"Dancing in the deepest oceans, Twisting in the water, You're just like a dream" -- Robert Smith (The Cure)

Open water swimming can be just like your "...dancing in the deepest ocean, twisting in the water, just like a dream..." if you practice and learn.

Six swimmers were pulled out of the Tiburon Mile race due to mild hypothermic symptoms. Simple warming procedures like a hot chocolate, some warm clothes and such and they were as good as new. Now contrast that to the L.A. Triathlon where 100's were rescued in far warmer water.

Triathletes even joke how formidable the open water portions are. (See the video above.)

US Masters Swimming needs to create FREE intro swimming programs to get these guy introduced to the dark arts of open water swimming and then up-sell them into a masters program or at the very least cross-sell them instructional tools such as DVDs from Glenn Mills.

Triathletes should realize that two-minutes off their swim time can mean ten places or more on the results food chain. Ten-minutes off their mile-swim time could be 100 places.

Open water swimming is an extreme sport:

Tiburon fire Capt. Steven Ardigo said his department treated four swimmers with mild hypothermia symptoms in the race area.

"They just needed some active rewarming," Ardigo said, noting that the volume of swimmers suffering from hypothermia was higher this year than in past races.

[Link]

The Cure song referenced in the title is called "Just Like Heaven"