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!

I’m in the states for a business trip, so I arranged an early arrival so I could take part in the Big Deuce, a two-mile swim in Jordan Lake, near Morrison, NC. The lake is huge, and North Carolina has turned the entire area into a recreation area. There are many boat launches and lots of places to camp. The lake is incredibly pretty and the water is fabulous.

The swim start was at Vista Point, one of the many camping areas on the lake. The swim was early enough that we didn’t have to pay six bucks for entry, which is good, considering the almost $50 entry. (I had to pay ten bucks for a one-time USAT license. More on this later.)

I got there early, probably too early, but that’s a function of my wanting to make sure I didn’t miss the swim. I had plenty of time to rest and wait. I picked up my swim cap and t-shirt, got numbered (lucky #96), and returned to the car. I realized then that I didn’t get my timer, so I marched back and got it. Doh!

The water was incredibly warm, I think someone said 84 degrees. I took a few yards of practice, warm-up, goggle-check. All was good. The race brief was, well, brief. I knew I was at a triathlete OW swim when the race director said, ‘If you need a rest, you can hang on to any of the kayaks or surfboards out there. Just take a break, and when you’re ready, start the swim again.’ Uh, what?

The course was a triangular out-and-back. We had a running start, but from about knee-deep water. So that was interesting. I intended on doing that dolphining thing that Fran Crippen (RIP) teaches on his DVD.

That didn’t quite work. I realized right before the start that I was in the front of the line, so I backed up. When the horn sounded, I waited, urging the racers on. Well, for about 10 seconds I did that. I just couldn’t stand there. I was off! We had to swim directly to the first buoy, turn left (the only left on the course), and head for the far buoy on the left. It was a crowded start, but I managed to make space for myself and head to the buoy fairly straight. We were headed directly east, and this being 7:20 in the morning, we had to sight directly into the sun.

At this point I was able to just follow the leaders, but after the turn it started to thin out. And on this first straightaway I began wondering, as I do and have done during all my OW swims, what the hell was I thinking? My shoulders hurt and I couldn’t swim straight. How the hell did I expect to swim a 10K in September?

But by the first far turn buoy, I was stretched and no longer whining. I still couldn’t swim straight, but I was not out there swimming alone, like in Cyprus. There were others out there, including some who swim as crooked and zig-zaggy as I do. I followed one guy along the return course to finish the first mile, and I was gaining on him, based on the size of his swim cap. After what seemed like a long stretch, I finally realized that what I was chasing was not a guy in front of me, but a white buoy, unrelated to this swim, with colors matching the swim caps we wore. I passed this buoy and realized that I was off course for the 1-mile turn buoy. Dammit.

The turn went fine, although for a full 200-or so yards it felt like I kept going left from the line. I really wanted to stop, stand up where I was, and see if I were in the middle of turn buoy two and the mile turn buoy. I felt like I was swimming straight, but can’t be sure. When I get back to the states, and start swimming OW more often, I’m going to get one of Rob D’s GPS watches, and start checking my navigation IQ on the computer.

And going into mile 2 is when I started to feel good. This is the same thing that happened in Cyprus. Now I was cooking with gas! I felt like I could swim another 3-4 laps. On this lap I intended on swimming better navigationally. The course had two yellow sight buoys a little more than half-way down the course. On the first lap, I realized how these were placed, so I aimed to the left of the left sight buoy. After passing the yellow buoy, I had a beam on turn one. I swam next to another guy for a while. What is it about these triathletes? This guy swam by with a pull buoy between his legs. Yes, I’m serious. Coming into turn one, I came from the left, feeling like I had to continually correct to the right.

After buoy turn 2, I hoofed it straight for the finish buoy. I avoided the white fake buoy, aiming for a little to the left of the left yellow sight buoy. Coming into the final turn buoy I had another swimmer directly on my left, anywhere from a meter to three on my right and left. This poor guy had worse navigational IQ than I did. On my right, about 10 meters away was another swimmer; turns out later that this is the pull buoy guy.

Coming into the final turn, I put on the gas. I beat both these guys to the turn, or at least I thought I had. The guy on my right was clearly 10 meters off and with me breathing every right, I should have spotted him, but all of a sudden he’s next to me right after the buoy. Did he cut to the right of the buoy? He might have, seeing how he was swimming with a pull buoy!

