The Psychology of Alcatraz

First things first… this post is not about race strategy or how to mentally prepare for an event like the Escape from Alcatraz (I will cover that in a later post). What this post is about, is what an event like Alcatraz can do for you psychologically. No worries, I am no psychotherapist and certainly not a psychoanalyst and hence it will all be very simple. Just one question: What kind of impact does having a big goal have on your life?

Here I am, sitting on my packed bags, ready to head off to San Francisco. The last couple of weeks have all flown past in a blur and yet, they have been amazing weeks, with an immensely positive impact on my life. Preparing for the race and getting my head around it has affected almost all areas of my life. In retrospect, I have gone through quite a lot of changes, both physically and psychologically.

Psychologically, it is no secret that having a goal to work towards is huge motivation, provides focus. However, initially I thought, that the Escape from Alcatraz was maybe a little too big of a goal for me, especially considering the swim. But I have gone from an ‘I will try’ attitude to a ‘YES, I can’ attitude. And part of it is that it just seems slightly larger than me. I would consider myself an intrinsically motivated person, that is, I am not doing it for the money or other material rewards. I am happy, when I complete a challenge that I have set myself.

After I finished my PhD at the beginning of the year, I fell a bit into a hole, because I had no goal. Life was good and I deserved a break, but I do not function like that. And so I entered an Olympic Distance triathlon in August, double the distance of what I had done and August would give me plenty of time to prepare. Then Alcatraz popped up, like a big beacon, lights flashing, and with a bit of time pressure. Just about 3 months to get ready for it. Here it was, in bright bold letters, my new goal.

Training and racing wise, the past couple of weeks have been a huge confidence builder. I’ve done track sessions, where mere weeks ago I would have probably bailed out (15x 400m in 83 sec with 30 sec rest). I have completed an 83 mile bike ride over hilly terrain at a higher average pace than I was able to ride for just 30 miles in March. In races, I discovered, I am actually competitive, although that particular discovery stood a bit on shaky legs until last weekend.

Last weekend, marked my first target race of the season, the British Sprint Triathlon Championships, which doubled up as a qualifier for the World Championships in Beijing (2011) and as a qualifier for the European Championships 2012 in Israel. I entered the race to see where I am at in comparison to other athletes in my age group. At the start of the season, I never really believed I would be able to contest for a place, because I am in a strong age group. But come the week-end, with Alcatraz just mere days away, I thought to myself, ‘Let’s go, let’s give this a good whack! – Why would I not be able to contest?’ At a minimum, I would make other people work hard for their place.

From driving the bike course, it didn’t look like my cup of tea and I didn’t like the idea of riding the first half of it aggressively (because it was mainly uphill). But I came out the lake, was close to tears by the time I got into transition because I could not undo my wetsuit (that velcro just had more sticking power than my scrawny arms had pulling power). By the time I was on my bike and in my shoes, I was furious with myself – and so I took it out on the bike. Strangely, I hardly noticed the long uphill drag, the proper hill I spun up remembering the Schiehallion (see the Etape Caledonia blog post), and on the downhills which I thought might pose a problem, I kept pedalling for my life. Going into T2, my confidence was high as a kite and I knew the run was mine. The results showed, I had finished 6^th in my age group and had the fastest run split in my age group. The race was the perfect stage to put it all together and nudge my confidence to the top: YES, I CAN… and now bring on the sea swim!

In my life outside sports, the Escape has had quite some impact as well, mainly in terms of providing focus. Like many employers, my work is currently going through redundancies. At any time, this would have been really bad news for me psychologically because it would have likely dragged me into a spiral of worry and panic. However, with the focus on Alcatraz I addressed the problem completely differently. I stayed positive because I focused on training and preparing, planning something I would enjoy and that would be good for me. I stayed level headed and focused, and yet the training helped to disperse all the stress and fears and the excitement about the race and the challenge outweighed the doom and gloom.

The positive power a big event can have on your life should not be underestimated. It will pull you through the dark valleys and keep you going when you are struggling. They provide a positive focal point when the world around you seems to fall apart. Having a challenge in your life provides you with a huge confidence boost – every little step, every tough workout will build it up and let your confidence grow like a flower. And seeing that flower grow will give you joy each day, even if you are not the gardening type.

