Great Chesapeake Bay Swim - SwimOther

Pre-race briefing told us that we'd face a diminishing flood (S->N) current of 0.5kt in the 1st half of the race, though balanced by a NNE wind. Second half of the race we were told to expect an increasing ebb (N->S) current, somewhat amplified by the NNE winds/waves. So my tactical strategy was to get dead center between the 2 spans and work to hold that position. This is a departure from my typical strategy, which is to hug close to the north span of the bridge for the 1st half of the race and gradually move to the south span for the second half. Tactics worked out, we headed to the starting line.

I lined up for the start on the far right, close to the stone jetty that we have to clear before we can turn right to get under the bridge spans. This gives the shortest line to the buoys that mark the turn. At the start I got in front of most of my wave and had clear water almost immediately. Under the bridge I lined up in the center, drafted of a couple people for a while, and found my rhythm.

Mile 1 is typically the easiest of the swim and my tendency is to go out hard. In the past this left me too tired to effectively battle currents that hit during Miles 2 and 3, so my plan was to start out conservatively. I forced myself into an easy, steady, long stroke and relaxed into the swim. Once into the water, waves from the North rolled in, they were long and consistent rollers, not choppy, and at first they made a long body position hard to hold. Once I adjusted to the waves' frequency and prevented over-rolling they weren't much of a problem.

After passing the 1 mile mark the chop increased and the waves became more irregular. The S->N push of the current caused me to make several adjustments to my line and I started sighting on the south span supports. However, the current was never enough of a problem to wear me out and I had little trouble holding my course. The Mile 2 buoy was dead center of the course and I literally swim into it, hitting it with my hand as I went by. Brief stop at the banana boat, ate a gel pack, and attacked the 3rd mile.

I expected Mile 3 to be the hardest, but having started slowly and finding only weak currents I had energy to spend, so I went into a heads down hard pace and tried to make up some time. Somewhere in this mile the current started pushing me southward and I had to make corrections to stay in my center position. Occasional chop came and went but I felt like I was swimming in the pool for a while. To counter the N-S push I started sighting on the North Span bridge supports and I set the goal to pass the Mile 3 marker to the left (North) - and had no problem countering the current to do so. A quick stop at the 2nd boat for some water and on to mile 4.

Mile 4 just seems forever; you can see the end of the bridge clearly but it seems like it gets farther away the more you swim toward it. The water was mildly choppy and gently pushing southward, concentrating all the swimmers into a line right along the south span's support columns. I actually had more kicks, hits, and bumps in this mile than in the start. I also had more drafting opportunities, which I took, leap frogging from one swimmer to another. Finally we passed Mile 4, turned right and got out from under the bridge.

The last part of the swim is the 0.4 miles straight into the finish line. I fell into a nice long, hard pace, sighting every 12 breaths (36 strokes) and taking advantage of the smooth water to finish strong. I swam until my hands hit the bottom then walked the last few feet to the timing mats and was done.

Not much. If I had known beforehand that the currents/wave/chop were more mild than in years past I would have gone out harder in Miles 1 and 2. And I would have remembered to secure the silly pull strap on my wetsuit, which kept getting in my way the entire swim.

I trained less for this swim than in any year previous. Amazingly it is not my worst time, luckily conditions were favorable this year.


This is an epic event, well organized and well supported by volunteers, coast guard, NOAA, etc. There's nothing like it anywhere else in the country.