But, if you can, get some extra sleep two nights prior. Rest is an edge, and once you’ve put in the work preparing to compete, you’d be foolish to give up such an easy advantage.

On Sunday, after two nights’ sleep, I’ll jump into San Francisco Bay to race in the 2009 edition of the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon. My training this year has been better documented than in the past, but I’ve made different choices, too, so not sure about comparables.

In 2005, my only previous Alcatraz race, I finished 181st among the amateurs, with a time of 2:52:45. The links in that old post are dead, sadly, but I have a printout of the 2005 results. 49:52 for the swim, 6:51 for the first transition (which includes a run of a half-mile or so), 56:29 for the 18 mile bike ride, 1:41 for the second transition, and 57:56 for the 8 mile run, including the sand steps/ladder in 2:17.

Thinking ahead to Sunday, I don’t expect much better for the swim, which put me in 655th place then. Again this year, I did enough in the pool to know I can finish it…but not much more. Realistically, I’ll come out of the water with plenty of people to chase.

I’ve been racing on the bike this year, which is new to me. Consider my 2005 words:

I wonder what’s it like to just race on the bike… it was fun to pour on the pedals with the streets closed to cars.

That’s what led to my starting bike racing last year, actually.

I commute on my road bike over much of the bike course quite regularly, so I have no excuses not to have a great ride, and I expect to. Still, not sure how much more time I can gain over my 2005 split, which was 63rd among amateurs that year.

I’ve been running a bit less, with fewer dedicated hill repeats this year. Several of my tempo runs have been excellent, though, so I’m hoping to gain a little time there, too. Not sure I can better my 115th place run from four years ago, but the pace is doable.

I was conservative in my 2005 predictions. I don’t think I’m being too aggressive now in saying I believe I can do better than last time, but Sunday will tell the story.

The book, by Scott Rosenberg, aspires to match Tracy Kidder’s The Soul of a New Machine, the classic record of a technology team overcoming the hurdles of innovation to deliver a product to market. While James Fallows makes that analogy explicit in his cover blurb, Dreaming in Code fell short for me.

Rosenberg chose Chander (an email/calendar/lifestream program…at least originally) because it was an open-source project with a different structure: more centralized, and funded generously by Mitch Kapor. But the team members changed throughout the three years plus that Rosenberg followed the project, and the software wasn’t delivered during this period, either. Because the cast of characters changes significantly, I lost interest in the people — and stories of this kind are really about the individuals melding (or not) into a team. Without software in people’s hands, there’s no sense of accomplishment, and no closure, either. Chandler continues, but simply with diminished ambitions and a disinterested audience.

The fits and starts in the development provide Rosenberg plenty of pages to delve into the research and writings about software development. These sidebars weren’t necessarily new to me, but more enjoyable than reading about Chandler’s failure to cohere.

Those in the technology realm will nod their heads at the tales of failure here, but I’m not certain about its appeal to a broader audience. Scott’s blog Wordyard is worth following, though. And I see his next book, about blogging, is due this summer. I admire his willingness to dive in again on a topic that is very much not finished.

One of the two runners right behind me had a GPS on his watch, and said the course is actually 3.27 miles long, beyond the official 3.10. It felt a bit long, given the smooth downhill slope of the last two miles. I began the morning pretty beat after a long bike ride the day before, but ended a hard week with a good race. (Been resting/recovering most of this week.)

Not consistent courses, but here’s my history. Before looking at this, I was happier with my time!

• 2008: Raced on the bike at Early Bird Criterium instead.
• 2007: 18:37
• 2006: 18:28
• 2005: 18:58
• 2004: 18:34

I finished in 18:46 officially, 29th place overall out of 1,715 runners and walkers. Seventh place among the M30-39 age group, with a 6:03 minutes per mile pace. My hand-timed finish was two seconds faster, but what you gonna do?

First mile out Golden Gate Park and east along the north side of the Panhandle, 5:50. Second mile, all along the Panhandle, including the turn back west, 5:55. For the final 1.1 miles, mostly in the Park, and finishing right in front of the De Young Museum, across the street from the new California Academy of Sciences, 6:58 (which equates to ~6:20 pace).

