This was a swim I have wanted to do for the last several year & was finally getting to do it!During the summer of 2008, I started racing triathlons. It was then that my love for swimming took hold. Ever since then I have wanted to race this 2.4 mile swim, but was unable to due to it landing during my families vacation time in Florida. This year it fell on the week before our FL timeshare & I was so excited. From really a year out I was planning on racing this event. I was telling everyone I was racing ... but there was only one problem ... I forgot to register for it! Yep, that's right folks. I forgot again! I had asked off work and was planning on driving down there Friday morning after my early bike ride with Nicole & Jeff. We were biking early b/c we wanted to spend the afternoon in Charleston. Thursday night I awoke in a cold sweat when I realized that I had not registered for the race. Stink! I pulled out my smart phone and looked up the website & found where it said "Online Registration Closed [and] No On-site Registration." I was devastated. How on earth was I going to tell Nicole!
I was really grumpy the next morning. Maybe b/c it was 4:30am, but it was also b/c I knew I had to break the news to her that something I had been planing for a year wasn't going to happen b/c of my stupidity. On the drive over to meet Jeff for our bike ride I finally told her. Turns out she had received an email the day before saying there would be registration at packet pick-up. YAY!!!
The morning of the race was weird. There was no bike to haul, no transition bag & no tri suit to put on. We had heard rumor that conditions were dangerous and it might get canceled ... so the alarm goes off & Nicole instantly looks up the website to make sure it was still a "go!" I think she secretly wanted it to be canceled! =) We arrived at the parking lot & the busses were ready to take us to the start. It was bazaar standing there, only holding my goggles, swim cap & towel. We were bused to the start line and it was a throw back to the good 'ol elementary school days. The air temperature was freezing and the winds were crazy! What are we doing!?! I had to strip down to my swimsuit and then stand around while they were doing the pre-race talk. It was sooo cold. Nicole was trying to use me as a wind blocker and hide behind me - stinker!
The swim went great. I had never done a "swimmers" event and was surprised at how aggressive everyone was at the start. They were not there to play nice & if you got in their way they were going to push you down as they swam over you. Thankfully I'm pretty aggressive as well. I held my own & didn't let them push me around. I had overheard some of the swimmers talk & say that once you got to the bridge there was only 3/4ths of a mile left to go. My strategy was to swim strong, but keep enough in the tank so that I could really push from the bridge to the finish line. There was only one problem with that. After the bridge the bay opened up and the water became very choppy. When I say choppy I mean it was the choppiest water I have ever swam in. It felt like we were in a washing machine. It was nearly impossible to incorporate sighting into your stroke while keeping your stroke seamless. Sometimes you looked up & all you saw was water because you were at the bottom of a wave. Sometimes you would put your arm out and all you felt was air because you were at the top of a wave. It really was crazy, but I loved it! My finishing time was 1:00:11. Woohoo!!!I had so much fun. Even though I couldn't crank it out the tail end of the swim like I had planned, it wasn't because I didn't have the energy left for it. I was so excited when I got out of that water and still had energy. This means my base training is there as I start to venture into Ironman training I definitely felt like I could have gotten on a bike after hopping out of that bay water.
We finished the day by going back out & through the markets and shops in Charleston. It was a great trip.
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