Chesapeake Bay One Mile swim

Yesterday was the Chesapeake Bay One Mile swim.

The one miler is a subset of the big one...the famous 4.4 mile swim from Sandy Point State Park to the marina on the other side of the Bay Bridge near Hemmingway's restaurant in Stevensville, MD.
Although I have great respect for the 4.4 mile swimmers, there is no way I would ever be able to enter that lottery let alone make the swim! Great job to all that can and did.

Given my lack of swim training this season one mile was more than enough for me. The race didn't get going until 10:30 which was a nice change of pace. We also had lots of time to relax before suiting up and getting in the water which was much appreciated. I knew that it would not be one of my easiest races ever but I managed to complete it nonetheless. Certainly not my fastest one mile or the prettiest but when there isn't a bike or a run at the end it doesn't really count. Right?

Anyways...the race was set up in a triangle on the south side of the bridge. There were 5 bouys going out, one more to turn around after the swim towards the bridge and then 2 or 3 more on the way back in. I would have liked to have seen more and maybe in a color other than that of swim wave 2's cap color but that is just me. The sighting problems, lack of training and crazy, choppy water made it a difficult day. I had a few usual kicks to the head, leg, stomach as well as an in-water battle with a swim wave foe who kept getting off-course then correcting himself by swimming over/into me and doing it all over again. The fourth time he did this I couldn't resist the temptation to give him a hard kick myself and keep going. I lost him after that by either swimming off course myself or getting far enough out of his range.

I thought I was doing pretty well until I made the mistake of glancing at my watch on the last straight-away. Soooo slow. Oh well, no bother. It was an experience and a good training day I guess! I can only get better from here! And really, the swim at Timberman is just .2 miles longer....not that much distance to gain over the next couple of months. Come to think of it, I probably swam over 1.2 miles yesterday with all the re-routing I did to stay on course. Gold star!