IMFL - The Swim

The gun went off...

 

Without a second thought, I was heading into the water. The waves that were there, I don’t even remember them. I was just looking straight ahead, pushing through the sea of people. I started swimming, keeping my head up because there was just so much going on. Words cannot describe the chaos in the beginning. It’s insane. There was a fleeting moment when I thought, “this is it, I’m done.” But I looked around and there’s no one to help you. Yes, there are boats and kayaks but you can’t see them amidst all the flailing arms and splashes so I just stuck my head down and got to work. My swim coach told me to just get through the first 8 minutes and it would settle down. I actually remembered this and kept repeating it to myself. He was right.

 

I was getting kicked and hit left and right and the male swimmers were ruthless. I had my legs pulled, my torso pushed down, and took a few hits that actually made me yell “ow.” But with each push I fought back and held my position. I saw one swimmer, a male probably in his 20’s, struggling. He was on his back and you could see the panic in his face. I asked him if he was ok and he could barely utter, “this is so unreal.” I told him to go slow and take deep breaths. There was no time to say much more because I just had to keep moving with the masses. Before I knew it I was at the first bouy, which was calmer than I was expecting.

 

After a short swim parallel to the beach, we were heading back towards the shore. The craziness on the first loop never really subsided but I was at least able to find my rhythm and swim. I swam as far in as I could, using the waves to my advantage, and exited the water for my second loop. I walked the short stretch of the beach, grabbed some water to rinse the salt water out of my mouth and spotted Andy. I was smiling ear to ear and started jumping up and down. I had checked my watch and was ecstatic that my first loop clocked in at 33 minutes. I was WAY ahead of where I thought I would be.

 

Entering the water for the second loop was much harder because we had to cut across on a diagonal and fight the current and waves. But it was much less crowded at this point and I had plenty of room to swim. It crowded up again at the bouy and this time, the turn was what I was expecting. Ugh, shoves left and right! At this point things got crazy again and I had a bunch of big guys around me. I tried throwing some harder kicks to get them off my legs but every time I did, my calves started to cramp. Twice I had to swim without kicking to let my calves relax. This was the only time I got a little nervous. I didn’t know what I would do if I started getting those horrible calf cramps. Thankfully, relaxing and just using my upper body for a few strokes helped.

 

When we made the final turn and were heading to the finish, I just couldn’t believe it. I almost didn’t want it to end. I felt great. Not once did my heart rate go up, I didn’t panic and exiting the water, I didn’t even feel like I exerted any energy. I felt exactly like I hoped I would feel.

 

Beaming, I ran up the sand to the line of “strippers.” I purposely ran to the very end of the line, which happened to have the two cutest guys doing the pulling, and sat down on the rug. Within a second, they had me stripped and lifted me right back up. I smiled, said thanks, and headed towards the shower. I found my dad along the way and yelled, “that was crazy!” with a huge grin on my face.

 

I took a few extra seconds in the shower because I had so much sand on my butt but the showers didn’t provide enough pressure to wash away any sand. From there, I ran up to my bike gear bag and headed into transition.

 

Swim – 1:13:49*

807 overall, 27 in AG

 

I had to do a complete change in T1 because I swam in my bathing suit instead of my tri kit. I didn’t rush too much because I wanted to make sure I didn’t get frazzled and that I did everything I needed to do before I left for the bike. The volunteer helping me was great and she saw more of me than Andy probably has over the past few months! As I ran out of T1 I passed a port o pot and figured I better try to go. That definitely added some time onto my transition but better that than going in my pants.

 

T1 – 15:23

 

I volunteer was ready and waiting with my bike by the time I reached my rack. I thanked them, grabbed my bike and headed to the mount line...

 

*(I found out that the part you run across the beach is not counted in the 2.4 mi distance so that explains the second loop being so much slower than the first)