Tired, tired, tired is the theme of the day, so I'm just going to get this down as fast as possible. I did it, swam the race, made it to the finish line, and lived to tell... I know it feels good to have set this goal and to have accomplished it, but I'm a little sore right now so it hasn't quite sunk in yet.
This first pic is of the race start. We had to sign in at 7:45 but the race didn't start until 9:00, so I had more than an hour to pace and fidget at the starting line. They announced that the women would be starting five minutes after the men, which was great news because the men are notoriously rough (swimming on top of one another, clawing to the front) at the start. I was most nervous about the start of the race, but once I was in the water it wasn't too bad.
Everyone was saying that this was the toughest year in terms of surf conditions that they could recall. People's times were off by 15 to 20 minutes from last year. I felt pretty good throughout much of the race, but I was definitely zig-zagging quite a bit. The worst point was at about the 1 1/4 mile mark, where I looked up and saw a very distinctive blue house on the Strand. "Oh, good, there's the blue house," I thought. So I kept swimming, swimming, swimming, and then I looked up again and I was STILL in front of the blue house. So I kept swimming, swimming, swimming, and then looked up again and I was a little bit BEHIND the blue house. It was like one of those nightmares where you're trying to move but you're completely stuck. Obviously I was stuck in some kind of current (and I learned later that at least one other person had the same problem at that point) but that threw off my mental game quite a bit. From there on in I felt like I was really fighting against the water.
At the finish line there was a woman who was there at the exact same time as me so we sprinted to the end together. Final time - about 1 hour 30 minutes (for 2.2 miles). I had expected to finish in about 1 hour 10 minutes or 1 hour 15, so I was surprised to see that it had actually taken that long.
But the absolute best part was having Dave and Luke and Zach (and Elizabeth) waiting for me at the finish line. Dave got me a beautiful lei of fresh orchids, which was so amazing that I thought things couldn't get any better than that. Then he told me we were going to eat lunch downtown because I had an "appointment" at 1:00. Turns out he booked me for a massage at my favorite spa, where there's a big balcony you can relax on afterwards with fresh fruit, water, and plenty of magazines. Ah, heaven. Now about next year's race...
This first pic is of the race start. We had to sign in at 7:45 but the race didn't start until 9:00, so I had more than an hour to pace and fidget at the starting line. They announced that the women would be starting five minutes after the men, which was great news because the men are notoriously rough (swimming on top of one another, clawing to the front) at the start. I was most nervous about the start of the race, but once I was in the water it wasn't too bad.
Everyone was saying that this was the toughest year in terms of surf conditions that they could recall. People's times were off by 15 to 20 minutes from last year. I felt pretty good throughout much of the race, but I was definitely zig-zagging quite a bit. The worst point was at about the 1 1/4 mile mark, where I looked up and saw a very distinctive blue house on the Strand. "Oh, good, there's the blue house," I thought. So I kept swimming, swimming, swimming, and then I looked up again and I was STILL in front of the blue house. So I kept swimming, swimming, swimming, and then looked up again and I was a little bit BEHIND the blue house. It was like one of those nightmares where you're trying to move but you're completely stuck. Obviously I was stuck in some kind of current (and I learned later that at least one other person had the same problem at that point) but that threw off my mental game quite a bit. From there on in I felt like I was really fighting against the water.
At the finish line there was a woman who was there at the exact same time as me so we sprinted to the end together. Final time - about 1 hour 30 minutes (for 2.2 miles). I had expected to finish in about 1 hour 10 minutes or 1 hour 15, so I was surprised to see that it had actually taken that long.
But the absolute best part was having Dave and Luke and Zach (and Elizabeth) waiting for me at the finish line. Dave got me a beautiful lei of fresh orchids, which was so amazing that I thought things couldn't get any better than that. Then he told me we were going to eat lunch downtown because I had an "appointment" at 1:00. Turns out he booked me for a massage at my favorite spa, where there's a big balcony you can relax on afterwards with fresh fruit, water, and plenty of magazines. Ah, heaven. Now about next year's race...
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