Found out the announcers had LIED to us when I got in the water. It was so NOT 75 degree water. It was cold (or, at least, I was cold). Swam back and forth until I could catch my breath and put my face in the water. Swam to the start buoys and we were OFF! The lake had a good swell going. I caught the swell wrong twice while breathing and took a big gulp of water instead of air. I had to stop to clear my throat. I've never caught a swell wrong to that extent before, so I'm not sure if it was the fact that the swells were pretty bad (for this body of water) or the fact that I haven't been back swimming for very long. Also, I was having a very hard time navigating for the first few hundred yards. I was swimming very zigzag. Every time I'd look up to site the buoys would be off to the side somewhere instead of in front of me. I finally got that straightened out though and I was able to get into a groove for most of the race and swam mostly freestyle with some backstroke thrown in. I committed to only breaststroking around the buoys (which I was able to do, except for the aformentioned attempts to swallow the lake.) Overall, I'm happy with how I did. My goal was 45 minutes (or under) and I hit that almost exactly.

Swim more. I've only really been back swimming for the last two weeks and that shows in my time for this race. I could have been much faster (in fact, I have been.) My cardiovascular system was not really stressed by how fast I was swimming. My muscular endurance was more of a limiter.

Stood around in the sun trying to get warm. Ate food we brought, shared friends picnic, they brought, hung out some more, finally packed everything up about 2:00 pm and left.


Not enough time in the pool.


In my opinion, this is the BEST Pacific Masters Event. It is like a huge party, everyone comes, hangs out, swims and leaves. They have shuttles to and from the parking areas and this year had about 2000 swimmers participating.