24-mile Tampa Bay Marathon Swim this weekend!

Alert reader(s) know that I’m competing in a relay at the Tampa Bay Marathon Swim this weekend. I’ve been doing my usual limited swimming prior to the race. I’ve been debating with myself on this. With 6 people on my relay and with us doing 30-min shifts, how much swimming will I be doing?

I’ve managed to get place #2 in the order. I wanted to be as close to the beginning as possible, in the hopes that I will get more swimming than if I were #6. I don’t know if that will happen, but we’ll see.

So now I’m prepping for the trip. I leave tomorrow morning early on the cheapest flight I could find from DC to Tampa, thus that means a 4-hour layover in Atlanta. That’s fine; I like airports. Great people watching and time for reading. I managed to get a return ticket to Tampa for $170. Besides the long layover, I also have to pay for any checked bags.

But I was smart on that. Anything I needed that might be a problem in a carry-on, I gave to my family when they drove down to FL on Tuesday. (I couldn’t take 2 weeks off from work, so we had to split the trip.) Things like suntan lotion and baby oil and desitin. And since I’ll only be down there for a few days, and one of those I’ll mostly be in my swim suit, I don’t need to pack much for the trip.

For now, I am keeping my fingers crossed that we don’t have another lightning storm like last year, which resulted in the race stopping prematurely. If I’m going all the way down there, dammit, I’m going to swim! I’m also looking forward to meeting my relay. If I can judge by FB, then the Dirty Half Dozen are a fun bunch!

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