Pretty good swim. I followed my game plan and started out long and easy and tried to pick things up from there. Unfortunately, every time I tried to pick up my stroke cadence, it felt like I was out of time with the waves - my normal easy pace kept me better coordinated with the waves so I wasn't fighting my way through the water. What was nice about starting at the back was that I spent the entire race passing people, so I was able to keep setting my sights on swimmers ahead of me and then chasing them down. The main difficulty was my sighting. They did not have many buoys so I was gauging my line by other swimmers and I kept being swept toward the shore and having to readjust. The sighting was not so difficult as it was during the Jersey Shore tri, but it still caused me more trouble than it ever does at the lake.

Since I'd never done this before and assumed there were some good swimmers out there, I hung back at the start and got into the water with the back of the pack, then worked my way up. My goal was to take it easy and see what I can do. I think, though, that next time I'll go out further in front, because I got caught in quite a bit of traffic at the back of the pack that I had to fight my way out of for the first several minutes (including getting sandwiched twice as we went around the buoy).

Sat around a little while watching the other finishers, then went to brunch. Didn't stay for post-race stuff because I was unsure what, if anything, would be happening, and where it would be. Could have asked someone, but didn't care too much since I only knew one other person there.


Lack of experience in the ocean, and trouble keeping a straight course.


Nice, casual little ocean swim. This is the first one I've done, so I have nothing to compare it to. Especially since it was my first time, I would have liked a little more information about what was going on. Other than a pre-race description of the course, there was no info.