No matter. I sprinted to the finish. I couldn’t keep up with these guys though, and they both beat me to the finish, pull-buoy guy proudly running up the beach with his swimming implement in his hand. I came in at 1:04:16. Four minutes over my goal. #26 out of 50 men. #6 of 12 in the 40-44 age group. #1 of 3 in the 44-years old age group. (I made that age group up.)

I hung out at the beach for a while, in and out of the water. I went to the picnic tables where we registered, and got myself some flat soda and peanut butter bread. Lamest after-race food ever! I washed my feet and headed to the car.

OK, so I did it. I swam a 5K. If 10K is a marathon, that means I (finally) ‘did’ a half marathon, right? Let’s just get this out of the way right now. 1:48. Yes. An hour and 48 minutes. Slow as molasses. And 8 minutes over my goal. But, that time got me first place in my age group.

Of course, that’s not hard when you’re the only one in the race who was alive while the Soviet Union still existed:

Yes, those are birth years…

Imagine my surprise when I show up to see that every high school swim team in Cyprus (and Greece, and Bulgaria, and Ukraine) sent their best swimmers to compete in this race. I was older than most of the coaches for God’s sake! I was surrounded by skinny, fat-less punks who looked like fast swimmers when they were simply standing on the beach. But let’s start at the beginning.

Everything started out strange when I landed at Larnaca and I could have sworn the flight attendant told us the time. In Russian and English. Wow, I thought. We got here like 45 minutes earlier than scheduled. I found my taxi driver, who was late (thus bolstering my opinion that we arrived early), and we were off for the 74KM drive (not 45 as originally thought) to Limassol (or, Lemesos, in Greek).

He dropped me off at my hotel, the Park Beach hotel, a nice little place with a large dining room. Since I registered for the race through the Cyprus Swimming Federation, not only was the taxi covered, but the hotel included full board. I looked forward to dinner. I dropped my crap off in my room and walked to where the technical meeting would be at 7pm.

There was a Bennigan’s across from the Famagusta Nautical Club, so I stopped in for a Guiness and some nachos (I was carbo-loading after all), and enjoyed the cool evening. At 15 til, I walked into the club and looked for the swimmers. No one. Just some diners (the club is also a restaurant as well as a sailing, canoeing, and kayaking club). I saw a guy holding what looked like a buoy and he asked who I was. I introduced myself and he asked if I knew about the 7pm technical meeting. I said yes, looked at my watch, and said I’m early. He looked at his watch, showed it to me, and I realized I was an hour late. Apparently Cyprus is only one hour behind Moscow, not two. (My iPod’s clock did not include any Cyprus cities.) I apologized and he accepted and we got on with our one-on-one meeting.

He described the course (different from the map) and the buoys. There would be a small buoy, like he was holding (perhaps 18″ high) every 250 meters. There would a large buoy, maybe 4-5 feet high, at the 1250 m turn-around, and at the start. The course was straight for the first 1000m, then turned about 30 degrees to the right for the last 250 of the leg. We would be swimming between the beach and the break-waters (those rocky looking things in the map). Since we wouldn’t be able to see the large buoy from the start, he said it didn’t matter if we swam on the left or right of the small buoys. (A fact that didn’t hit me til the race.) He told me to be back promptly at 8am and the race would start at 9 sharp. I walked back to the hotel and got a good nights sleep.

Swim route as advertised

The next morning I was up bright and early, gathered my stuff and walked down to the Club. I was the first one there, at about 7:30. People started filing in. This was my first indication of trouble. Sure, perhaps that’s just their mom. She’s out to take her kids swimming. No, they’re part of the race. Oh, here comes another…kid. Uh-oh. As they all started to collect, in little giggling, cackling groups, I started to worry. How come all the people my age we already drinking (not water)? Oh, they’re staying nearby and are just here to enjoy the beach.

Promptly at 8:30 (sarcasm intended), the sign-in started. Or rather, a bunch of Greek yelling started, and a lot of Greek kids started running to a wall. Turns out you had to find your name, then come tell the guys with the markers what your number was so they could mark you. Uh-oh again. I was number one. Doesn’t that mean I’m supposed to be fast? Oh crap. I hope these kids don’t think I’m fast.

