The Alcatraz Swim

Whoosh!  I was in the bay.  Holy shit I thought, I'm underwater.  Normally when you start a swim, you do a few dolphin dives & you're off, but when you drop 10 feet into the bay from a moving boat, gravity tends to pull you down.  Who knew?  Duh.

One of the things I did notice, was the armada of kayaks & wait, what's that, a Coast Guard Cutter?  Uh oh, why would we need that?

Coast Guard

View of the swim finish & Golden Gate Bridge

So now I'm underwater & praying that someone doesn't jump in on top of me.  As soon as I hit the water, the cold hit me, but it wasn't as bad as I had anticipated.  I thought it would be like ice cubes, like when you stick your toe in the ocean on the first 90 degree day in June when the water is still 50 degrees.  The wetsuit definitely helped, but I wear a sleeveless wetsuit, so my arms were more exposed than others.  I was ok though, the main thing now was to swim!

The bay, which looks clean from far away, is a strange phosphorescent green color.  Earlier in the week, someone told me to make sure to wipe my face when I exited the water otherwise I'd have bay beard.  Bay beard?   What the hell is that?  Ick.  As I started across the bay, I remembered the one piece of advice that I heard from others on the boat - aim for the radio tower.  

The radio tower, high on the hill in San Francisco, was probably the easiest thing to site from the water, which is very helpful as my land sighting skills, well, they suck.  I knew where the swim finish was located, I could see certain large buildings & landmarks, but the big challenge was to keep swimming straight when you really think you want to swim to the right.  The good thing is that as long as you keep swimming, the current keeps you moving.  

One of the main things I remember reading in the Escape newsletters was to watch for the kayaks.  If you could see them to your left, you were too far left, see them to your right, too far right.  I did prefer to be to the left, but seemed to find myself in the middle the entire time.  Being to the left meant I wouldn't be dangerously close to the bridge.  Middle, however = good.  Middle = not being swept under the Golden Gate.

Usually, in a triathlon, there are so many swimmers in the water, you're usually getting kicked & slapped while swimming.  In the bay though, there seemed to be plenty of room.  I didn't think about the sharks, or the sea lions, but I did get some seaweed in the face, bleck!  & it was easy to stop & float & site certain landmarks & check my watch.  At one point I had followed behind a guy for a few minutes, then he seemed to veer off a bit to the front of me.  This is when I saw my blogger friend Perry floating around with his video camera (in all honesty, it wasn't until after I saw the video that I knew it was him) I originally thought - who is this nut just floating around out here?  Watch the video from my earlier post, it's an amazing view!

A few strokes later & I feel someone on my feet.  I stop & look over my shoulder, hoping to give way to a fellow swimmer, when I realize that I am alone & no one is behind me.  No one is on either side of me either.  EEEEEEKKK!  What the hell was that I think to myself?!?!  I don't even want to know - I put my head down & swim as fast as I can towards the swimmer in front of me.  There's safety in numbers & clearly something had brushed over my feet.

The last 1/2 mile of the swim was tough.  I could see the yellow buoys ahead of me, but no matter how hard I swam, they weren't getting closer.  Shit, this is the finish, I thought, I just want to get this over.  I look up & notice, wow, the Golden Gate is a lot closer than I thought & that is when I see the beach, to the right of the swim exit & about 100 swimmers opting for this exit.  That's my plan!  As I swam over to the beach I kept trying to stand up, nope too deep, still too deep, then finally - I could stand - swim over!!!!  I've never been so relieved.  As I got out & ran along the beach, I found the exit ramp & made my way up the stairs.  Here's a pic of me at the finish - gross huh?  Luckily the camera didn't get the pic of me with my Bay Beard, as I was covered in a nice brown algae from head to toe.  Gross!!!!  

Little did I know that this part of the race would be the easiest of them all.  Stay tuned for the crazy bike portion!