Frugality Beats Sanity.

Yesterday morning at 6:10 a.m. I was in San Francisco on a cable car barefoot in a wetsuit. Fortunately, I was not alone.

Six weeks ago, I signed up for the Alcatraz challenge and the day had finally come to do it. I got the idea from my friend LaRee who sent me the link for the race with the message: "We should do this."

I briefly skimmed the race web-page and thought, "Well, that will be after Barb's half-ironman, so I will probably want to do another event. And really, how difficult could a 1.5 mile swim in the bay be?"

As I started the registration process on Athletes Lounge, it did seem funny that I had to initial three disclaimers. Usually, most races have the whole "don't sue us if you die" or " no refund" disclaimer, but this one discussed bridges and other crazy things. I just shrugged and typed in the "JM" and quickly e-mailed my friend I signed up.

It wasn't until I started telling people about this swim and listened to their responses that the actuality of this event sunk in.

Here are what the basic responses were:

"What?"
"Seriously?"
"Why would you do that?"
"Brrrr."

These responses struck me as odd because when I told the same people I was doing a half-ironman they kind of shrugged their shoulders. I mean, this was JUST a swim.

I blame my naivete on not knowing anything (except for the whole island prison thing) about Alcatraz. I have never even done the tourist audio tour of the island. This race was not on my "to-do" list of athletic events. Marathon in another country? Perhaps. Swim in the bay? To quote Bart and Lisa Simpson: "Meh."

My biggest concern before the challenge was, "Can I do this?" Of course, under usual conditions I can swim 1.5 miles in a pool, but this time was different. My shoulder was still not feeling 100% better since my bike crash at Barb's. Last Wednesday I finally got in the pool after almost 3 water-free (except for showers) weeks. I felt ok. Plus, I already forked over the $100 to participate, Frugality beats sanity. The race was on.

So, that is how I found myself riding public transportation in a wetsuit. Me, and a bunch of other people took a ferry a few hundred yards from Alcatraz to do this crazy swim. It still seems crazy to me. I mean, I literally jumped out of a ferry and swam to the Presidio. Me. I don't usually do crazy things like that.

The swim kicked my booty. I have no idea how far I swam because there is kind of a crazy current in the Bay. The race director said it was a 1.5-1.8 mile race. I was definitely unprepared for the crazy waves slapping my body every few seconds. Plus, the participants were pretty spread out so there were times when I was swimming by myself. There were also time where I didn't see anyone behind me and I thought, "Am I going to be the last person out of the water." I swallowed my pride and reasoned, "Well someone has to be last. Maybe I will even get a cool prize." Honestly, I just wanted to finish this beat.

And I did. And I was 42 out of 56 in my age group. I jumped off a ferry in the San Francisco Bay and swam to shore in an hour and 6 minutes.

And you know what? That is kind of cool.

It was cool because I was still smarting from my Barb's race DNF and in the back of my head I worried that I was on this bad karmic train and would never finish a race again.

But the good news is-my spirit is back and I even signed up for another half iron-man in 2 weeks. I may be a little out of shape due to lack of training since my accident, but I feel in my bones that I can finish a half-ironman. Even if it means perhaps coming in last.









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