Six decades after three inmates infamously escaped from the water-bound prison that once held gangster Al Capone, Casper’s Dr. Joe McGinley dove off a boat near the short of Alcatraz and swam to San Francisco.
Then he did it again.
The 1.5-mile swim with six others on Friday, June 5 was a practice run, with the second swim two days later the official Escape From Alcatraz Triathlon.
“That swim is always challenging, it always pushes you to your limit,” McGinley said. “I swam across Alcova Lake as practice a week or two ago.”
For McGinley, his swims represented his ninth and 10th times to tackle the challenging currents of San Francisco Bay, and this time he had a bonus seeing gray whales swimming on the other side of the island nearby.
McGinley was among 2,000 participants in the triathlon, making it the eighth time he entered the swimming, biking and running event.
His first time he took on The Rock was as a radiology resident at Stanford Medical Center 20 years ago.
This year’s course took participants from a boat off Alcatraz Island to a point 1.5 miles southwest at Marina Green Beach west of the St. Francis Yacht Club, where athletes transitioned to an 18-mile cycling course that took them through the famed Presidio, out to the Great Highway along the Pacific Coast, through Golden Gate Park and back to the Marina Green.
The ride was followed up with an 8-mile run to that included about a mile of beach sand and a run up the 400 steps of a sand ladder cliff and then a course back to the Marina Green.
“I hadn’t done the swim in about eight to 10 years, so that first one on Friday when you’re jumping in that water, you’re always a little bit nervous,” McGinley said. “So being able to do the swim Friday in more challenging weather conditions gave me me confidence for Sunday.”
An adrenaline junkie and world-class mountaineer, McGinley has also summited the tallest peaks on six of the seven continents on the planet.
Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon -- Competitors emerge from the surf at Crissy Field after the 1.5 mile swim from Alcatraz Island in background (Alamy) 
Swimmers in the water during a past triathlon. (Courtesy Escape From Alcatraz Triathlon) 
The running and cycling course contains great views of the Golden Gate Bridge. (Courtesy Dr. Joe McGinley) 
Cyclists from a past triathlon tackle a hill by the ocean. (Courtesy Escape From Alcatraz Triathlon)
Whale Sighting
On Friday, McGinley and five other racers were accompanied by two boats that protected them and guided their journey. The whales stayed on their side of the island.
Unlike the trio who entered the bay in June 1962 with improvised flotation equipment, McGinley said triathletes’ wet suits protect them from the 50-some-degree water.
Looking back at the trio alluded to in the triathlon name, he said the water temperature and currents would have been the biggest challenge for the escapees, just as it is today for swimmers.
Because of the currents, McGinley and other racers needed to swim in a direction that anticipated the river-like shipping channel that he said has a current of 5 knots or more.
This year the weather was ideal.
Other swims across the bay in the past have had other challenges.
“Whether it’s the weather, the current, chop, the boat traffic, fog, the wildlife, all that contributes to the swim,” he said.
What about sharks?
Great white sharks have been known to enter the bay but not often and typically not this time of the year and with so many participants and all the boats ensuring safety, the creatures are not something contestants even consider, McGinley said.
Though the whales did give him pause.
“This is my 10th time doing it and I’ve never seen whales out there,” he said. “I was talking to another racer and she’d done the triathlon before and she said she saw fins out there.”
It turned out the fins were dolphins, nothing to worry about.
Athletes swim in the San Francisco Bay during the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon (Getty Images) 
The infamous sand stairs on the course burn participants’ leg muscles. (Courtesy Dr. Joe McGinley) 
Participants race along the beach toward the Golden Gate Bridge. (Courtesy Dr. Joe McGinley) 
The San Francisco Belle is used at the platform to launch the swim. Federal law does not allow people to actually swim off Alcatraz Island. (Courtesy Escape From Alcatraz Triathlon)
Personal Best
McGinley said the Friday swim was his personal best but on Sunday he was competing in close quarters with the other participants and avoiding other swimmers. 'The bumps and maneuvers took his time slightly below Fridays.
Although he used a rented bike, the cycling portion is something that is typically his strongest event and a portion of San Francisco’s hills are part of the course, he said.
“The downhills are really fast and that has its own challenges,” McGinley said. “I enjoy getting on the bike and pushing the pace.”
He characterized the ride along the Golden Gate and coast highway as “stunningly beautiful.”
The run on the beach and then the 400 steps up the cliff on the sand ladder did what the course brochure advertised — challenged the legs.
McGinley said he was pretty tired and walked up it; in the past he could run it.
The 51-year-old still finished in the top half of the field for all the ages involved.
“It was one of my better times,” he said. “It wasn’t my best overall time, but it was up there. … I just enjoyed the race.”
After climbing several world peaks and being defeated by a cold virus from climbing Mount Everest last year, he was kind of “burned out” thinking about mountaineering preparation again as a means to stay fit.
In addition to his cross-training prior to the race, about two or three weeks ago, he underwent a biologic/exosome treatment at his clinic and said he felt great and had better energy.
His clinic offers biologics and regenerative therapies that can be applied to sports medicine.
McGinley said he enjoys triathlons and the diversity of training it involves. He particularly likes the Escape From Alcatraz challenge.
“Every time I jump off that boat, I’m like, ‘Man this is exciting,'” he said. “It’s fun every single time.”
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
