Hurricane Championship Swim

This might be the first year that I've been able to successfully complete all three of the local races in the Triangle Open Water Swim Series. Last year I did the first two and the 3rd one was cancelled thanks to Hurricane Matthew. This year it was game on. Sunday, 10/15/2017 for 1.2 miles of open water fun at New Hope Overlook boat ramp in Jordan Lake.

Foggy day!

FS Series getting it setup

Can't even see the first buoy

Ready to swim

The FS Series organizers asked at the beginning if anyone could sing the national anthem, I think they were having trouble streaming the copy they usually play. I stepped up to sing with no warning, no warmup, and no practice! At least the second half of the song sounded pretty good. For a singer, performing the national anthem in front of this many veterans, there's no such thing as a good performance. You either do it right or screw it up. I think I did it right, it's an honor when you do it right.

Eventually we did start swimming at 8 am. It was really foggy outside, but the fog burned off pretty quickly after we started swimming. You couldn't see much further than the next buoy, but at least there was some direction in there. And the water was like glass. No kind of current or chop at all.

There was an unexpected sand bar out there, so they positioned the return buoys in a little bit and suggested we keep them on the left. The 2.4 milers had to go back out for a second loop, and when I kept those buoys on my left, once I looked up to see a couple of those 2.4 mile swimmers heading directly at me! Surprise!

I finished in 34:54, good enough to place 52/101 overall, 31/53 men, and 2/6 in the 40-44 age group! I'll take an age group award any way I can get one.

The finish line when I was done

the non-selfie version

happy to have that bread

RAM swimmers

With my AG award!