So, my bags are packed, I’m ready to go and buzzing with excitement, filled with confidence that I can actually do this. I’m under no illusion that it will be hard, but it will be amazing!

PS: Just as I post this, the news are coming through… not only did I contest the race last weekend, I managed to qualify for the ITU World Sprint Triathlon Championships in Beijing in September. YES, I CAN!!

Feeling like cycling Royalty - The Etape Caledonia

I seem to be collecting iconic events these days. Iconic events that push the boundaries of what I have achieved previously. The Etape Caledonia in the Scottish Highlands is one of these events and the people at ZipVit thought it would be good training for the hills of San Francisco when I escape from Alcatraz. The Etape is an 81 mile (131 km) cycle ride with a course profile that caused a few worried eye brow raises and made me perform a few quick calculations whether my bike had a small enough gear so I would not roll backwards down the hills. I had 3 weeks to prepare for this… here’s how I got on.

Bike travel fashion

I like train travel and with a bike, it is much easier – no bike box packing and disassembling of the bike. However, I had had a bit of a bad experience previously and so I had decided to protect my bike. I turned up at the train station with my little Kuota Kharma carefully cocooned in bubble wrap. I also made creative use of an old shower mat which would go over the metal rails.

The looks I attracted walking along with the wrapped up bike with the shower mat hanging over the top tube ranged from a knowing “Good call!!” to looks of bewilderment, clearly spelling out the word “NUTTER!”. Other people just looked very curious and craned their necks thinking that this must be a very expensive machine and wondering whether they should know me. Either way, I do not think I have ever turned so many heads and found it quite amusing.  

Pitlochry – Bike Central

The weather in Scotland is unreliable and while I lived there, I had adopted an attitude that if it was not raining the weather was good. For the race, I was hoping for exactly that – just no rain. When I arrived in Pitlochry on Saturday afternoon, it was a glorious day, the sun beaming from the sky – but there was also a bit of a wind blowing with quite strong gusts. I would gladly sacrifice some of the sun for a drop in wind speeds.

Pitlochry had turned into cycling central, with nearly every passing car carrying a precious two-wheeled cargo causing the pedestrian population to turn their heads and perform a quick assessment against their own set-up.

Race prep

My race number was 5262, the last number on the start list, and the last person in the last group to set off – I had put down it would take me more than 5:30 hrs. Based on the course profile and playing it safe, I figured that was realistic. However, a quick chat with some running friends and twitter followers brought about a reassessment of the situation and I went back to the registration and asked to move my start time to a faster group. I figured I could do around 5 hours. The lady was happy to change my registration, but the only group with flexibility was the “under 4:30 hrs” group – errhhh… ok, I’ll take that then.

I stopped at the ZipVit Sports stand to say Hello and have a chat about the Alcatraz prep and how the Etape would fit in, and of course to replenish my race nutrition stocks. Having never done this sort of distance before, I was massively concerned about running out of steam about half way and so had decided that I should eat a gel or a bar every 45 minutes and make sure I kept hydrated. So my bento box was filled with ZipVit energy bars, gels (with caffeine and without) and energy chews.

Pearls of wisdom over pasta

Dinner was another thorny issue, when I travelled I had not found a place for dinner yet and with 5000 people registered for the event, it was no wonder it was difficult. But it was again twitter to the rescue and I got temporarily adopted by a group of friends and work colleagues, some of whom had done the race before. So dinner was the ideal opportunity to gain some more first hand knowledge about the course – and it was rather useful. I heard about a mean little climb 7 km from the finish after a sharp left-hand turn that many people hit with the wrong gear and struggle – good to know. During dinner, I also gained a riding buddy @rapidorich (for those of you on twitter) for the race, who kindly agreed to go round with me – mainly in an effort to not get overexcited on the first bit and then pay for it later.

Race Day

After a night that was shorter than anticipated, I did not feel so hot when I looked out the window at grey skies and trees that had their branches whipped all over the place by the wind. Still I decided on knee warmers and shorts, toe covers for the shoes, a base layer, cycling top and arm-warmers and a gilet, packing a thin rain jacket just in case and fingerless gloves. The shades got the orange lenses (the world looks automatically brighter). A quick breakfast of cereal, toast and coffee, the drinks were prepared, the gels and bars stuffed in the bento box, with a few spare ones in the jersey (you never know) and off I was to the start.

