The start was brutal..everyone was swimming over everyone else and unlike most races where a few people get out ahead, everyone was in a pack till the first bouy. Luckily I didn't get too banged up. I was definitely sprinting for position at the beginning of the race then settled into a good pace about 800M in. Heading out from the second to third bouy was hard because of battling waves and chop, and about 1/4 into the race I thought "Oh boy...I'm not even half way done!" Strangely enough the girl I paced with last year appeared and we swam together the entire rest of the race (there was another girl with us too). Basically just dragged off of them most of the way. By the half way point I fell into a good rhythm and just kept churning away. Started to get a little chaffing on the neck with about 1200 to go. As we rounded the last bouy the two girls I was with took off-I just don't have that kind of speed anymore (I was the grandmother of the race -oldest in the field).
While I did not place as high as I would have liked, I knocked 6 min off my time from last year and was within about 7 min of the winner and the competition was a lot tougher this year -most of the fastest 1500M swimmers in the country were there (I even beat some of them!!!). Thought it was funny that I was the oldest female in the race at the ripe old age of 27.

not too much

walked around and drank water and gatorade -then had a blizzard from dairy queen :)


not much


The races are getting a lot faster which is great for the sport. Based on the time and competition last year I would have prob placed top ten, but because they are introducing OWS as an olympic event in 08, the "pool swimmers" are more into it. In fact, there was a USA swimming select camp that took place the week leading up to the 5K -the top 10 male and female 1500M swimmers in the country were sent down to Ft. Myers to train together and they all had to swim the 5K at the end of the camp -the fact that I was within 2 minutes of some of them and beat some other Sr. National 1500 M swimmers makes me pretty happy about my race.