guppie58 wrote:
Slowman wrote:
"
Prior to the race, I searched endlessly for useful videos, but most footage was shot from far away and last year’s water conditions appeared much calmer"
i would like to know the following, from you and anyone else who did the race. eric gilsenen has produced and narrated a fabulous set of videos over the years that show the alcatraz race. in those videos i see some
pretty rough water. not a
ppreciably less rough than the water from th
is past weekend. i'll concede that the water was rougher than in years past, however, the videos i have seen seem to me to display the difficulty of this race pretty well. except for the fact that 51 degrees is an expected, not anomalous, water temperature for this time of year and i don't se
e anywhere where this was mentioned on the website.
however, my question is this, for all who did the race: were you told in pre-race emails, or anywhere, about these excellent videos that do exist describing the race and its conditions?
As a first timer, I watched ALL the videos on the website and any I could find on YouTube. I was ready for cold rough waters. I knew I had to swim 'across the river'. Once I dove into the water, all that went out the door. The first 30 seconds of pain as my balls raced north to snuggle behind the heat of my heart. Swimming across the river would be great if I could have seen across the river. Again, all my training was in a pool (live in MI). I haven't been in open water since September. The challenging conditions I was prepared for turned out to be significantly more challenging than I was expecting. It was just more than physically challenging, it was a mental beat down. Stay calm, focus, sight, stroke, repeat. It was one hell of a mental challenge.
In hindsight, there are some things the videos don't teach/show: how spread out everybody is, what to expect when you hit the water, difficulty of sighting, etc. Much of that is explained in paper, but many things sound great on paper but not very close to real life. Another thing I wasn't prepared or under estimated was the wait on the boat. I wish they stressed nutrition during the wait better, but only because many people are new to this event. It's my own fault for not understanding it, but there were so many things going on. I sat on the boat for over 90 minutes with no nutrition. I accept responsibility for that, I was just focused on other aspects of the race.
Side note: WTF does this race have against GU gel? There was a GU booth but they didn't sell their own product. The ONLY vendor that sold GU sold the blocks, not actual gel. I didn't bring any GU from MI because every race I've ever done had GU available. I couldn't find GU gel anywhere. My Walgreens up the road in MI sells GU gel. Not the Walgreens in SF. I've been to smaller grass-roots races that have had more vendors than this race had. I could have brought stuff from my closet that I don't wear and have more products than the 'athlete village' had. I've never seen such a lack of nutrition from a race that had an international crowd. The website mentioned GU and other vendors so I figured I could buy most of my nutrition there. The GU vendor didn't sell their product. WTF? I think the website oversold the 'athlete village'. It was a joke.
Somebody above criticized those who were 'complaining'. There is a big difference between complaining and sharing feedback. Just because somebody says it was harder than expected, etc doesn't mean they are complaining. It has nothing to do with complaining, it's just sharing experience versus expectations. I have zero complaints about the swim, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to share how the swim kicked my ass. The only complaint I have was the 'athlete village'. Again, that was pretty pathetic.
1. I'm glad you brought shoes, since the athlete village probably didn't have any.
2. I'm sorry that you couldn't find any GU gel in a city of 800k.
3. I'm surprised you didn't jump into the bay the day before the event like so many do. It would have prepared you for the shock.
Now to address the larger conversation...
I had 2 ironman events under my belt, yet I was scared to death of this swim when I did it last year. My training was almost entirely swim focused. My buddy in Seattle trained in 45 degree water to prepare himself. Everyone knows the difficulty of the swim. The race directors did more to warn, prepare and teach than any other event ever has, in my personal experience.
This is a terrible tragedy and I've felt extremely sad about it, probably because he's from ATX and I did the race last year. However, I must defend the race directors, and I'm put off by guppie58's whining about goo and lack of tee shirts. Go do a R-n-R half marathon, if you want a great show at registration; and shut up about what wasn't on the videos. They were terrific.