Okay...long race but honestly...not all that much to say.

I started out slow to make sure I warmed up. For a ccouple hundred meters I just took it easy and tried to avoid people. I felt good. The first hurdle is getting to the paddler hook up area and finding your paddler. It's maybe a half mile in? You can see just an armada of paddle boats ahead of you and your job is just to keep on swimming and let THEM find YOU. Well, pretty early on in the group I happened to spot my paddler so I waved at her. After that I did not worry about it. I just kept swimming. It took her a few minutes to catch up to me. I finally saw her come up from behind and start hanging with me.

As a side note, her boyfriend's dad was also racing and her boyfriend was paddling for him (so, her boyfriend was paddling for his dad).

So the first mile FLIES by. Or...my ESTIMATE of the first mile. No mile markers! But I went past the cove that I thought was the first mile at about 34 minutes which was exactly the pace I wanted to hold. Which made me realize that I was going to be WAY slow today. I mean...if you are at your planned "average" pace at mile one...you're screwed!!!

I had originally wanted to stop every 45 minutes for gel/water, but I decided to do 50 minutes instead. Last year I did 40 minutes and it was WAY too much. So right at 50 minutes I popped up and told my paddler I was ready for a rest stop. I bought a new toy for this race...Hammer Nutrition's "Gel Bot". It's a water bottle with essentially a gel flask in the middle. So, you can one-handed get water AND gel. :) I had a big problem opening gels while trying to tread water last year. This Gel-Bot was my solution! It worked well...easy one-handed operation! The bottle says it holds 3oz of gel, so I thought that would be three servings. It was hard to estimate how much you were getting out though and I used up most of that in the first gel stop. Oops.

So, all the way through that first gel stop I felt smooth. But the boat chop was building up during Mile 2. It started MUCH later the previous year and wasn't nearly as bad. It turns out that everyone thought this was one of the worst boat chop years EVER. I HATE fighting boat chop! Sometimes it as solid light chop and every once in awhile there would be HUGE waves that threatened to beach you.

My paddler told me I was swimming very straight. I'm good at that. I was kind of far from the shore...but I took the most direct route that way!

So, somewhere after mile 2 I started to get tired. Ruh roh! The pace definitely slackened between the fatigue and the boat chop. I stopped two more times. I peed right after every stop (not sure why...it just worked out that way!). I didn't get a lot of gel on the second stop because I had taken almost all the gel out of the Gel-Bot on the first stop. By the third stop I had to use my gel-flask that I brought along. All that meant was I had to have her throw me two things instead of one. No biggie really. They both floated.

So, at the third stop, I was about 2:20 into the swim and trying to figure out where I was. I SUSPECTED I was about 4 miles in...maybe. So I asked my paddler...but....she wasn't very good at reading the map. She thought we were a MILE from the finish. As much as I wanted to believe her, I didn't because I knew the first buoy would be at mile 5 and it wasn't even in SIGHT yet. So after I took my gel/water I told her I wasn't sure if I was going to stop again or not and just plowed on.

This is about when my darkest miles started. I was HURTING. I was tired. My arms/shoulders/back ached. The waves were getting stronger. All around I was in ROUGH shape. I popped up a lot in the next mile. I NEEDED to see that buoy! And it wasn't appearing! I even commented to my paddler about it once and she gave me some words of encouragement. But this is the point where the body gave up and the mind took over. I just had to keep on going. 45 or so minutes later I FINALLY got to the first buoy. FINALLY. I had made several attempts to "speed up" for a final push but all failed. I was just too spent already. Once at the first buoy, that pretty much left me with a half-ironman length swim left AND meant I had no choice but to stop for gel one last time (at that buoy). So, this is also the point where I realized I was going to take nearly 4 hours to complete this swim. Crap.

With the final gel break behind me I set off and made one final attempt at speeding up. But the boat waves and the fatigue were just too much. There would be no fast swimming today. The last section between the first and second buoys felt like it took FOREVER. I almost didn't think I was making forward progress. The only thought I had was "Where the f- is the f'ing cove?" You see, the second buoy is there to tell you not to enter ANY coves until after you pass it. Even after I passed it I thought it took forever to get to the cove.

I finally make it around the corner and the finish line is in sight...but SO SO far away! I'm not sure what happened to me but I had been swimming SO straight all day and then on this last stretch I kept pulling left! Ugh. Suffering...suffering....

About 15 meters from the finish I picked up fly and crossed the finish line that way. If you can't end with a carwheel, you have to end with style.

Train more. I was SERIOUSLY undertrained for this event. Last year I peaked out at over 70k yards in July. This year...30k. BIG difference. Bottom line I was NOT ready for it.

I kneeled at the finish line for a bit until I got my goggles and cap off. Then the finish line assisters helped me stand up. I took a few gentle steps until I felt okay. Then I went and thanked my paddler and got my bag. I ate a few bagel pieces but didn't hang around long. I had a plane to catch!


Lack of training.


I wouldn't miss this race for the world. What can I say? I dig the long distance swimming stuff.

Physically, I was not in shape for this race. But, mentally, I was proud of the effort. It had been a long time since I had to talk myself into finishing. "Finishing" hadn't been an issue in a race lately. It made me remember why I race. For the challenge of it all. Well, today I was challenged...and I finished. I love this stuff.