The weather was perfect, and the race — especially after the swim — went well. Official time of 2:52:45, so faster than I hoped, putting me in 181st place (among the amateurs).
Accenture was the title sponsor of Escape from Alcatraz for 2005. As a result, the Accenture website has some extra features. First, a map showing split times. Second, statistics which measure your different legs against others in the race (professionals not included, fortunately). Third, the site has finish line video, which worked only in Internet Explorer on Windows, at least for me (not in Safari or Firefox on the Mac, nor in Firefox on Windows). Pretty nifty feature, actually… and this 30 second snippet does catch my finish (wearing a white hat, and a green-and-yellow shirt).
The splits and the comparative measurements confirm what I already knew. My swim was mediocre, but I didn’t expend much energy on it, so I did well on both the bike and the run. I wonder what’s it like to just race on the bike… it was fun to pour on the pedals with the streets closed to cars. In retrospect, my best split was the sand ladder (sand steps up from Baker Beach). I ran the whole thing, with one slip, and I guess that was enough to make me the 14th fastest amateur in that tiny part of the race. Who knew?
Glad it’s over and I can rest for a while!