A One Handed Blog

Crossing the Finish Line

I escaped from Alcatraz and it only took 45 minutes!

On Sunday I completed the San Francisco Triathlon at Alcatraz, it’s one wild race! In fact I had such a blast I think it’s one of my favourite triathlons to date.

It all starts in the wee hours of the morning, setting up transition in the dark at Marina Green and then catching the bus to Pier 3 for the boat to Alcatraz. That’s 1,800 athletes packed onto a boat sailing off at 6:15am as the sun peaks behind the Bay Bridge, quite surreal.

Given the extremely windy conditions the previous day, they only let 4 of the 12 test swimmers even attempt the swim and the rescue kayaks capsized, it was a relief to see the mirror calm sea as we headed to Alcatraz. The conditions couldn’t have been better.

Ready to Start

The pros lined up on the outside rail of the boat and come 7:00am were off, quickly followed by the rest off us piling out of the door and jumping into the chilly waters. It’s hard to describe the feeling of being in the middle  of the San Francisco Bay, looking one way at the Golden Gate Bridge, another at Alcatraz looming large, another the sun silhouetting the Bay Bridge and finally the San Francisco skyline in front, surrounded by a 1,000 other swimmers. One word, WOW!

Jumping Off

You don’t swim directly to the swim exit at Marina Green, if you did you’d end up at the Golden Gate Bridge. Instead you swim further east, more towards Aquatic Park and then let the current drift you westwards. After 1.2 miles or so you hit the makeshift steps and climb out of the sea.

Next stop, a 25 mile bike ride up and down and around the bendy streets and hills of San Francisco to the Great Highway and back. It’s a bit hairy in places, the lumps and bumps in the road nearly knocked me off more than once. You want to go fast on the downhills to make up for all the effort you put in to get up the other side, but you’ve got to have some balls to go all out on those roads!

Sand Ladder

Back from the bike in one piece, legs a little tired from the hill climbs and it time for the bit I like the least, the 7 mile run, the other wild part about this event. The run is more cross-country than the normal road race. Despite nearly being out of action during the first mile when my left knee gave way again, I was able to stay with it and have to say I really enjoyed the run. It’s mostly along dirt and gravel paths, up steps, ducking through an underpass, along a cliff path, down the road a bit and then along the beach in the sand to the 400 step sand ladder and then return.

First in Class Finish

I finished in 3 hours 51 minutes, the swim took 45 minutes, the bike an hour and 35 minutes and the run an hour and 16 minutes, finishing first in my class (physically challenged athletes) and setting a course record for my class (since it’s the inaugural race).

I’ll be back next year to defend my title!

You can view more pictures of my race on Facebook or watch me finish the swim and cross the finish line below.

On the fundraising front, I just want to say thank you to my top donors this last month, Sam, R2, Hemant, Lea Ann and Prashant thank you so much.

I’m over the $5,000 mark with 6 races done. I’d love to reach $6,000 before my next race in 2 weeks and with your continued support I’m sure I will!

By making a donation you will directly help a challenged athlete in need.

Help me raise $10,000 for the Challenged Athletes Foundation

Vineman Finisher

On Sunday I took part in the Vineman Ironman 70.3 triathlon in Sonoma, a triathlete’s version of a trip to the wine country.

This is my first 70.3 mile event, you might remember my previous attempt at this distance ended with my bike crash two weeks before the race last October.

A 70.3 Ironman consists of a 1.2 mile swim, a 56 mile bike ride, followed by a 13.1 mile run. The plan going in was to only do the swim and bike as I’d been having knee issues since my half marathon last month. My coach Paul Kinney recommended I leave my running shows behind so I wouldn’t be tempted to do the run. The concern was not to jeopardize my ultimate goal of completing a full 140.6 Ironman this November. Whilst I knew it made sense I was torn by the idea of not completing the race.