I had been warned that there would be a long queue and the cyclists would cover all of the High Street, but I was a bit overwhelmed by what I saw. A sea of colourful jerseys, helmeted heads bobbing, bike wheels swirring, the clack of bike shoes clipping into the pedals left, right and centre – and the start banner a long way in the distance, just about visible.

After a while of jostling me and my bike through all of the riders, I met up with Rich and we made our way to the start. A quick bit of morning gymnastics when climbing over the barrier and we were sufficiently limbered up to join our start wave. The gun went and I was a bit emotional with all the cyclists and cheering people around me. Slowly we crept over the start line and we got off on our ride. 81 miles.

The first couple of miles flew past and I waited with dread the first steep incline that the course profile suggested. It came and went rather quickly, nothing really to be scared of… a nice warm-up to get the heart pumping and the blood flowing. We whizzed along the car-free country roads, with good surfaces – a quick look at my speedometer, it showed 18 mph. Ooops! I was aiming for 15, but I felt good, the group was good and I got pulled along. Wehee!!

The second steep incline on the course profile was much the same as the first, just a bit longer and we easily peddled up it passing loads of people who kept pushing big gears. A quick look at the watch, 45 min over. Time for food. I was determined to be religious about it. We bypassed the first feed station still speeding along at 18 mph. The terrain got a bit rolling and we turned into the wind. Time to look for some shelter behind some broad backs. But that was not so easy, mainly psychologically because I do not like riding in big groups riding close to the wheel of someone I do not know, all the while with riders from later waves zipping past. It was true what people told me, you were never alone in this race. Somewhere between 25 and 30 miles, I lost Rich when a big group came past and so I set off to tackle the rest alone.

After all, I was here to have fun, enjoy the ride and get mentally prepared for the big hills in San Francisco, finishing it was all that counted. Even on my own, I shifted the pace nicely, the wind came from the back and I had a bit of time to enjoy the peace and quiet and the spectacular scenery. I came past a “Smile zone” sign, although I did not really need extra encouragement to smile. I think throughout the race I had a big, broad smile on my face that even the occasional rain drops could not wash off.

The 40 mile sign came up and I took a look at the watch – 2:20 hrs. Uh! Zippy… nice, I was going a comfortable pace, felt strong, looked around, smiled, enjoyed… I was not in this to race it – except NOW I was! The race calculator came on in my brain. Maintain the pace, add a bit of time for Schiehallion and the other bumps in the road – uhmm… I could do this under 5 hours. Let’s go! The race was on!

King of Schiehallion

The next feed station came up and I quickly stopped to refill my water bottle. I had maintained my food intake of ZipVit gels and bars every 45 min and so things were looking good. 4 min to stop, refill, be back on the road – King of Schiehallion, here I come. I settled back into my pace and saw the sign announcing the timing start of the hill climb. I smiled. Right, this was it, let’s see! I dropped to my small chainring and the middle cog on the back and started tapping out a nice rhythm. In the steepest bit, all of a sudden the course patrol came through because someone had had an accident and the ambulance needed to get through. I have to say all riders behaved very well and the ambulance got through no problem.

And back I was climbing and tapping out that rhythm. The speedo said I was going 10-12 miles – but that was shortly before it died and kept flashing error messages at me. The end of Schiehallion was there rather quickly and I was a bit disappointed – I had just really got into this climb… oh well, all the better because I still had a good way to go and one sharp steep 20% climb waiting for me just kilometres from the finish.

To my surprise, I rode the downhill fairly well. I am a chicken and what I gain on the up-hill, I lose on the way down. But I hung in there enjoying the wind around my nose and thinking “Boy, am I glad, I’m wearing the knee warmers and toe covers”. I passed the feed station and kept pushing on along a long rolling stretch with really good roads. So I put my head down and pushed the pace. Looking at the signs for all the sights to see in the area… there was a sign for an outdoor activity centre in the village of Dull, someone’s not really thought through the marketing strategy there. I flew past the last feed station all the while waving and smiling at people lining the streets: families cheering, and children holding up signs they had made saying “Go! Go! Go!”. I felt a bit like on the Tour de France and just enjoyed it. The 65 miles sign disappeared in the distance and I had a little tear in my eye. This was further than I had ever gone before, every single mile pushed the distance boundary that bit further – and I was still going strong.

