July 5 2014 - Cancer Sucks 1.2 mile swim
Today I accomplished a new milestone by swimming 1.2 miles in open water. This was the longest swim I have ever done!
The event was called Cancer Sucks and was held at Grant Ranch. There were about 182 participants in the event. My wife did the swim with me as well as 3 other folks from the Arvada Triathlon Club. It's always more fun when you have family and friends at an event. There were two courses, 1/2 mile and 1.2 mile. The distance options were 1/2 mile, 1.2 miles, 2.4 miles, and 4.8 miles. Most participants did the 2.4 mile course. You could swim in a wetsuit if desired and there were no awards. I chose to swim with the wetsuit.
Since this event was for charity and not a race, the atmosphere was well organized but also very low key. This was great for me as my focus was on finishing the distance not racing for time. We entered the water around 730am and the swim started at 735am. There were only 58 people doing the 1.2 mile swim so the water was not crowded at all. The first buoy was right into the sun so it was a little challenging to see. No worries since there were many people faster that I could follow. Before long we reached the first buoy and turned left for the next buoy. While swimming I had problems sighting the buoys (old eyes?) and veered both left and right too far more than once. At the time it didn't occur to me to look for landmarks other than the buoys. Oh well, live and learn.
The water was warm and great to swim in other than a couple places where we got tangled in sea weeds. I just had to pull a little harder in those areas. Some folks complained that they had to stop and remove the seaweed from their goggles. Luckily that didn't happen to me! For me, the swim didn't seem tough at all. I really felt like I could have gone further. Looking at my Garmin 910XT recording I need to work on swimming in a straight line. I zigzagged all over the place and probably covered more area than I needed to. This might explain why my time was slow. I guess I need to work on sighting.
Numbers:
Total Swim Time: 42:46 minutes
19th out of 30 Age 36+ swimmers with wetsuit
14th out of 20 Male swimmers
33rd out of 58 Total swimmers.
The event was called Cancer Sucks and was held at Grant Ranch. There were about 182 participants in the event. My wife did the swim with me as well as 3 other folks from the Arvada Triathlon Club. It's always more fun when you have family and friends at an event. There were two courses, 1/2 mile and 1.2 mile. The distance options were 1/2 mile, 1.2 miles, 2.4 miles, and 4.8 miles. Most participants did the 2.4 mile course. You could swim in a wetsuit if desired and there were no awards. I chose to swim with the wetsuit.
Since this event was for charity and not a race, the atmosphere was well organized but also very low key. This was great for me as my focus was on finishing the distance not racing for time. We entered the water around 730am and the swim started at 735am. There were only 58 people doing the 1.2 mile swim so the water was not crowded at all. The first buoy was right into the sun so it was a little challenging to see. No worries since there were many people faster that I could follow. Before long we reached the first buoy and turned left for the next buoy. While swimming I had problems sighting the buoys (old eyes?) and veered both left and right too far more than once. At the time it didn't occur to me to look for landmarks other than the buoys. Oh well, live and learn.
The water was warm and great to swim in other than a couple places where we got tangled in sea weeds. I just had to pull a little harder in those areas. Some folks complained that they had to stop and remove the seaweed from their goggles. Luckily that didn't happen to me! For me, the swim didn't seem tough at all. I really felt like I could have gone further. Looking at my Garmin 910XT recording I need to work on swimming in a straight line. I zigzagged all over the place and probably covered more area than I needed to. This might explain why my time was slow. I guess I need to work on sighting.
Numbers:
Total Swim Time: 42:46 minutes
19th out of 30 Age 36+ swimmers with wetsuit
14th out of 20 Male swimmers
33rd out of 58 Total swimmers.
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