2.4 miles – 1:12:23 – 1:54/100 m pace – 575 rank overall (out of 2,995)– 28 rank division (out of 100)
I kicked butt on the swim! That’s about the only thing I kicked butt on, so I will gloat in my accomplishment.
The swim was great, other than swallowing a little more of the Ohio River than I ever wanted to (I still feel ok so I’m assuming I didn’t swallow any protozoa or parasites). As I explained in my last post, the swim was a time trial start. Eric was able to snap a picture of me entering the water -
I had to hesitate a bit before I jumped in before the guy who jumped in right before me (red cap already in the water) decided he was going to go deep sea diving or something and disappeared under the water. Now, this is the Ohio River – you can’t even see your hand in front of you let alone someone who has gone underwater. I had no idea if he was swimming forward or just going down before starting to swim. So, I took a flying leap to what I hoped was the side of him and just barely felt his hand as I’m assuming he was starting to swim and come up from his adventures underwater. I made sure to leave him in the dust quickly!
See ya, red cap!
Go, white cap, go!
There were lots of people cheering at the starting line. The swim started at the end of an island. We had to swim along the island upstream for about a mile before turning downstream on the other side of the island and along the coast to the finish line. In the picture below you can get a small idea of how many people were there cheering as well as the island, which is to the left in the picture. The island was helpful with sighting, as there were a lot of people clumped together at this point.
The swim was cake – I didn’t really run into that many people, my sighting was good, the barges and bridges I swam past didn’t freak me out too much (don’t ask) and before I knew it, I was right on my goal of finishing in an hour, 15 minutes and coming up to the stairs to haul my butt out of the water.
While I was in the water, Eric snapped some pics of some hot air balloons that were taking off next to the transition area. I bet they had a fun view of the race course!
After I crawled up the stairs, I believe I actually ran up the hill towards the transition area. I really don’t remember. I made it there somehow, and from the pictures Eric took it appears that I am running. Shocking!
I saw my mom, dad, and Eric and did a little cheering with them – 1 down, 2 to go!
I believe it was soon after this picture was taken that I said to myself - “Why are you running self, you will have more than enough opportunity to run later. Walk for now, please!” So walk I did. I walked myself to my transition bag and into the transition tent. I threw off my gross swimming clothing and threw on all my biking gear. And it only took me 7 minutes, 20 seconds!
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