We’re now back in the
We thought we’d give you a report on our trip to
We arrived in
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
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
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 30th anniversary Escape from
Thank you to all the great crowds of
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
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.
