Madison Mile 6-26-2011

Had my usual pre-race anxiety at home both last night and this morning looking for an excuse to not do the race, which I signed up for on Tuesday. I kept reassuring myself that I love open water swimming, particuarly in the ocean and that it will refresh me and i will feel great when I am done.

I arrived an hour early, signed in and picked up my timing chip. I put on my wet suit and did a short warmup. The water was 64 degrees, and even with the wet suit, felt cold to start, but it wasn't too bad. I swam halfway out to the first buoy and back, then got out and hung out with a couple other members of HEAT. They had two shorter races for little kids and then six waves in the main race -- I was in wave 5 -- the master's men. The first four waves were kids 15 and over and 11-14. The waves went off every five minutes. The course was a horeshoe where you had to keep the buoys on your left the whole way. From the beach, it looks easily marked, but that changes once you get in the water. The sighting from water level through fogging up lenses is much harder. Watching the others go off, it was clear there was a distinct current pushing swimmers to the left. Most of the group, while passing the first buoy on the left, were soon well right of the first and second buoys which were in a straight line out. I took note of this and instead of swimming to the first buoy, I swam far to the right and aimed at the second buoy. I passed well to the left of the first buoy, but on the long trek out to the second buoy, looked back over my shoulder and saw that I still drifted left with the first buoy back behind me to my right, where it should have been on my left because I had passed it quite far to its left.

If I were made ruler of open water swims, I would mandate that all buoys be evenly spaced and there would be more of them. The leg out to the third buoy seemed to take forever. I wasn't swimming badly, nice and easy strokes, not much kicking and sighting every three strokes to try to stay straight. Once I passed the third buoy, I was disoriented and it took me awhile to pick up the next buoy. The kyackers confused me as they were scattered about and I couldn't judge the course from their position, although one was very helpful and kept me from swimming out to sea, by redirecting me. Coming in didn't take very long, although when I was about 100 yards from the last buoy headed right at it, I took three strokes and looked up and I was suddenly far far to its right. I suspect there was a little rip current that just moved me wide there as opposed to a constant steady current throughout.

I finished strong and after crossing the mat, looked back to see how many swimmers were still on the course. Not a lot, but I wasn't last.

I came in in 39:40, which is about what I expect my time to have been on a mile swim in the pool at a similar speed. This placed me 7 out of 10 in the wet suit division. Last year I finished in 45:12(but I think the course was longer then).

The banannas were all eaten by the time I got in, but I did get a powerade and a bag of chips.

Results