Monday, June 06, 2011

Escape from Alcatraz

I competed in my second triathlon since having Gabey, yesterday at the Escape from Alcatraz in San Francisco, CA. I feel "out of the loop" with the sport after taking a year off, but I think it's coming back to me. Jay, Gabriel, and I headed up to SF on Friday and had a relaxing two days before the event on Sunday. I am still nursing and poor Gabey had caught a cold on Saturday night, so we were up with him quite a few times; needless to say I think I got pretty good sleep (when I was asleep)! I was debating on whether or not to wear my HR monitor but once on the boat I decided to forgo the monitor and just race as hard as I could go. I felt choppy in the water and I think I swam too far to the right and had to back track to get to the finish. The time in the water seemed to go by quickly which was nice. I was looking forward to getting on my bike and seeing what I could do. I still haven't gotten on my trainer and am lucky if I get to ride my bike 2 times per week!! I felt comfortable on the bike and knew that I had to push as hard as I could on all the up hills. The weather was perfect, very slight breeze, sunny skies, and dry roads. It felt good to be on the bike. It took a few miles before i got my "running legs;" I didn't feel the snap that I was used to having. By the time I got to mile 3, I was feeling much better and pushing harder to run down any woman that I could. I was 9th coming out the water but heading out onto the run I was in 11th. I told myself that I could get top 10 and so I picked it up. With 2 miles to go I spotted a girl a few seconds in front of me. I caught her and kept on pushing as hard as I could. With 3/4 of a mile to go I spot another girl and caught and passed her! I ran those last 2 miles as hard as I could and it paid off. My first top 10 after having Gabey.

I'm motivated more now and will get my training schedule updated for my next event.

1 comment:

Robert said...

Hey, Alexis, I took several nice pix of you on the run leg of Escape with the Golden Gate Bridge in background. I was mainly photographing my son who was running just behind you as you came down that set of stairs before the seawall. I will be posting many race pix to DropBox, a free picture sharing site, in the next day or two. If you like me to notify you when they are up, send me an email at smallbob11@gmail.com. Nice race... You can see the determination in your face that you describe in the blog in the pictures I have...
Bob Small
SmallShots Photography
Redding, CA