AlcatrazIdiots

Friday June 12th

Maybe I should have known this prior to coming to San Francisco, but it is COLD here!! Don't they know it's June?!
Jamey and I flew in Thursday night and it was freezing and windy. All of our cold weather gear (ok, our fleece jackets and A pair of jeans) was shipped over with our bikes so we had nothing warm until we picked everything up the following morning. After walking about 3miles (pre-coffee) to find the bike shop our bikes were shipped to, we were told we couldn't pick anything up till 1pm.
It was 10am and not much warmer than it was the night before. 3 hours in nothing but a tank top and shorts was NOT an option, so we broke down and bought some warm clothes.
Once fitted in our proper June clothing, we hunted down some coffee and met up with Mark, Shannon and the kids. (p.s. The coffee shop had cups just like the ones at the Red Eye! Terrible coffee though.)
We had lunch at the Fisherman's Warf then caught a cab back to the bike shop, actually it was more like an REI. It was called the Sportsman's Basement. It was in an old supermarket. Pretty cool. Anyway, we picked up our bikes and headed out to see just how hilly the course was going to be. We were joined by a guy from Chicago named Jim who I think was impressed by our climbing skills, being from Tallahassee and all. We toured about 5 miles of the course before we had to turn around and get back for the mandatory race meeting. Judging on what we rode, things didn't seem so hard. Little did we know how hard the last 4 miles till the turnaround was going to be!!
At the meeting all our troubles were eased when we found out #1: the secret to surviving the swim was to just "swim across the river" and #2: the water was unseasonably warm, hovering around about 59 degrees!
Thank goodness we have been training in cold water.......oh, wait.