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I slept really well the night before the race and awoke at 3:30 a.m., fifteen minutes before my alarm was due to go off. Went through the regular pre-race rituals. One of the nice things with staying at a hotel that is immediately beside the race start is that you can do your warm up in the hotel pool. Did some easy swimming, a few accelerations and before long it was 15 minutes to race start and time to suit up. Now the guys from Hong Kong had given me conflicting advice about whether to wear a 5mm fullsuit in water that was 28C. Being a slow swimmer I decided to go for it.
The race started exactly at 5:30 a.m. and we were off! Two loops of 1K each. Straight out and back with a triangle at the far end to keep us out of each other's way. The start was pretty clean. A few people bumped into me but frankly compared to an IM swim, everything else is heaven. I think that I would need a near death experience to get rattled these days. 75 meters and a few people start to blow up and get dropped. I am still with the first pack when, WHAM! This Japanese guy jackknifes right in front of me and myself and another guy swim right into/over him. I guess he headed out a little fast! The lead pack opens up a gap on us and it is about 15 meters to bridge. I think about hammering up to it but figure that it would be a bad idea as I am pushing pretty hard. Around 200 meters, I realise that I am in no-mans-land cranking along by myself, no one to draft but feeling good and enjoying the swim. This is a crappy place to be but I figure that I might as well deal with it as there is nothing that I can do. I start redoing my race splits while working on my left side hand entry and checking out a huge moon setting over the ocean. Thinking back, if I was able to do all this then I was probably at the correct pace. At the 500-meter turn, an Orca wetsuit pushes me out of the way and I see that I had company all along. Time to enjoy some drafting! I slow, get on Mr. Orca's feet and settle in to enjoy the rest of the swim. If only Mr. Orca had shared my view. He is cranking along and suddenly I find myself pushing just to stay on his feet. IMOz, here we go again! |
Out of the water, wetsuit immediately half off. |