I got off to a good start, keeping up with the lead pack to the first buoy. I was in a very steady rhythm, not working very hard and catching a pretty good draft off the race leaders. After the first buoy (approx. 500 meters), two of the leaders started taking off and I dropped into the main group, where I stayed until the second buoy (1.25 K into the race). At this point, I started developing a painful side stitch and I flipped over onto my back to help stretch it out. The main group dropped me rather quickly and when I was on my back, there was no one in sight behind me. After stretching my side out for a couple of dozens strokes, I flipped back onto my stomach and tried to play catch up, but it just wasn't happening.

The lake was becoming very choppy, creating almost 2 foot swells at times which made it difficult to keep a steady rhythm and even more difficult to sight the buoys up ahead. At the turnaround point, I was able to see that I was about 20 seconds behind the next person in front of me and there was almost a minute to the person behind me. So, I continued fighting through the choppy water back through the zig-zagged course.

After rounding the last buoy, I started increasing the tempo of my stroke, but quickly realized I was shortening each stroke, so I went back to a slower tempo, just thinking to myself that the race is almost over and there's no reason to try and sprint all the way into the beach. I really didn't sprint into the finish or run up the beach across the finish line since I wasn't fighting for a top place or anything, but it was still a solid swim and much faster than I thought I could have done.

Not too much really. I entered this race just as an experience building exercise. My longest open water swim was 1 mile before this, so I wanted to feel what it was like to pace myself over a longer distance. I could have gone further, but it was definitely long enough for me.

I spent about 10 minutes slowly swimming free and back in the beach area of the lake trying to flush out some of the lactic acid I felt burning in my chest, shoulders, and back. Afterwards, I stretched out on hte shore and waited for my friends to come in.


Lack of endurance. I know that I'm still building my base back up and therefore I had to pace myself at a slower speed than I would ideally like to hold. With steady training and base building in the off-season, I should be able to tackle this distance at a greater overall pace next year.