Vineman is a beautiful course that starts with a swim in the Russian River at Guerneville, followed by a scenic ride through Sonoma that winds its way to Windsor High School and from there a run out to La Crema Winery and back.

Swim Start

It was up at 4:30am Sunday morning and heading off to Guerneville at 5:15am to setup my bike transition and get ready for my wave to start at 6:54am. Thankfully it was a misty morning (you can see it above the water) that boded for cooler temperatures for the first part of the race at least.

I had a great swim, it’s a really easy course as it’s hard to go too far off track, the river is quite narrow. In places it was so shallow that my hand hit the bottom and I saw a number of people walking along…not quite in the spirit of Ironman! I came out of the water after 47 minutes feeling in great shape. Given I was not planning on finishing the race I had a nice leisurely 12 minute transition (the pros were out in 1 minute, by comparison).

Finishing the Bike Ride

The bike really is beautiful, winding through the wine country past vineyards and wineries, all helps take your mind of the 56 mile ride ahead. I must say though, that the roads are a tad treacherous; twisty, bumpy and narrow (they aren’t closed to traffic). Made for an exciting experience, especially with the two sets of train tracks you have to cross (given my prior run-in with train tracks). I finished the bike in 3 hours 8 minutes, averaging just under 18 mph.

Exiting for the Run

Felt in great shape, felt strong and I know Paul had recommended not to do the run…but I had set up my shoes in the second transition just in case and what harm could a little run do anyway? And so off I went against doctors orders.

My focus was just on enjoying the race, originally I’d wanted to complete it in under six and a half hours, now I just wanted to finish safely. The run is a tough one, rolling hills a good chunk of the way so I kept it to mostly walking with a little bit of slow jogging mixed in.

Crossing The Finish Line

Good news is I had no knee issues and whilst I faded somewhat on the second half of the run I still completed the half marathon in 2 hours 54 minutes for a total race time of 7 hours 11 minutes. And to be honest I felt in great shape, if I’d been fully fit and hadn’t just taken a month of training whilst I was travelling in Europe (not the best of plans) I think I could have got close to the 6 hour mark.

All-in-all I was ecstatic with the race, it gave me great confidence that my running issues are behind me and that I’m well on my way to preparing for a full Ironman this November in Cozumel. I’ve got 4 months of training left and $5,000 to raise for CAF.

You can view more pictures of my race on Facebook or watch me finish the swim and cross the finish line below.

Just want to say thank you to my top donors this last month, Martin, Chris and Nghia, thank you so much. I was just shy of my $5,000 goal to mark the midpoint of my challenge with $4,679, for those of you waiting on the sidelines, go on, click the button, I dare you.

By making a donation you will directly help a challenged athlete in need.

Help me raise $10,000 for the Challenged Athletes Foundation

Waiting to Cross the Start Line

On Sunday I completed race #3 in my 10 races in 10 months to raise $10,000 for the Challenged Athletes Foundation, my first Half Marathon in San Diego, that’s 13.1 miles. The was part of the Rock-n-Roll series of races with bands playing along the course every few miles that sure made for a fun race.

I felt more nervous about this race than I have since my very first triathlon nearly 2 years ago. Over the last 3 weeks I’ve been having persistent leg and knee problems whilst running, that and the fact that running is my least favorite part of doing triathlons.

Up until now I’ve only had to train to run 10km (just over 6 miles). But, as they say, if you don’t like doing something best to just get out there and do it, well that’s what I say anyway. So I thought challenging myself to a half marathon would force me to improve my running.

And so there I was on Sunday along with 30,000 or so of my closest friends…yep, there were over 34,000 competitors, another first since I’ve never raced with that many people before…it took over 30 minutes just to get to the start line! You can see the start line there in the distance on the photo.