There were about 60-70 5K swimmers and six 10K swimmers. I thanked God for that. Despite their apparent speed (as evidenced by their lack of body-fat (the boys) and their huge muscly thighs (the girls)), I doubted any of them could swim the 10K in less than 1:40. At least I wouldn’t be the absolute last person out of the water.

I ended up helping a nice Ukrainian woman who was the trainer for 3 female swimmers (okay, teens). The organizers didn’t want to let one of her girls swim in her suit, since it went below the knees, but with my help, we explained that the material was natural and the suit was on the newly approved FINA list. The woman loved me after that and made sure I met her swimmers.

One of them, sweet thing (not saying that in a gross old-man way), asked me if I was swimming the marathon. I answered no, just the 5K. She smiled and said that her personal best was 1:04 (she actually said “one hour, zero four minute”) and she hoped to do as well here today. I congratulated her and said I am also hoping for that same result, only “one hour, four zero minute.” I found out later, that that young lady is the Ukrainian national champion at 5K. More on them later.

The Ukrainian National 5K Champ picking up her 2nd place trophy

We gathered in the cold water. No official temperature, but I’d say warmer than Copenhagen, perhaps 68 degrees…maybe 66. Anyway, the 9am-sharp start started promptly at 9:30 (again, intended). In-water start, which is fine with me since there are many small-to-boulder sized rocks on the Cypriot beaches. I kept up with the little punks almost to the first 250m buoy. I was proud of myself on that account! There were 2 or 3 I was able to follow for about 1000m until it was just me and Mister (or Misses) yellow-cap.

The start flags

Again, navigation killed me. I couldn’t see the intermediate buoys. I think I saw 2 of the first 4, and passed one on the left and one on the right. My initial thought was to cut from the start straight towards the turn-around buoy, under the theory (not really a theory…this is math here) that the hypotenuse is always shorter than the two sides added together. I ended up way over to the left, destroying my plan. Closer to the turn-around, I started coming head-on to swimmers on their return leg. Ah! Left or right of the buoys…there’s a problem there!

I followed yellow-cap and we did the turn-around probably 15m from each other. Then I followed him back. This time I intended on following the hypotenuse back in. And again, I swayed out of line. It is at about this point, 1500m into the thing, that my muscles finally started feeling good. I’ve always felt this way in the pool, that it takes me a good 1000-1500 before I feel like I can really swim, really push it. I started to push it, and felt pretty darn good. I never caught yellow-cap, but I stayed with him or her to the 2500m turn. I glanced at the watch quickly and the time was 51 and some change. So I’m a minute+ over my goal. But I feel great. Time to push it.

On the return, I really had trouble spotting any of the buoys. I realized the current was coming in, because I couldn’t see yellow-cap except every 2-3 times I sighted. Troughs and peaks. The current was coming into the beach at an angle. I was swimming east, and the current was coming in northeast. More on that later.

Came head-on again with some swimmers. We managed to not hit each other. But again I was way off course, too far left toward the beach when I should have been closer to the break-waters. I kept up with yellow-cap til the 3750 turn-around, but lost him/her after that. Now I really started to feel the current and the waves. I felt like I was swimming in place. However, I managed to keep check on the intermediate buoys. Or so I thought. When I thought I passed the last buoy, only 250m away from the finish, I kicked. I sighted and swore I saw the final buoy, marking the finish. I kicked and kicked til my calves started to cramp. Then I realized I had just come upon the real 250m buoy. Dammit. I continued to kick as much as I could, but started to lose steam. I had a final kick about 100m from the (real) finish, and came across at 1:48 and some change. 57 minutes on the second loop. That current (and navigation, or lack thereof) killed me.

This is where the video of the nasty current would go if I could figure out how to upload it…

I loped onto shore to see the real swimmers all sitting down, already changed and dry, enjoying food and drink. Oh, not free food and drink. The Cyprus Swimming Fed offered nothing by way of liquid or sustenance. I had to buy two bottles of water before I passed out. Oh, and you know what else I learned? Just because you don’t wear a wetsuit doesn’t mean you don’t need body glide. My underarm (only the right) got a serious rash. I wonder does this happen in fresh water? Was it just the salt water?

