Very nice! The swim is toughest for me, too :)

Nice job. Great thing about racing is the figuring out what you need to do to improve for the next race.

Thanks for all the responses! Everyone's interest here is very encouraging to newcomers.

In the interest of discussions related to the first swims, I'll post this, which I wrote for some close friends about my first tri swim experience.

For background:
I had trained for the swimming quite diligently, for the last 4 months. Swimming about 2-3 times a week regularly. I started not being able to continuously swim 50 yards comfortably, and worked up to continuous swimming of 800 yards quite comfortably. I had managed that distance at least 5 times prior to my tri, including a swim of that distance 5 days before the race. Not fast, but I made it freestyle the whole way. I grew up swimming in the ocean, and made a few practice swims in the ocean of short distances to make sure open deep water wouldn't freak me out.

Then came the race... I swam without a wetsuit.

"Swim:
1/3 of it was great, 2/3 of it really sucked.
I was very relaxed going into the water – I started near the back of the 2nd wave. I was determined to go out slowly and just stay steady. I figured if I did that, then I’d finish just fine as many others would slow down after they went out too fast. It was working great. At the first buoy (not a turn) I was overtaking a lot of swimmers. Not out of breath, had a great rhythm going, breathing every 3 strokes, doing a sight breath every 3rd breath. I felt great, I was kicked, I almost swam into a guy in front of me, but I was getting it down without incident. It started to thin out a bit heading into the 2nd buoy ( a turn), but there was a group of 4 or 5 swimmers in front of me that I was slowly catching. Still in rhythm, still feeling good.

Then the group in front of me stopped and pulled up into a breast stroke at the buoy. I was on them in an instant and had to stop or run into them. That was the “school’s out” bell for my swim. Once I stopped at that buoy, I was toast. I can’t describe it exactly, except to say this – there became a large divide between my brain and my body. My brain was saying “ok, no big deal, let just plane off and get back into stroke” my body apparently was saying, “no, I much prefer to flail about in the water as if I’m a blender with floppy blades.” I spent the whole next section trying to recover some semblance of swimming, but it just wasn’t to be found. I’m flat out sure that at some point I was probably doggi-paddling. Which of course, the marine drill sergeant part of my brain was expressing its extreme displeasure over the situation and my body still was expressing its youthful arrogance thumbing its nose back at the sergeant.

So I made the next buoy with my newly found “free-spaz” stroke. Although I didn’t feel scared, and my mind wasn’t filled with terror, or concerns about drowning, it just seemed like my body took over and placed a premium on keeping my head out of the water, which of course made any real swimming very difficult. As I crossed the 4rth and final buoy though, I managed to pull it back together. I got horizontal again and managed a good 25 strokes or so until I found the bottom. My wife got a picture of me as I made my way past her (she and my son were on the beach as I got out, which was nice) where I was looking back at the water – and I remember thinking at the time 'Holy crap, I made it.'"

I have several friends that are the real deal triathletes - top 10 finishers etc. They've all reassured me it was just an "open water with other people" issue and that a few more times out with others in open water and I'll get through that. That feels right to me - and I look forward to getting some training swims in with others before my next one.

-C

To tri to not to tri... That's not a question at all...

Great Job ! I can imagine how you feel. I too had my first open water swim this past week end and it is a great feeling when you look back and think "I've done it!"! I am not a strong swimmer and learnt how to swim freestyle literally 6 months ago after joining the Master's swim team in my town. I find it is a great way to get your swim workouts done and also learn how to swim with other people in the same lane. Good luck on your next races.