Madison Open Water Swim (MOWS) - Swim

I was expecting a 1:15, I am highly disappointed. 1:16 would have been double my half-iron swim and I worked harder on this swim-only event. However, there were a couple of issues for me that helped me have a higher time: 14 minutes into the swim my wetsuit came unzipped which I spent time calling a kayaker over and have him zip me back up, and I had a ton of ballast from taking on all the water. So, I'm guessing I lost a few minutes with getting zipped back up, and even though I was working harder it was because I was pulling more weight. I just can't believe that I became 14 minutes slower with all the work I've been doing.

Interestingly, since I couldn't really swim with my suit open I had to stay in place and that is the only time I felt a slight elevation in nervousness - the kayaker didn't immediately see me for about a minute.

Have someone else zip me up - my friend did it and she seemed unsure if it was zipped, then sure that it was okay.

I probably shouldn't have gone out as hard as I did during the first length.

None - major bathroom break, a gel and water, then off to bike for 5 hours.


Wetsuit coming undone, and the additional water I took on - or at least that's what people have told me as the reason for swimming slower.

I was also on the far outside of the lane, so I swam a lot of extra yards a few times to get back to the lanes closest to the buoys.


There's not much you can do for a swim event other than pre and post race. I patch and duck-pendant were a bit odd for swag.

Music was good, plenty of volunteers on the water.

A bit crowded to filter into the water at race time and the starter should have been on the water to start not yell and blow a horn to start from shore. Since a lot of people actually use this as a warmup for Ironman, they could provide a corral for bikes and/or swim stuff.