The Famagusta Nautical Club and the already-dry and rested 5K kids

No one noticed me finishing, thank God. I grabbed my stuff then went to sit with the Ukrainians. The coach congratulated me and gave me a gift. Turns out they were from a Handball team in Kiev, and a few of her athletes just “happen to swim, too.” Yea, just happen to swim enough to be Ukrainian national champ. And then her 10K swimmer finished…first. Overall. Pissing off some Greek boys. Oh, and the Bulgarian girl finished second. Overall.

The winner of the 10K…a Ukrainian Team Handball player

What the swimming fed did right was the trophies. Very nice and large, probably just what the kids wanted on their mantle-pieces, if anyone in Cyprus has a mantle-piece. Overall, though, very disorganized. The Ukrainians mentioned it, and I don’t think they’ll be back next year. I certainly won’t. Cyprus is nice, and the water was amazing (I swam 2k on Sunday and again on Monday before heading to the airport). But there were not enough competitors in my generation (or even one below me) to make it worth a second trip.

And I have to laugh every time I see the words “Men” and “Women” in the title of this race…

Well, I finally made it to an international swim. Got the right airport and everything. Christiansborg Round was a 2K swim around the Danish Parliament, in downtown Copenhagen. What a great event! Over 1000 (1033 to be exact) swam in the 2K, 93 in the Mens 40-44 age group.

The 10K racers giving a “school” on drafting.

The race started in Frederiksholms Kanal. I swam past the Black Diamond, continued along the waterfront, under Knippelsbro Bridge, past the Stock Exchange, Højbro Plads and Gammel Strand, and concluded in the straight in Frederiksholms Kanal. The water was incredibly (for me) cold. The day prior they measured it at 16 degrees Celsius, or about 60 degrees F. When I jumped in (it was an in-water start), I thought my diaphragm would seize up. Sure I wore my wetsuit, but it was sleeveless, and did not keep the cold out.

That is me on the far right with my arm over my head, right before the horror of 60 degree water.

The water was interesting. Sure I knew the water in the canal came from the sea, and would be salty, but I don’t think I’ve ever swum that distance or amount of time in salt water. After a while, the taste was starting to get to me. Nausea, per se, didn’t come rear its ugly head, but I felt that anymore time in the water, and I would have to fight that demon.

One of the few instances when I led my heat.

There were two times when I had to stop, or, rather, flip over to my back and do a modified easy backstroke. The sensor that the race directors handed out was a velcro’d affair and the strap started to come off at about the 500m mark. I slipped the end of it into my watch strap and was good to go. I surely didn’t want to spend the 600 danish kroner or whatever outrageous sum they’d charge me for not returning it at the end.

The reason I like OW swimming: battling through slower swimmers.

The other ‘easy backstroke’ point was when one of my goggle lenses filled with water and stung my eyes. I work long and hard getting my goggles right, and I’ve got something like 14 pairs, most of them the Speedo hydrospex that seem to fit my head and eye sockets best. Still, I always seem to have a goggle problem in anything longer than 1000m. This incident happened at about the 1500m mark.

Isn’t that beautiful. Sadly, no time to smell the water lillies while racing.

There were also two sections of what I could only call forest. At these points I got entangled in weeds and vines, to the point where I had to let my recovery hand drag a little to allow loops of vines to slip off my arms. However, I never did stop even when I was seemingly encased in the vegetation!

The “face” that my support team (my son Sam) made fun of.

Which leads to the subject of navigation. Again I relapsed into my comfort zone–breathing only on the right. In essence, I was blazing the trail, and cutting through the vegetation myself. A few times I looked to the left and saw the experienced (read: smarter) swimmers drafting off each other way to the left, close to the canal walls. I would adjust my line to go meet them, then a few 100m later I ended up back too far right. I probably really swam 2200 or 2300 meters, based on my zig-zag course.

This pic was taken right at the third turn. I should be closer to the wall.

My goal was 40:00, and I finished at 40:46. I think I could have beat my goal with better navigation and bilateral breathing, which is what I’ll work on between now and the next swim. Whenever and wherever that will be.

Only about 15 meters from the finish…