« New addition to the stable | Main | Eleven years ago today »
Speeding through the end of summer
Oh, how the weeks have gotten away from me. I've done a handful of races and watched some others and I've tried to enjoy the unusually pleasant and sunny San Francisco summer weather.
Labor Day brought the Giro di San Francisco, a popular crit that's held downtown every year. Dave and I rode our bikes down to the course and sat under his team tent for eight hours cheering on teammates. After way too many beers, we rode home in the mid-afternoon heat. That was the hardest ride I've done in a long, long time. All five miles of it.
The weekend before that, I raced in the Alcatraz Challenge aquathlon. The race was a swim from Alcatraz to the beach along Crissy Field (1.5 to 2.2 miles of swimming, depending on the current and the swimmer's navigation skills) followed by a 7-mile run across the Golden Gate Bridge and back. I was dreading the swim, since my last Bay swim was pretty horrible. Also, slightly warmer-than-usual water in the Bay had brought in schools of jellyfish, and while they were non-stinging moon jellies, I had heard stories of people having to swim through them. Ick. I saw a huge one in the water as we boarded the boat for Alcatraz, but lucky for me that was the last one I saw all day.
I jumped from the boat, I swam, I swam a lot more, I wondered (as usual) if I would ever finish. I got out of the water feeling like I must be in last place (of course I wasn't). I pulled on my shoes and took off for the Bridge. The run was on a pretty crowded path that was open to local runners, dog walkers, stroller-pushers, and tourists on rented cruiser bikes, so it was like an obstacle course. It must have been puzzling for them to encounter a bunch of soaking-wet, scantily clad runners darting by without so much as a race number attached. (A friend said she forgot I was racing until she was driving across the Bridge and saw an old guy running down the bridge sidewalk in a Speedo and thought "What the..." before remembering the race was that morning.) I wasn't feeling particularly great so I just tried to cruise and not get passed by any other women. I did see one woman pass me and I passed about three. And then I have no idea how many got by me while I unfortunately spent two minutes in the Crissy Field bathroom. Oy.
When I finally got within sight of the finish I sprinted to make it in under two hours. I finished in 1:59:35, according to my watch. I texted to Dave, who was racing his bike 100 miles away, that I had had a so-so race and finished somewhere in the middle.
But then I looked at the results. I wasn't listed yet, as the last results posted at that point were about a minute ahead of my finish, but I realized that I would probably place third in my age group. Huh, go figure! I was still basically in the middle, but more importantly, the front-middle of my age group. I checked again about half an hour later and the results had been updated, but I wasn't there -- they had me listed as still being on the run course. My timing chip didn't register as I crossed the mat at the finish line. I had a chat with the timing folks. I showed them the time on my watch and described the people who finished near me -- but I couldn't provide their race numbers since we didn't have bibs (not that I would have necessarily seen them anyway). In the end they took my word for it and gave me my watch time as my official time. I waited around to get my bronze medal and bask in my four seconds of glory.
And just a few days before that, a handful of friends and I did the final race in the Thursday night Splash & Dash series. I finished in the middle there too (14th out of 36 women), but the real story here is that our friend Liz arrived at the race without her running shoes. She resigned herself to dropping out after the swim, but we weren't about to let her get off so easily. We mentioned the situation to the race director, who immediately offered her his own shoes. They were only a couple of sizes too big. She finished just fine and in fact won an age group award.
We all ended up with something from the awards or raffle, where they gave away coffee, gift cards, hats and other stuff. I scored a gigantic Ironman Coffee mug, which I LOVE. It holds a full pint of hot liquid.
I'll use it to drink gallons of tea when our usual summer weather inevitably returns. The fog is sure to come in any moment now.
September 3, 2008 4:08 PM
