Race Start - Diving off the side of a boat!

What a fantastic weekend and great race at the inaugural San Francisco Triathlon at Alcatraz!!! With a 4th place finish, this has to be considered one of my best results to date and I'm super excited how everything is progressing this season!

The trip to San Francisco is always easy and super fun. I get to stay with my great home-stay Jon Orban who has a spectacular house in Brisbane overlooking the city. It's a little bit further away from the race site but it's worth the extra drive on race morning... well maybe not this time around...

View from my amazing home-stay! Thanks Jon!

As usual, I was staying with my roommate Jimmy and we were so proud of ourselves for getting up super early so we could actually get to the race site with plenty of time to warm up and get things sorted (this is very unusual for us). However, the only problem was that I didn't do a very good job of checking the race info and thought the last bus from transition to the ferry left at 6... not 5:45. We we got there around 5:20ish and hopped out of the car and heard them yelling that the last bus is leaving like right NOW! (They were just scaring people so they would hurry, and it worked, cause I freaked!)

At this point I was running my bike through transition to get it set up and then noticed something was wrong with my rear brake and it was rubbing... damn, must have gotten knocked or something. So in the dark of 5AM, I'm trying to screw my brake cable a little to loosen it but it's just not working. Luckily, the geniuses at Specialized have made it really easy to adjust your wheel angles with some little screws in the drop outs so I was able to at least get stuff sorted so nothing was rubbing. Unfortunately, I was a little paranoid so I left it pretty loose and ended up having to race with literally no rear brake... fun times in San Francisco eh? Anyways, by that time they were yelling that you have to be on the bus like 5 minutes ago, I'm sitting there cussing up a storm, and now I've cut my hand and am bleeding all over the place! Finally, some of the race directors and workers came over and told me to relax and that if worst came to worse, they could give me a ride in one of their cars... ahhh. A little less panicked. What would have actually been nice is if they told me the bus wasn't really going to leave for another 10 minutes. Cause I finally got everything together, including myself, and got to the bus and waited on it for another 5 minutes before leaving. Oh well, at least I wasn't the last on, and I was able to sit and breath for the first time since arriving....

Zipping up before the cold plunge!

But from here on, things went super smoothly and I had a great day. The swim was awesome. This was the swim I've been looking for and knew that I had in me. I came out with the leaders, Amanda and Tanille, who are both amazing swimmers so I was really pleased with that. The bike was great too. I stayed right with the leaders and felt oh so comfortable but tried to hold it in just for a bit during the first huge climbs. But then the 2 leaders destroyed me on the downhills. Not having a rear brake made things a bit sketchy and I had to play it a little more conservatively. Losing time going down hill sucks cause it's just free speed. It has nothing to do with fitness or strength, just guts and experience. But anyways, I tried to really hammer everything I could because I knew the Queen of technical riding, Miss Melanie McQuaid, 3x Xterra World Champ who is also my Specialized teammate, was coming for me. But I was able to make it off the bike still in 3rd, which was great!

My second transition... not so great. Nick Tuttle, the race announcer was right down in transition and he can vouch for how sorry and embarrassing my T2 was! Hahah. It was a really cold morning and my feet had seriously frozen on the bike. I couldn't feel anything beneath my ankles and so trying to put on my racing flats was a battle. I'm pretty sure it took me about 2 minutes to get my shoes on, I even tried running with one of my heals still sticking out cause I just got sick of trying to fit it in... Eventually, I got things sorted and started the run strong, steady, and under control. Melanie passed me within the first mile and I tried to hop on but she was flying and I was under strict instructions to run my own race, which included starting a bit more conservatively and then building into it. So I relaxed, focused on my stride and felt great! I don't think I've ever felt "good" running before, so this was awesome. The uphills and stairs were tough, and oh my gosh how hard is the damn sand-ladder!?!? Seriously, this was my 3rd time doing it in a race and it still surprises me how hard it is to get up that thing! I didn't see any of the other girls on the run after Mel went by and I was able to run the whole thing controlled and happy.

My home-stay's cutest kittens ever! Peanut Butter and Jelly.

Taking 4th was huge for me and I'm so excited at how this season is progressing. I know I still have a ton of work to do, especially in the run, but I'm having much more fun and can't wait to race again! Big thanks to Tri California for putting on such an awesome race! I loved this new course (longer bike, no mile run to T1) and look forward to next year. Also, congrats to everyone who did this race cause it is so tough! And of course, thanks to BlueSeventy cause without my awesome Helix wetsuit, that swim would have been miserable. An last but definitely not least, thanks to Specialized for making the fastest, best bikes out there! I felt so smooth and fast on my Transition!