At the start I was of course nervous because I really wanted to improve from last years performance, so I was trying to place myself next to the people I knew I could possibly draft off. Well with the mass start with men and women together it was a bit hectic until we rounded the Pier and spread out; quickly I found a guy and a women who I was comfortably drafting off of. I noticed the guy had a tattoo around his leg that looked familiar, later found out it was my friend Dan who I swim with at Masters, the women was a girl I swam 3 miles with last summer and didn't really know that until after the race when we were talking story...

Just before I was reaching the turn around buoy a swimmer that already rounded swam right into me! I think they were starting to swim in a circle??? I was clearly on course with the buoy off my left shoulder, I had to do breast stroke for a couple strokes to fix my goggles and saw they were a bit off course, luckily it didn't effect my performance and I didn't loose my draft couple!

I was really trying to stay with my draftees but realized I loss the guy, it was kind of weird he just disappeared, later found out he sighted poorly and ended off course, glad I was following the girl who at the 1/4 mile buoy just took off, I could see her bubbles and just tried to swim as hard as I could to keep up.

Got to the last buoy, like I swam into it, oops and went around it properly and headed in for my finish, I heard the guy say 27 something which is 7 minutes faster than last years first mile swim!!! Talk about excitement, I was hoping for 29 minutes!

Well this went better than I thought, not run into the last buoy, and I misjudged the the depth when coming to shore and thought I could stand and do dolphin dives to the finish, that slowed my momentum a bit.

Well immediately my triceps cramped! I couldn't lift my arms OUCH!, someone got me some Advil and that took a bit to kick in, I couldn't even stretch them for a good 1/2 hour. I kept thinking how could I get in aero position on my bike after a mile swim if this happens again, probably need to do some triceps strengthening???


Continue to to train more long distance, when I swam competitively I only did short course and my stroke was breast stroke.


This is the second year the canoe club host this swim so the kinks are still being worked on, they really need to get the timing system, I am going to suggest they charge a bit more for the race and get a professional to time it, when they gave the age group awards they didn't announce their times, very annoying! It took a long time for them to figure out the results since their is no computer to do for them.