so the swim is billed at 2.5 miles, which is about a mile further than i have ever swam. i was a little concerned but at the same time, i figured i had the fitness, i should be fine. then i looked at a map of the swim and quickly had an anxiety attack.
then i just tried to not think about it. i did the race on saturday and that was fine and then i can't remember on sunday and monday and went to the swim group i do on tuesday mornings. i told the coach there that i was doing the Swim for Life the next day and he said that swim practice tuesday morning would not affect my swim on wednesday. later he asked how far the swim was and we discussed my previous longest swim to which i replied 3000, meters or yards? yards. yeah, you'll be fine he said. the practice went well and we were doing some fun sets including 4x50 where the first length of each 50 was closed fist drill and the 2nd was sprinting breathing every 6th stroke. it was hard and challenging but fun. then we were to do 8x100s on 1:50. he looked at me and said, no worries, you'll be fine, ok, well, wait, ok, maybe take every 4th one off. whew! thia saved me, i was already beat. i did 2500yds and then got out, wondering how any of this might affect the swim the next morning that i was pretty much in denial of.
i was up kind of late, resisting the call of the tasty beers in the fridge, but fell asleep pretty much instantly and slept well. the alarm went off at 5:30 and i got up right away. it felt chilly, so i got dressed and fixed a PB&J. i had packed up all my stuff the night before so i took it all out to the car. leslie was early which turned out good, and then we were off. the first thing she said was that she was pretty happy it was so windy out! i hadn't even noticed the wind but once she said it, i got a little worried! we got to our meeting spot and lauren and janet picked us up and we headed to the school to park the car, and start the long walk to the beach. we ran into ingrid, colleen and cathy all from masters in the parking lot! it was a reunion!
at the beach we met up with mat, who was swimming, too and his younger brother wound up being our kayaker. he had come to some of the masters swims so we had met him before, and i guess more importantly, he had met us before and still agreed to be our kayaker.
then we stood on the beach and FREAKED OUT about how cold and windy it was and oh no!! look at the waves and the white caps!! and wow, look, 3 TV stations, but OMG, Idaho flash backs from last year! i quickly did some calculations trying figure out how if it took 51 minutes to do 1500m at that race, how long would it take to do 2.5 miles? wow, really long. janet even looked me right in the eye and said something to the effect of "i can't look at your face any more!" we did all discuss just not doing it, it was a safety issue and why weren't they calling the event anyway, who is in charge of this thing?
next thing ya know, the first group was off, the 2nd, the 3rd then ours, the red wave - despite our caps being day-glo orange.
the water was warm!! but the waves! the white caps! yikes! right off the bat janet almost got run over by a weird canoe like boat that we later heard capsized along with a few other kayaks out there. also heard that one team turned around almost instantly and a few had to be pulled out by rescuers and some were just moved along in the course! but once we got a little bit away from shore we started swimming. the first 10 minutes were really long. it wasn't so bad, the waves were manageable, and despite seeing janet get pounded really hard by a few and being super impressed that she just kept going, we just kept swimming. after that first 10, we stopped, re-grouped, decided that clement would need to be to the right of us since all the waves were crashing on our left, we needed to breathe out the right (hooray since i am a right side breather anyway!!) and we could just watch him the whole time instead of having to site on our won.
we took another break at about 20 minutes and another at 30. then we kicked some ass and didn't take another break until 45 minutes in. the breaks were short, mainly for re-grouping and to make sure everyone was still good but after that last one it was like WOW! we made some major progress!! we started swimming again and i started to feel a cramp on the verge in my left calf. i was not going to get pulled due to a cramped calf! i didn't tell anyone because if i didn't mention it, maybe it wouldn't happen. i don't remember stopping again until a little after an hour. we all hung onto the kayak for a little, shared a clif shot - i was hoping it would help keep the cramp at bay. the chop really started to pick up again but we were ALMOST THERE!! we took one last short break then made the final push into shore! i have never been so happy to see milfoil!!! we came over it and right into the beach all in a line with clement right there guiding us the whole way!
as soon as we could stand, we did and then well all hugged each other!
as we got out of the water we saw the rest of our friends from masters, they took some photos, charity came all the way down to madison park before work to see us finish and the photographer from the seattle times took our photo, too!
we hung out for a bit, changed, snacked and then headed to the dock to get picked up by a speed boat for the ride back to medina beach. i can't write about the boat ride right now. but will eventually because it was almost too good to be true.
after coming home, having more snack, i got on the trainer for an hour to ride for a bit. i should do a little run to pretend like i've done my own mini ironman but i won't.
a few things i think:
1) this swim was waaaay fun
2) the swim in idaho and and maui were big contributors as to why i was ok with the waves
3) i was super happy to be on a team with janet, leslie and lauren and have clement as our kayaker!
4) while this was super challenging, i think the run at the portland xterra was actually harder
5) never once while out swimming did i think about quitting
6) i might do it again next year
7) that we actually went about 2.7miles
8) i'm still feeling the wave while sitting here rocking on the couch
9) swimming is fun (OMG did i just say that?)
2 comments:
Here's what I think about what you think:
1. Yes it was waaaaay, waaaaay fun.
2. I was equally super happy to be with all of you.
3. Yes it was challenging but anything with both run and xterra in the title has to be harder.
4. Of course you didn't think about quitting because you don't roll that way.
5. Not you think, you WILL do it again next year!
6. Yes you did say that and it's true -- can't wait to have you back!
Great job Carrie! Definitely tougher conditions than I ever did it in! Sad to miss it.
Post a Comment