Postal Swim

To add to our training fun, or more add to the rigorous Sunday training Laura and I somehow convinced ourselves, or guilted ourselves into participating in the USMS postal swim. We awoke early. Our wave was to begin at 7am sharp. Warm ups started at 6:30...so I showed up at 6:53. I am glad I did not understand the magnitude of this nation wide competition until the day before when email strands started flying like crazy amongst the group of athletes participating. Once again, arising the controversy of speed suits and how this was the last "competition" they would be legal. Mind you I italicized participating in the beginning sentences of this post. My speedsuit is so far tucked in some drawer until my next warm weathered race, and I have months to search for it!

All I knew was that I had to swim 1 hour, as far as my little heart and arms would take me, and I would have my friend Laura at my side. There was one person per lane, 5 people in each heat, and someone taking each persons splits for every 50 meters (1 counter per person).

The swim began....7am, on the nose. By 1500 yds I was B.O.R.E.D. To myself I started talking (just like in the ironman run). I decided every 1500, I would do a 25 back stroke. So I did. And it was the perfect mix up and then I just kept swimming, la...de...dah...de...dah! The digital clocks appear at both ends of the 25 meter pool. I decided to maybe start checking my splits, it didn't really matter because my effort level was not there, in fact we still had a half an hour to go. After one split check, I threw that out the door. All I could think about was the long ride and run ahead. The swim looked and felt something like this:

(one flip)

(two flip)

(three flip...can you feel the excitement?!)

Then something happened. You can see it if you look closely. I am getting ready to flip but to my right (left in the photo) is a racer, getting ready to lap me, he came up on my feet and lit a fire under them. My body went into "flight or fight" mode. I swam a little harder, a little faster, and pulled out all my stops to prevent the pass and ended up only 25 meters behind him.

(see how ecstatic the lifeguard was to be there too!)

Post swim and pre-Krispy Kreme knock out.

(still looking delirious in all post swim events)

I am so glad we were somehow bullied into doing this swim event. It reminded me that sometimes just keeping your head in the game and have a little fire at your feet is the little "extra" that can be missing at times. Thanks friends (and Tom...he...he) for the little extra push!

PS. We were not crazy enough to do this ALL butterfly like some of our training counterparts.