Running a Half Marathon

My plan, as per my coach’s instructions, was to run/walk the race, run for 6 mins and walk for 1 min to reduce the impact on my body. Of course all that went out of the window once I crossed the start line and started weaving my way between all the runners in front, I just couldn’t walk and let people pass me, that just didn’t feel right. So I ran for the entire 13.1 miles including the up hill and freeway stretches, it was the cambers and the down hills that put added pressure on my left knee…but, physically I felt good and maintained a 9 min 15 sec per mile pace completing the first half of the race in an hour, as you may have seen from my tweets. Then the race was on, could I break the 2 hour barrier? (Not bad since I’d originally wanted to complete the race in anything under 2 hrs and 30 mins).

The second half of the race turned into a balance of trying to preserve my knee but maintain a 9 min / mile pace. At the 11 mile mark I needed to maintain a 8 min 30 sec pace, so pushed harder…at the 12 mile mark with 1.1 miles to go I needed to be closer to an 8 min / mile pace, and pushed a little harder…as I got to the 2 hr mark I was just short of the 13 mile marker and started to sprint (as best as you can after 13 miles) to the finish and that’s when my knee finally gave out, barely 100 yards from the finish. At that point I hobbled to the finish at close to a walking pace, but still managed to complete the race in 2 hrs 1 min 45 secs!

So all in all I was really happy with my race and time and my knee continues to recover, Monday I was limited to a 30 min walk to get blood flowing again but Tuesday I was back to my training regime with an hour swim in the morning and 75 min bike in the evening. No rest for the wicked.

My next race is Vineman on July 17th, my first 70.3 mile Half Ironman, this will be a real test for how my training is progressing ready for my full 140.6 mile Ironman this November in Cozumel.

You can see more pictures of my race on Facebook or watch me cross the finish line below (look to the top right of the video).

On the fundraising front I’ve reached $3,569 so far, big thank you to my top donors in last month, Sathya, Jay, Christina, Robert, Mum & Dad, Eric, Richard, thank you so much. Help me reach the $5,000 mark by my Vineman race in July, it’s real easy to donate online.

By making a donation you will directly help a challenged athlete in need.

Help me raise $10,000 for the Challenged Athletes Foundation

5th in Class

Sunday was my first race of the season for the Challenged Athletes Foundation at the Avia Wildflower Olypmic Triathlon at Lake San Antonio.

Every year they put on a festival and weekend of Triathlon races and I’d heard it was a great event…and it didn’t disappointment, a real party atmosphere combined with some serious racing.

The course was certainly challenging, the 1.5km swim was straightforward since it was in the lake, I completed it in a record time for me of 37mins (5 mins better than previous).

Bike Course

The 40km bike on the other hand was up, down and lots of up again! As you can see from the terrain map not a lot of flat stuff and look at that climb right at the beginning…I saw more than a few people pushing their bikes up that one.

Run Course

After my 1hr 34min bike came the 10km run, I started out pretty strong and then…faded fast, as you can see the run course is pretty much all up hill and then half way through you really start to climb, that combined with the heat and my heart rate was spiking over 180, so I ended up run/walking parts of the course. That said I still managed better than an average 10 minute mile which was my goal and finished the run in 1hr 1min for a total race time of 3hrs 23mins, a personal best on a very challenging course.

Not only that, but I finished 5th in my class (physically challenged athletes) and got a medal to boot! You can see more pictures of my race on Facebook.

So one race down, next one is a month away, the San Diego Rock-n-Roll Half Marathon. After that will be my first Half Ironman in July. Unfortunately I didn’t get a lottery slot for the Ironman World Championship in Kona this year, instead I’ll be choosing a different Ironman event for the end of the year to culminate my race schedule, looks like between now and then I’ll have a race every month all to reach my fundraising goal of $10,000 for CAF. I’ve reached $2,695 so far, big thank you to my top donors Dwayne, Tennille and Suzuyo, you guys rock! And to all those that have donated $100 or over, Carrie, Darcy, Kelly, Lori, Margaret, Tom, thank you so much.

By making a donation you will directly help a challenged athlete in need.

Help me raise $10,000 for the Challenged Athletes Foundation