This extremely local race, on a weekend we rarely travel anymore, is part of the routine.

• 2006: 18:57 (same course, same finishing 1.1 miles, but I held my pace better in the 2nd mile this year)
• 2005: 18:53 (can’t remember course)
• 2004: 19:33 (can’t remember course)
• 2003: 29:55 for 5K, ran with my sister, pushing the boy in the jogging stroller (blog started in March 2003)
• 2002: 39:05 for 10K
• 2001: 39:24 for 10K

Update Official results: 47:12.4 for 9th in the M30-39 age group, and 34th overall, out of 2294 in the race. Pace was actually just a shade under 6:20 per mile.

The miles were marked clearly for a bit and then…not so much. Here’s what I got:

• Mile 1: 6:21
• Mile 2: 6:27
• Mile 3: 6:30 (only hill on the course, up and then back down)
• Miles 4-6: 18:15 (all on Crissy Field, dead flat, turning at the Golden Gate Bridge)
• Mile 7-finish: 9:32

In my preparation for the race, I ran a 5:46 mile on the track this past Tuesday, as the final piece. The previous three miles were 6:20, 6:23, and 6:12. Stretching it out over 7+ miles worked pretty well today, so I’ll aim for the 10K this Thanksgiving Sunday.

Since every earthquake is seen as a possible precursor to the “big one,” the foreshock reference feels like a bit of dramatic license. But I did read A Dangerous Place: California’s Unsettling Fate by Marc Reisner a few weeks ago. In this short, posthumously published book, Reisner quickly scans the history of the growth of California cities, especially San Francisco and the rest of the Bay Area.

Not surprisingly for the author of the justly famous Cadillac Desert (subtitled “The American West and Its Disappearing Water”), Reisner harps on the fragility of the water supplies of both Northern and Southern California. The aquaducts were not news to me. The novel danger to me was the levees in the Central Valley.

If the levees fail, at least two things happen.

First, of course, many people and even more farms are flooded, as the Delta’s salt water pushes up into the now-settled farmland several feet below the top of the levees.

Second, the water supply to Southern California is disrupted mightily, since the pipeline bringing water from Northern California to Souther California are shut off if the intakes are now brackish.

Technology exists in other places, but the farmland and food distribution infrastructure of the Central Valley has few parallels around the world. California’s economy — and therefore the United States economy — would suffer mightily.

After this introduction to all the possible dangers, Reisner creates a “what if” scenario in the last half of the book, “documenting” what happens when (not if) a magnitude 7 quake hits. This is scary, in a matter-of-fact way, though not as interesting as the first half of the book.

If you’re going to read Reisner, start with Cadillac Desert instead. But for a quick, fact-based scare about the earthquake risk we all ignore to live here, read A Dangerous Place.

The book was published in 2003, but was written by Reisner before his death in 2000, so he put the date of 2005 out there for his scenario. Reading the alternate (future?) history two years after the fact doesn’t change anything: the risk remains, and it always will.

However, it is possible that the replacement of the eastern span of the Bay Bridge might be done before a big quake hits… but it’s telling that Reisner in 2000 envisioned the bridge being replaced by 2007, not in time for his imagined 2005 quake.

The currest estimate? 2013. (source)

My eyes didn’t snap open, but I woke up, clock says 4:43am, and things kept shaking for maybe 10 seconds more. I could hear things shaking, but nothing fell or was out of order when I got out of bed. I tried to go back to sleep, but given two of the last three books I’ve read (but not yet blogged) are about earthquakes…not so much.

Intellectually, I know we’re living in denial about the potential impact of an earthquake, bracing and bolting notwithstanding. But reading these books breaks through the background clutter. The two books: A Dangerous Place by Marc Reisner (of Cadillac Desert fame) and A Crack on the Edge of the World by Simon Winchester. I like living here, despite the red zone. I am a bit more conscious of this choice these last few weeks. Especially this morning.

The USGS has details about this 4.2 magnitude event, which officially took place in Oakland at 4:42am. I reported my experience, which you’re invited to do, and here’s the aggregated map and report of observers.