Mission accomplished... Race completed and over £5,000 raised for Help for Heroes!!

We’re now back in the UK after an awesome trip, we both had amazing races last Sunday and we’ve spent the last week recovering in LA. If we include GiftAid, you have helped us raise well over £5,000 for Help for Heroes and the money is still coming in so a massive thank you to all of you!!

We thought we’d give you a report on our trip to San Francisco… Enjoy!

We arrived in San Francisco a few days before the race, just enough time to get over the jet lag. On Thursday morning we assembled our bikes and went out to ride the bike course, it was a slow ride and we took a few wrong turnings along the way, lots of hills but we felt good about it. In the evening we were lucky enough to swim in SF bay with Pedro Odones, he’s swam the Alcatraz crossing over 900 times and knows the water more than anyone else, it was a windy evening and the water was really choppy – thankfully we only swam the last 500 metres of the swim course.

At the Legion of Honour - a few miles into the bike course.

On Friday morning, we headed out to ride the bike course again but this time with a local cyclist called Mike who gave us a good tour of the course. In the early evening we drove out towards Baker beach to face up to the dreaded sand ladder on the run course, followed by a light run from Fisherman’s Wharf to Marina Green and back.

The dreaded Equinox sand ladder - sheer pain.

All in all, the course looked mighty challenging and befitting of the epic surroundings - Alcatraz island, the backdrop of hilly San Francisco, the Golden Gate bridge, Baker beach, Ocean drive… all breathtaking!

On Saturday we headed over to Marina Green to pick up our race packets, get our bodies marked and to listen to a race briefing.

Race day arrived, we were up at 4am and cycled through the dark city streets to rack our bikes at the transition area on Marina Green. As dawn broke, weather conditions were perfect, warm sunshine, blue skies, very little wind – it was going to be an awesome day to race!

Race morning...

At 8am, the elite athletes hung off the side of the boat, and through two swim caps we could hear the muffled sounds of The Star-Spangled banner being played, peering through the window we could see TV helicopters circling overhead and safety boats getting into position – we spotted a safety boat sail past waving a Union Jack flag, Luke (Josh’s brother) who had flown out to support had managed to blag his way onto one of the safety boats… what a boost!

The foghorn sounded, the elite athletes hurled themselves into the water, the exit doors swung open and we rushed towards the jump points, minutes later we were in, no time to waste we had to get away from the boat as fast as possible. The water wasn’t too bad, about the same as back home (12c), what really makes the swim different is that you don’t swim at the target, instead you have to use four different sighting points in the city to navigate you through the strong bay currents and land you safely on the beach – aim at the target and you risk being swept way off course towards the Golden Gate bridge and being picked up by a safety boat. We finished the 1.5mile swim in 29:54 (Josh) and 35:49 (Ramsey).

After a quick half mile run to transition it was straight out onto the hilly out and back 18 mile bike course that took us through The Presidio and towards the Golden Gate National park. We had trained hard in the previous months and got to know the course well in the days leading up to the race so we both felt strong on the bike and finished the course in 59:17 (Josh) and 01:01:42 (Ramsey).

The crowds cheered us on as we started the 8 mile run, the run course was hard, lots of climbing and tough terrain. The sand ladder was pure evil – 400ft of almost vertical sand steps. The crowds were awesome, supporting us all the way, we crossed the finish line in 02:42:43 (Josh) and 02:52:46 (Ramsey).

With Chief Supporter - Luke! You were awesome!

The organisers pushed out all the stops to make the 30^th anniversary Escape from Alcatraz a race to remember. This race has everything, from the moment you jump off the boat to the moment you cross the finish line, it’s absolutely epic, definitely one to race!

Thank you to all the great crowds of San Francisco for cheering us around the course!

Congratulations and big thanks to fellow RG Active athlete Marsha who had a brilliant race. Special thanks to family and friends who flew out from the UK to support us – Luke (ace photographer, flag waver & honorary triathlete), Tina (SF local knowledge) & Des (surprise supporter) – thanks for making our SF trip one to remember.

Special thanks must also go to our friends and sponsors for all their support, they are: iVitta, 2XU, Sigma Sport, MuleBar, RG Active & SwimSolutions.

Finally, a massive thank you to all of you for your generous sponsorship and support!

Josh & Ramsey

See here for more pics... (thanks to Luke for some great race pics), or click play below for a cool animation of all our photos.

We Escaped from Alcatraz!!!

We did it! We Escaped from Alcatraz!

We both had amazing races - finishing in times of 02:42:53 / 218th place (Josh) and 02:52:46 440th place (Ramsey) out of almost 2000 athletes. Every minute of the race was just as tough as we had imagined, punishing from start to finish! Race conditions for Sunday were superb, excellent race organisation, awesome support from friends and family and the crowds of San Francisco!

Thank you for all your support - with your generosity you have helped race over £4,750.00 (inc GiftAid) towards Help for Heroes and their current appeal to build personnel recovery centres to provide a "launchpad" to life for seriously wounded or long term sick service personnel, supporting them as they make the transition to a fulfilling future.

Full race results and photos to follow - watch this space... In the meantime, THANK YOU for all your support! www.justgiving.com/escapefromalcatraz2010

Josh & Ramsey

Race Ready...

