The chop was pretty bad, it was windy, and I hadn't swam in a while. Two friends (and my mom) who were going to do it ended up not signing up, and my cousin who was supossed to do the triathlon held at the same time got really sick esyterday and couldn't make it. When Nick told me he couldn't make it down I kind of freaked out...luckily he ended up being able to go- I would have been a wreck had I been there by myself!
Water was 6 degrees warmer than they predicted. Still felt reallllly cold when we waded into the start. I had never done a mass start before- Dewey was groups of 25 ish people and really spread out. This was nothing compared to what Bay Swim will be but it was good practice anyway. Managed to do that part OK, although making it out past the jetty (~1/4 mile) was just tough. I always have trouble the first part of my swims, even in the pool. I need a few hundred yards before I can relax and hit my rhythm.
I suck at drafting. Everyone got really spread out in this race.
Course was REALLY poorly marked. Nick said from sitting on land (he was chilling at the end of the jetty) he could see what we were trying to do, but no one could see the buoys and the different colors (orange meant stay straight, pink meant turn) looked pretty much the same until you were on top of them.
The first leg of the triangle was pretty much straight upstream. Into the chop (yikes), and of course that's when there's still people running into eachother and what not. Pretty tough going, but at least the waves were relatively straight on and breathing wasn't too hard. The first "turn" buoy seemed forever away, because of the current.
Turning to the second one we went..surprisingly...straight into the chop again! Wait, how did that happen? That doesn't make sense! We just turned 45 degrees! Ah well.
This was probably the hardest stretch for me. Breathing was hard- waves in your face one way, sun the other way. Lots of mouthfuls of salt water, and just before the forever-away buoy the Coast Guard boats were creating quite a bit of gas fumes in the air...yuck! It was at around this point that I started to think that I was really far behind everyone. I could very few people, looking back, and stopping to sight every few strokes was really slowing me down. The buoys were really hard to see (why didn't they put balloons or something on them?) over the waves so sighting took a while each time, and I did it often. When I would start stroking, I would start to catch up to people in front of me, but then I'd have to stop again and lose time.
Finally made it to the second pink buoy. Turned to go back towards the start. Ah thank god. There it is, big orange buoy...Oh no wait wrong one. There's another way past it. Is that our jetty? Or is that one? This sucks. There is NO ONE behind me. I think I'm DFL. This is really embarassing. I can see the boat behind me, collecting buoys. Crap. Swim faster Grace. You're going with the current, this shouldn't be hard. Cept the waves are still bigger than me, and I'm still struggling to breathe. Uhoh my stomach hurts. Burp? Nope, that's vomit. Yuck. My mouth tasted overwhelmingly like dead fish (that icky icky smell) and went dry from all the salt water I regurgitated. YUCK. I almost cried in the middle of the water. The only thing that kept me going was remembering that there was fresh water just past that buoy....
Getting closer I saw Nick on the end of the jetty. As I got to the harbor to swim in, I waved at him and he started taking pictures. Was really helpful to see him- very motivational.
Ended up coming into the last 1/4 mile with two other people. Have to beat them. You can do this, the waves are gone, GO! I was so exhausted. My arms didn't want to work and my legs were already kicking hard. Don't kick hard! Kicking wastes energy. Doesn't matter, arms aren't working. Stopped and did breaststroke a couple times. Really really need to beat these two. I'm angled better than the girl. The guy might be tough. Cruise past the girl, guy comes roaring alongside of me to the diagonal, kicks me in the head. Jerk. Whatever, he's not in my age group so I dont' care. Swim til your hand hits sand. Get up. Run up to the timing chip. Ahhhh, fresh water. Whew!!
I asked Nick if I was last. He gave me a weird look and told me I was one of the first 20 people in. I am confused. That's not possible; I saw them picking up buoys behind me. No, they were just moving them around. A couple had escaped and they were fixing them. He was right- I ended up 25 overall out of 53, and 2nd in my age group. The #1 in my AG actually won the whole thing, so I got her blue ribbon medal :) I am really pleased with how this turned out.

Put on sunscreen. I have a LOVELY burned face aside from this patch of white on my forehead (line from my swim cap goes straight across) and white spots where my goggles were. Ohhhh babbbbby.
Stop worrying about everyone else. I probably lost a good minute in the race (at least) because of all the times I stopped, treaded water, and looked behind me to make sure I wasn't DFL. And I was nowhere near that!

Raaaaah so hard to see the buoys!!!