I’m having what she’s having

From 70 miles onwards, I got a bit nervous waiting anxiously for that last climb. I started mentally rehearsing how I would go up the hill, prepared for the gear shifting, and just seeing myself go up with confidence – after chickening out of the 25% climb in the New Forest, the mental rehearsal and encouragement was needed. Every mile I kept looking for the cheer point with the sharp left-hand turn, that immediately turned into the steep gradient… 75 miles… still nothing…and then in the distance I heard the cheers. The sign announced a left hand turn to Dunfallandy – this was it!

I shifted down, swung wide on the turn, sat back and kept the pedals turning. Lots of riders were not prepared and had got the gear wrong, stuck in a high gear desperately grinding up the hill. In contrast, I was dancing on the pedals, easily going past people winding left and right. To keep up the pace, I started talking to myself. “Come on girlie!” – I don’t like to be called girly, and I don’t like anything that is pink (whoever had the idea that if it said “woman” on something it needed to be pink?!). I’m sure the guy that I passed, thinking I was cheering him on, wasn’t entirely pleased about hearing “come on girlie”, as a disgruntled grumble suggested. I was still in the saddle easily turning the pedals, still having gears left and when I got near the top, I giggled to myself and said “Yes, yes, yes!” – again receiving a few confused looks and I was just waiting for someone to say: “I’m having what she’s having!”. I managed the hill and it was easy – San Francisco could come!

Once at the top, I did not hang around much… it was only about 7 km to go to the finish. RACE ON! I shifted back to the big chain ring and started time trialling it to the finish, remembering those sessions from Shepperton with 20 mph winds blowing in my face. Yes, I could do this and it was fun! There were a few bumps in the road that were a bit more severe than I expected, but nothing I could not handle. I flew over the bridge, turned into the main street, pushed it up the little hill, the last few hundred meters cheered on by people lining the streets in 4-5 deep rows. Shame there wasn’t really a Flamme Rouge on the course… but the support from the crowd was just amazing!

Beep – beep! I crossed the timing mat – that was it. It was over. I had done it! I could not quite believe it – and the watch showed 4:43 hrs and that included the water stop. After recovering a little bit, having a chat about the race, drinking and eating a bit, I walked back to the B&B contemplating the race, smiling – the heavy medal flopping against my chest with every step. After a nice hot shower, my legs started to recover and switched to achey mode, my lower back complained, but it was all washed over by joy. My friend Louise fed me the largest pile of pasta imaginable for dinner to refuel and I told my race story over and over…

Now I’m travelling on the train, back to London and just got word that the official results were posted. Since I’ve only got my own watch time and no idea about my King of the Mountain time, I was curious…. I analysed the spreadsheet to death:

-         1904th overall out of 4074 who finished

-         95^th woman out of 515

-         20^th in my age group out of 90ish

-         877^th in the King of the Mountain overall

-         27^th woman in the King of the Mountain

-         6th in my age group

Onwards and upwards

The rather big smile returned to my face. I am terribly pleased with myself. It was such a great ride: the weather was perfect, the people on the road came out in troves (some had even put water and jelly babies out). It had made me feel a bit like royalty, zipping through the car-free streets and country lanes waving at the crowds from my carbon steed with a big smile.

Mentally, the ride achieved its goal: I feel now better prepared for Alcatraz and certainly physically, I’m strong enough. Now I just need to recover, get through this week of training and then next weekend – then I’m off to the Palace, the Crystal Palace Sprint Triathlon.

Training for Alcatraz

Now that the first shock and frenzy has subsided slightly, I have a bit of time to sit back and take stock.

