Race Day Part 2 - the swim
Jul 19, 02:56 PM
According to the announcer, the water temperature was 75 degrees. I didn’t really believe him in the beginning and still don’t now, but the water was definitely warm. The weird thing was that I didn’t feel like I was in a competition. The water was churning all around me with swimmers, but it wasn’t a competition for me, it was another swim at the quarry. I was passed by a lot of people, a LOT of people, but as I occasionally checked my watch, I saw that I was actually doing pretty good overall on my time, for me at least.
I tried to get comfortable in my own pace, though it was hard with the other swimmers around me. There was a lot of mist coming off the water and it looked really cool. Unfortunately, the mist made it hard to see the turn buoy. I tried to sight off of a tree behind, but the mist made that hard too. Occasionally I would swim breaststroke to sight.
When I turned around towards the start I was pretty alone. I could see people around me but not as many. As I passed the start and headed out for lap 2 the crowd in the water got smaller as the slower sprint racers got out. At first I felt like I was going really slow, but when I checked my watch, I was pretty much on course for my time. I was averaging around 6-7 min per 1/3 of the triangle, so that’s around 18-21 min per circuit. I was shooting for 45min for the swim so I was doing good.
When I finally turned toward the beach at the end of the second lap, I passed a woman who was holding onto the buoy. One of the people in kayaks was coming over to her and she kept saying that she didn’t want to be disqualified by him helping her. He kept saying she wouldn’t be. I don’t know how that ended, but it was slightly entertaining. I also passed a guy who was doing a sprint distance, so at least I knew I wasn’t the slowest person in the water!
Getting out of the water, I had to take my time because of being pretty dizzy. I hit my watch and started heading up to the transition area. The route up to the transition area meant walking under the highway along a path about 100ft before heading up a hill to the transition area. I was barefoot so I couldn’t run normally, but I also felt really tired and worn out so I couldn’t run even if I wanted to. The most surprising thing after getting out the water was that my chest was really sore from all the swimming. I had pushed pretty hard so I was tired, but my legs weren’t feeling too bad.
Goal 1: swim completed in 45min…actual time: 41min 37sec.
Older Articles: Race Day Part 1 - Pre Race Newer Articles: Race Day Part 3 - Bike