swim

Phil, Javier and I walked down to the start. We didnt talk much.

I went to check on my bike. I was having trouble with the valve extension in the rear wheel, so i walked the bike up to the bike techs to figger it out. dropped off the morning clothes and got ready to head down to the lake. The skies had been threatening to open, and many of the racers still remember clearly the 2008 weather: steady rain from the swim start until midnight. Now around 6:30am we felt a few raindrops, and i heard a woman's plaintiff whine "Oh Cmon! Give me a break!" Who was she talking to?

At this moment I felt completely calm and very enthusiastic about starting. All of these outside factors are out of my control, so why worry? I headed down to the lake.

I stayed to the rear. actually standing chest deep. National anthem, some blabber from Mike Reilly, canon blast and we're off.

I stayed a little to the outside and in the back of the pack. While I couldn't see the underwater cable, there were enough swimmers trying to stay on the line that I had no problem slighting and staying on course. Remarkably;y little contact with other swimmers. When I reached the first turn, i missed the buoy and realized i was inside the turn as i reached the marker. I started to turn around to swim around it, but a woman in a kayak there said i was ok and waved me on.

I finished the first inshore leg, was feeling like i was getting in a nice groove, focused on my form, not too hard, glide, keep my head down. Now I got out of the water, walked around the floating dock and back into the water to start the second loop. I paused here for a minute, and I was nto the only one. Just a bit of a self analysis, gut check, deciding whether or not i really want to do this. Sure I do. So off I went.

Now, the course is getting a little more congested, i think because of getting lapped by the faster swimmers. The times when I drifted in toward the cable, I had some contact, but in general nothing too serious. There was one guy, doing the breat stroke, and as i swam past him he gave me a nice frog kick into the solar plexus. That really sucked.

About 200 yards from the swim exit, i just dipped inside the cable and stopped to look around. A guy in a kayak came over wanting to rescue me. No thanks, just taking in this scene. I did notice a pretty good current pushing me inshore, from all those people swimming in a circle I guess,

I came out of the water, plopped myself down and let a stripper help to remove my suit. I usually dont need help, but how often so you get wetsuit strippers? Maybe once a year?

I rolled up the wetsuit to the size of a football, tucked it under my arm and ran down the chute toward T1.



Swim time 1:32:48