The most important bits are organised:

- I've booked a flight and got my travel to the airport sorted
- I've found a bed
- I've got my kit sorted (BIG THANKS to ZipVit - it looks flash, pictorial evidence to follow)
- I've organised a swish pre-paid travel money card, not that I've got huge pockets, but find the idea of travellers cheques a bit clumsy
- I've got my bike rental reserved - eerrrhhh... no, that needs to be done, TOMORROW - not got a fax at home...

Now that those worries are off my mind, I've embarked on an information gathering frenzy to learn about the race. The info e-mails from the organisers on the various parts of the race are all very useful. They point out what to expect, highlight places and spots to take on drink and food and just give you a general overview, which in some ways is reassuring. However, I've got a very vivid imagination and reading some of those info e-mails have set my heart racing and left me sitting at my desk with my mouth open, mumbling: Oh, God, oh god... for about 5 min continuously, affirming my colleagues' suspicions that I have, finally, gone completely nuts.

To quieten down the images of humongous hills and drifty sand and sharks chasing me through the bay, I've consulted the 'source of endless visual proof of all things on the planet' that is You Tube to see what the actual course is like. First thing I came across, is this little film by none other than Chris "Macca" McCormick. Who better to consult than a triathlon legend and multiple winner of the Escape?



So, has this helped to alleviate my fears? Yes, slightly. It has put things in perspective. But the main question remains:

Just how do you train for this?!

This is where I'm encountering a little dilemma. After changing my goal of the season away from duathlon and focussing on sprint triathlons, my goal race is now the ETU qualifier and National Sprint Triathlon Championships at the Speedy Beaver - Exactly a week before Alcatraz! Now we all know that you can't serve two masters, but what's a girl to do?

To be honest - nothing! I've put in a whole load of training to get myself ready for the Speedy Beaver and have a stab at qualifying for the Europeans in Israel 2012. At the same time, I'm training about 10 hours per week and put in some good mileage in the swim, bike, run - so the distance shouldn't be an issue, right? Ok, maybe on the swim, but I've reached new heights with my swim training: yesterday, my session was a total of 3.1 km and I actually ripped through 2.1 km per hour. Knowing that little fact has given me a good boost in confidence that I can actually handle this swim and not be collected by the boat.

However, I have made some adjustments and got one very special event lined up to get me ready. So here's a peek at my normal training regime:

Monday - Squad swim with the Wimbledon Windmilers which focuses on technique and strength  (about 1.5 km)
Tuesday - long reps on the track (been doing mile and 1k reps)
Wednesday - bike session, hard efforts to build some strength (hills and sprints) - 2 hours-ish total (incl warm-up and warm-down)
Thursday - track session with an insane number of reps and short breaks at faster than 5k pace (i.e. 30 x 200 m in 42 sec off 30 sec rest)
Friday - REST DAY (and boy do I love my rest day)
Saturday - Squad ride with ONE Triathlon RDS which now takes the form of time trial reps, with bricks and transitions thrown in (e.g last week it was 2x10k time trial + 15 min brick run at race pace) - 2-3 hours-ish total
Sunday - pool swim, this is the one with the lllooooonnng reps, well for me anyways (now amounts to about 3k of swimming)

That's my normal schedule, but there are also a few additional things:

- I have banned all elevators and escalators from my life. It's stairs only to get myself ready for the sand ladder. And trust me, the London Underground has a lot of stairs and working on the 6th floor makes for some nice climbing.

- Specially, to get me ready for the hills, ZipVit were very kind and offered me entry to the Etape Caledonia (that's a link to the elevation profile, it shows best what it's like - check 80 km) on 15th May. This is either going to wipe me out or give me that little extra boost - I hope it's the latter.

- From Wednesday, I'll have 3 open water swim sessions at Ham Lake with RG Active to at least dip my toe in some water that isn't a pool. The sea swim before the big race is, for now, out the window (unless I can track down this Pedro guy on my arrival in San Francisco).

The schedule from now on is tight, since it is only about one month to the race. And from the Etape, I will embark on 4 weeks of racing back to back. The week after the Etape, I'm doing Crystal Palace (a London League race and voted British Triathlon Event 2010), then the Speedy Beaver and the Tuesday I'm off...

So, will this be enough to prepare me? I don't know. But it is as much as I can do - and well, I suppose I will find out.