UPDATE: MY RACE PLACING CHANGED AGAIN DUE TO NON-WET SUIT SWIMMERS SWITCHING OVER TO WET SUITS WITHOUT TELLING AN OFFICIAL BEFOREHAND! >.<The results are not posted yet but I swam a personal best time of 34:51 with an
Anthony and I swam a near perfect race: We nailed how to use the tide to our advantage, we lined up with a bunch of experienced swimmers, we went out hard for the first 200 yards separating ourselves from the pack till we had clean water around us instead of black neoprene.
At first I was startled because as fast as we were swimming the massive pod or rubber and flesh was keeping up with us. It took nearly 150 yards for pod capitulation to take place and for us to get into to a space where the focus was the finish instead keeping feet and arms out of your face.
Anthony and I would lose each other but then 500 yards later he would be at my side which only made us both swim harder. I saw him for the final time when we were 200 yards from the finish. It was there I saw him swim past two swimmers whereas I swam into them; (Or they swam into me), and a water polo game suddenly ensued. One swimmer stayed with me and beat me on the sand by three steps the other evaporated behind us.
It was a ferocious race and I learned something unique to open water swims: you know you are close to the front when you catch another swimmer and they don't like it, they swim harder and they make it a project to beat you.
Side note: a freighter nearly ran over the kayak support staff traveling about 30 knots in between Alcatraz and the Aquatic park. He wasn't suppose to do that. A cop on a Jet-Ski had to wrangle half of the kayak crew out of the way while the others had to storm across its path as quickly as possible.
The image is a shot of the bay from the restaurant we ate at. Alcatraz is the island in the foreground.
6 comments:
This sounds like way, way too much drama for swimming. Congrats on the finish.
Good job, Tony! You are going to have to give me some pointers for La Jolla. :-)
Congratulations! And inspiring. One of these days... I'd like to join you guys!
DO IT! I am going to try and place next year - If you never have swam in open water, it takes like 5 times if your Anthony or 10 times if your me to completely lose all fear of sea dwelling animals. In fact, we are looking at doing a 5k swim in La Jolla in September, maybe pier to pier in August.
WOW! Congratulations! You're so intense and I love that you can do stuff like this. I'm so not a swimmer, so reading your posts is so very inspiring for me, its like reading about life with a whole new perspective. What's this about having "fear" of sea dwelling animals? I'm glad the hear that "fear" is not stopping you from achieving cool things. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SHARING!!!
Well thank you, you are so sweet. I am very flattered. :-)
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