiring, not like 400 steps, for sure. Top of the stair, made a left turn and a mild and very narrow, muddy uphill path followed. I decided to add some speed and, as a result, suddenly slipped into one of the puddles. I fell on my hand, tried to get up, failed once "Shit," failed twice, "Shit," and for the third time, too "SHIT!" Finally got back up on my feet getting my right hand covered in mud. Soon a guy came from behind running past, slowing down to briefly reflect "By the way, that was extremely graceful!" he said nicely. "Thanks, man! You just made my day!"
Once we got up, back through the tunnel, down the stairs - it hit me. We're almost done.
Run course was nicely decorated by the mile signs: Mile 5 - 3 more to go!!! Yay!! Great..ahhh but that's not metrical. I did kinda forget as I speeded up. That's a szigetkör, a 5km around the island back home. "Well, let's be smart about it. I'll keep speeding up and resting a little if it feels too much." This is how my last 4-5km turned into something like an interval session. I must have done something well since my heart rate could eventually rise to the expected zone, plus I managed to get each of the last kilometers faster, of which I am proud.
Last 1k
Close to the finish line, huge crowds were cheering. Two guys simply cheered for me because of my number, "That's it!!! Go 7-11!!!" That's when it dawned on me, I was bibbed after the American supermarket called 711. Haha, seen better days.
"You're almost done. Get a strong finish!" I heard strong finish about 3-4 times down the road till the finish line. It was gradually becoming more and more difficult to push myself but tried to gain energy from the cheering crowd, until I turned right for the last time: the green grassy part to the finish.
Flags on both sides, I was hitting it absolutely hard, suddenly heard Csabi cheering on the right side, as I kept sprinting "This is it!" I thought as I looked up to the sky for a brief moment and crossed the finish line. "I escaped!"

It's almost over!

Crossing the finish line

Jon was shouting my name as I crossed over, caught sight of him immediately standing right across from me on the VIP podium. It was only later I found out that Jelena, Byanka, Ági and Alex were also there. They also screamed my name but I could not hear them. I was in full ecstasy.

I soon collapsed to my knees and then sat on the grass. A volunteer offered a bottle of water but I couldn't take it. Not yet. I wanted to sit down and feel. An organizer lady dressed in black stepped over, "Do you need a medic?" she asked to make sure I was okay.

Need a medic?

I had to calm surrounding people. Said, I just needed a moment to catch my breath. Then I could finally stand up, receive my finishing medal and take the bottle of water offered to me. I was floating in a cloud of soft happiness. I finished in 3 hours, which was my best case scenario. On top of that, I got into the top 10 in my age group, 6th or 7th place, based on results I found. Either way, it was unexpected but great. I could perform almost to the best of my abilities despite the fatigue. I am so happy. Words fail to express.