This will be a long, detailed race report (mostly so I can remember things) so if you don't want to ready the whole thing, here is the summary: It was hard. I finished.
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Checking out the starting line and wondering what I have gotten myself into. |
On Thursday morning, I got in the water at 7am at our campground to see what conditions would be like for the race on Friday. The water was calm, clear and about 68 degrees. It was pretty much how I remembered it being last year. I later met with Kevin and Lloyd (Boise locals), Patti and Gigi (both from Texas) for a swim near Lucky Peak Dam, where the race would finish. We didn't go too far, maybe a bit over a mile. Water temp was around 70 degrees. It was fun to see Kevin again and to meet Lloyd, Patti and Gigi and hear about their swimming experiences. Patti has a lot of big swims under her belt and she was fast. I figured she was probably going to win the race on Friday.
I also ran into Oscar (aka "Moosie") the event organizer on Thursday. We talked for a bit and agreed to use our campground as the meeting place for the pre-swim meeting later that night. Oscar is a great guy and has done a great job growing this event and improving it from year to year. Chad and his crew showed up and hung out at the campground for a while before the meeting. Sarah and Steve showed up right after the meeting got started.
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Pre-Swim Meeting |
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Oscar "Moosie" Williamson filling us in on the details of the swim. |
I actually slept pretty well on Thursday night, which is unusual for me the day before a race. I am still getting over a cold that started the week before and wasn't feeling 100%. All of the long training swims I had planned leading up to the race had fallen through and I wasn't feeling as prepared as I wanted to be. I had been stressing myself out so much about this swim that I thought I would be up all night.
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Feeds prepped on Thursday night. Main fuel was Perpetuem and was supplemented with CarbSport (a local Utah product), applesauce, and Ibuprofen. |
The water felt cool, but I knew that was going to be the case. Chad told me he was going to try to keep up with me, but I was actually trying to keep up with him for the first half of the swim. We met up with my paddlers at about 1 mile into the swim and got my stuff transferred over. I told them about my feeding plan and started swimming.
My watch has a countdown timer that I set to 30 minutes. I was swimming side-by-side with Chad and didn't even need the timer because I just stopped for feeds when he did. Here is what I did for feeds:
Time
|
Approx. Distance
|
Feed
|
Other
|
0:30:00
|
1 mile
|
None
|
None
|
1:00:00
|
2 miles
|
1/2 bottle Perpetuem
|
None
|
1:30:00
|
3 miles
|
1/2 bottle Perpetuem
|
None
|
2:00:00
|
4 miles
|
1/2 bottle CarbSport
|
None
|
2:30:00
|
5 miles
|
1/2 bottle Perpetuem
|
2 Ibuprofen
|
3:00:00
|
6 miles
|
1/2 bottle Perpetuem
|
None
|
3:30:00
|
7 miles
|
1/2 bottle CarbSport
|
None
|
4:00:00
|
8 miles
|
1/2 bottle Perpetuem
|
Applesauce, 3 Ibuprofen
|
4:30:00
|
9 miles
|
1/2 bottle Perpetuem
|
None
|
5:00:00
|
10 miles
|
1/2 bottle CarbSport
|
None
|
5:30:00
|
11 miles
|
None
|
None
|
5:48:00
|
Finish!
|
Last year I had some pain around mile 5 or 6 and I took too long taking Ibuprofen. This year I had planned to take 4 Ibuprofen and an applesauce at mile 5, but was feeling pretty good so I only took two Ibuprofen and no applesauce. This was a mistake and I started hurting around mile 7-8. This is the same sharp pain on my right collar bone that has been bugging me over the last few years. I think it came back because I had taken some time off of swimming when I was sick. I took 3 more Ibuprofen around mile 8 along with my regular feed and an packet of applesauce. The pain got much better in the last few miles. I should have just stuck to the plan and taken 4 Ibuprofen at mile 5.
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Great photo of Chad and I swimming together, taken by Chad's paddler Ryan. |
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Photo taken by Oscar around mile 7-8 when I was coming out of a bad place mentally. |
I looked at my watch at what I thought was mile 10 and it was just over 5 hours. I was doing better than I expected to do with being sick. I tried to push a little harder, hoping to finish around 5:30. It ended up being a little more than a mile away and I finished at 5:48. This was a little slower than last year, but was actually better than I was expecting to get.
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Finished! |
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I wasn't cold, but Oscar insisted on bundling me up. |
I walked up under the arch and my family cheered for me. One of Oscar's sons gave me a medal and Oscar rushed me up to the picnic area and covered me with a towel and blanket. I wasn't shivering and felt fine, but I appreciated his concern. Sarah was already finished, dressed and had combed her hair.
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So fun to be able to do this swim with Chad and Sarah. |
Chad wasn't too far behind me and I went down to watch him finish. I'm so glad he came up to do this swim with me again. He's become a really good friend over the past couple years and I love swimming with him and teasing him.
We hung around for a while and then had to go clean up our campsite. When we got back, the last swimmer and last two SUP racers were coming in. We took down the arch and clock that I had brought up and said our goodbyes. We left a little later than I wanted to (we had to get back for Deer Creek the next morning) and I'm hoping the dates work out next year that we can just relax and stay another night and head home on Saturday.
This is a great event and I'm already trying to recruit people to go up next year. We should have a pretty good group of swimmers from Utah, plus some other out-of-state friends. Oscar does a great job of making the event fun and making the swimmers feel safe. I saw the support boats pass by quite often and knew that they would be close if something happened. If anyone is looking for a new swim to do for next year, I highly recommend this one.
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