Right as the horn sounded, I was immediately passed buy about 6 guys who took off(I ended up 7th OA in the men's race). I couldn't match their pace but I grabbed the last guy and tried to stay with him but he eventually gapped me and dissapeared. Well, I tried to get into a solid pace and felt like I was moving well for the first half a lap, Nick's advice ringing in my head to swim fast. And before you knew it...I was just swimming the same as I always do for a long course race. It's a tempo/cadence which I seem to just fall into and can not for the life of me get out of it. I try and commit to swiming from one marker to the next faster but never seem to do it. One odd thing was a had some numbness in my fingertip of my left hand during the 2nd lap but it went away after a bit. Shoulder felt fine, so I don't know what cuased it.

I always seem to start feeling good towards the later half of a long swim and really did start to swim faster coming into the final lap. As I was headed out for the first leg, I noticed another swimmer had caught up to me. I knew they were in my race and as i had been lapping back markers for a while, knew they were on their last lap as well. We rounded the first buoy together and I dropped in behind and found a PERFECT draft. I figured they were swimming very close to if not a bit faster than me, so i stayed there for some great practice. Unfortunatley, after a few taps on their feet, they got annoyed and at the last turn, flipped over and let me pass. I felt bad...and then felt worse when I saw it was a woman I was harassing and drafting off! She swam next to me all the way in and although we both picked up the pace, I made no effrot to try and clip her at the line after my poor etiquette! I finsished right behind her.

Once out of the lake, I went over and apologized and she was gracious and accepted. I had no idea who she was until later when the results were posted. Turns out she also coaches with Nick and had done her first IM in Nov at IMAZ and finsished in 10:15! Even better, to soften the blow to my fragile ego, she swam a :57 at IMAZ to my 1:01. She was a competitive High School swimmer.

SIWM FASTER.

Although I was about :40 seconds slower than the 4000M OWS race in Tempe Town Lake back in November, this course waas a bit slower based on all the finishing times. I was a bit dissapointed in my effort, but afetr seeing how fast Karleen sawm IMAZ and the fact that I was right there with her made me feel better. Just have to keep up the yardage and keep getting out to the lake.