Swam USA Swimming’s Southern Zone championship 5K today in Pinehurst, NC. Unlike Cyprus (faithful readers will remember my excellent finish in Limassol), I was not the only adult in the race. In fact, there were two of us! Yes, two of us in the “over-19” class.

The other guy, David, I met while waiting to walk over the sensor mats. I found out his number so I could be on the look-out, so was glad to find him. We commiserated. Despite only 8 people being signed up for the race on the website, there were approximately 100 of us racing the 5K. As it was a zone championship, oodles of 13-18’s from as far away as Florida competed. David and I used our age and guile to out-smart the youth of the South. We set ourselves up toward the back of the pack.

And the horn went off…and pandemonium ensued. Those kids were off, and the evil in me hoped that half of them would get tuckered out enough that I could pass them and NOT be last in a 5K (again). I followed some kids for a while, relying on at least a couple of them being better navigators than I am. Soon I was on my own, at least for the first lap.

The course was 5 x one kilometer laps. The course was triangular, isosceles specifically, with the “top” at the beach, which is where we started. The “base” of the triangle ran parallel to the shore, making the “second” leg of each loop very long.

My navigation, as is typical of me, sucked. But, it only sucked the first couple laps. At least once on each of these first two I switched to breast stroke to try and get a good look. But starting on the third lap, I finally got sight of some landmarks that I could use instead of trying to see the tiny red buoys. On the first and second legs, I noticed definitive breaks in the tree line, to which I could aim and get relatively close to the buoy. On the third “going home” leg, the only thing I could sight on were two lights on the beach, which were a little to the left of the buoy. Additionally, starting on lap 3 and to the end, I began counting my strokes. Generally I would stroke 10, look, repeat. If I found that I was getting off target every 10, I would cut it back to every 8.

I got run over, yes, run over, by the kids twice. The 3K was run 10 minutes after our start, so I had the speedy 5K kids and the speedy 3K kids to deal with. And those kids don’t care how slow you’re going or where you’re going. It was good fun. Those kids were speedy and good swimmers.

As I’ve done in every OW swim I’ve done to date yet, I forgot to start my stop watch. I set it up to beep every 20 minutes (my goal for each 1K), but never started it. I’m not quite sure what my time was, but I think I did not get under my goal of 1:40:00. I think I was closer to 1:45. But I really felt like my 4th and 5th laps were really fast. I wasn’t last, I know that much. I think one or two of the youngins came in after me. David, the other “over-19” (who is actually 41), who just did an Ironman in Idaho (in 57 degree water!) last month, finished in 1:21. He had his GPS on him and it came up exactly 5 kilometers. So that guy swims straight!

So, two OW swims in a period of 8 days. Much fun was had by me. And I think my navigation got better. Now, if I could just find a place to swim OW weekly, I might just get better at this damn hobby!