We're here and ready to race! With your generous support we have raised a fantastic amount for Help for Heroes (£3,700.00 at last count...) and we're still seeing donations coming in - so thank you for helping us achieve that total. We hope to smash the £5,000 target in the coming days and weeks!

We arrived on Wednesday evening to a rainy SF, but woke up to blue skies on Thursday and left our hotel early to review the bike course. This is one hilly city and the bike course is challenging; twisting and climbing through the coastal routes towards the Golden Gate National Park In the evening we had a brief swim in the bay, it was seriously windy and choppy out there - all in all these two trips confirmed what we already knew - this race is going to be HARD!

We will be keeping the blog up to date with more photos and updated over the next few days - you can find it here: www.escapefromalcatraz2010.com

We will be racing at 8am pacific time on Sunday, so 4pm back in the UK... we believe the official website will be updating results in real time so keep a look out for our names... http://www.escapefromalcatraztriathlon.com

Thanks again for all your support!!

Bound for San Francisco!!

We're finally off, leaving on a jet plane - San Francisco here we come!

Bags and bikes are packed and we've got everything we need for the race this coming Sunday. On our first day in SF we will be riding the bike course and swimming the last half-mile of the swim - it's all about the preparation!!

We will be keeping the blog, twitter and facebook up to date as much as possible in the next few days - so keep on checking back to see how we're getting on.

Thank you to all those who have sponsored us so far - we've raised well over £3,000 for Help for Heroes and we're confident that there's still more to come in. If you haven't sponsored us yet, please help us towards our £5,000 target by sponsoring us what you can - www.justgiving.com/escapefromalcatraz2010

Massive Thank you!

Josh & Ramsey

This is Captain Ramdog speaking...

Ramdog at the controls of a BA 747... could this be the scariest photo ever?

Phewwww... Now that UK airspace has re-opened - fingers crossed we'll be onboard our flight to San Francisco next Wednesday (a week today!!). Just in case things go pear-shaped, Ramdog has been taking an instensive pilot's training course so that we can sneak ourselves on to a plane and fly there ourselves!!

One week to go... please help us Help our Heroes... www.justgiving.com/escapefromalcatraz2010

Thank you - you're all blimin' amazing!

Wish SF bay was this calm...

Great swim at the local lake the other night, another couple of 'nutter' triathletes joined in for an early season swim. The lake temperature was approx 12c - which is approximately what we are to expect in San Francisco Bay, just wish it was as calm! We're going to try and pack in as many open water swims as we can before we leave.

Train, train, train...

We both had a hard week's training last week, we'll have at least one more before we start to taper down, we leave for San Francisco two weeks today!!

Here's a quick look at last week's training:

Monday:

Bike: 4 laps of Richmond Park, maintained steady/hard pace throughout, fastest lap 00:19:47,

ride time 01:44:12, 37 miles.

Tuesday:

Run: Along the Thames, 5 min w/up, 5 x 3 min efforts @75/80% effort with 3 min active recovery, 5 min cool down, run time 00:40:38

Bike: 2 laps of Richmond Park, easy/med effort, ride time 01:10:16, 18.5 miles.

Wednesday: (recovery day)

Swim: Hampton Pool - 30 mins easy swim inc. drills/technique.

Thursday:

Brick training session - 15 min warm up on turbo, 3 x 5 min turbo / 5 min run @ 80% effort, 15 min cool down, total time 01:08:00

Friday:

Run: Richmond Park/Hill - Roehampton Gate to top of Richmond Hill, 5 hill reps of stairs w/active recovery between each, easy run - hard on stairs, run time 00:59:00

Saturday:

Run: St Margarets to Richmond Park - lap of park, easy relaxed run, keeping form on hills, approx 20km, run time 01:39:21.

Sunday:

Bike: Surrey Hills ride, ,med effort ride, spinning legs out, high cadence, 55.1 miles, ascent 1000m, ride time, 03:50:18.

Thank you for all the sponsorship to date - it makes this training easier!

You can sponsor/donate online - all proceeds to Help for Heroes!

www.justgiving.com/escapefromalcatraz2010

Josh & Ramsey

26 days and counting...

Nothing stopping us...

Yesterday, we headed out for a good 50+ mile ride into the Surrey Hills, pretty average weather and we were definitely back in the warm winter gear after the amazing weather in Majorca 2 weeks ago.

With race day fast approaching we had planned to put in some hill reps on the nasty Crocknorth Road hill climb - with an average gradient of 10% and a maximum of 16%, it's great training for the hills of San Francisco, however the road was closed, but we managed to ride up and squeeze under the barriers at the top! After a ride on to Leith Hill, then Box Hill where we put in some hill sprints, we were both suitably knackered!

Less than 34 days to go, please sponsor us what you can... www.justgiving.com/escapefromalcatraz2010

We'll be racing in 2XU...

The 2010 2XU Endurance Tri Suit

A big thanks to 2XU who are supporting us by providing 2 top of the range tri suits. We'll be racing in the 2XU Endurance suit shown above, it's perfect for races of this distance or longer. Next month we will be sending our suits to the printers to get the Help for Heroes logo and other sponsor's logos emblazoned on the front, you won't be able to miss us as we race through San Francisco!

Thanks again to Mike at Triathlon Consultants Ltd (2XU UK) and Jason at Sigma Sport for their support!