My four loops:
26:55
27:38
28:38
28:43
So much for my strategy of speeding up each lap! Okay, so...we all line up. These are "pure" swimmers so I hung near the back not wanting to be in the way. It was SUPER crowded for the first 500m or so. I hit at least one traffic jam of four or five people in a line across so I couldn't pass. But it finally settled out. The water felt nice. Only cold for the first 5 seconds.

On the back half of the first loop I discovered that if you stayed too far left you had to swim through swamp muck. Ew. It reminded me of those bushes from the marsh in Lord of the Rings...the ones with the people staring out of them? Yeah, I SWORE I was going to see a body any minute! On subsequent laps I stayed more right but you couldn't avoid it completely. It was SO grossing me out!

Gosh, there really just isn't anything significant to report. I tried to up the effort on each lap but I just kept getting slower. My form kinda started to go to pot too. Definitely TIRED by the last lap. I tried to draft a couple of times but never found anyone really good. It was an odd format because you could also do it as a relay. So every now and then some fresh relay person would go flying by me. But usually too fast to latch onto. There was also a 9k (not advertised to USMS apparently) and those guys were pretty fast too. Too fast to latch onto. By the end I couldn't tell who was a relay, lapping me, or what.

Oh, on the third lap I had to stop and adjust my goggles. They were coming loose. Right after that I had to pee. That was the only time during the race oddly enough. Probably because I stopped swimming for a minute for the goggles...

Didn't take in any nutrition. Two hours--not worth it to try to carry it. But I was hungry when I was done!

I'm glad I didn't do the 9k. I would have been DFL. Very slow today. Good training for the 10k.

The Garmin came up 800m short. I dunno...my time is about right so I don't think it was short...but the Garmin doesn't lie that much....

Train more. I'd better get off my duff if I'm going to do this 10k in six weeks.

Took a shower. Drank some recoverite. Ate half a snickers marathon bar and a bagel.


Lack of swim training.

Altitude? I may live at 4000, but this race was at 6000!


Better than last year. Last year it was a 5k and it was pouring and the water was freezing. At least the sun was out so I could work on my tan!