Last Sunday I raced in the first swim of the North Shore Swim Series, from Sunset Beach to Pipeline. In the summer, the North Shore is the nicest place to swim and snorkel. The ocean is calm like a lake and the visibility goes 30 ft and more. It is incredible. At the same location in winter time, the North Shore becomes the Big Wave Surfer's paradise with waves up to 30 ft (Hawaiian measures).
The swim race was a good excuse to drive to the other side of the island. I did not pay the entry fee, as I was showing up late. (Thanks to my friend Don Eovino, for giving me the T-shirt. The T-shirt was part of why I wanted to race, awesome cool looking t-shirt this time!)
So I showed up late, because I had a hard time getting out of bed and I did not taper either. In fact I was at the end of a 3 week high quality training block. In other words, I was “nicely fatigued”. It was part of my plan to show up at the race, just to make sure I have people around me that would push me, which would give me another good hard effort swim before going into recovery week. The women started first, with men starting 5 minutes later. It was the first time they started the women first with the reason that last year, the women over-swam the men. I was skeptical at first. It means less chances to draft, but also better chances not to have to swim over 70% of the guys. As the starting gun went off, I was in 2nd place, holding the position for about 15 minutes. Two girls of the age of maybe 17 or 18 zoomed in and got in front of me. I worked with one of the girls, because I thought her swim suit looked good and because I did not “race”- race. I thought I work with her to keep her in the front. That was a good experience, as usually I don’t “teamwork” like that when racing. But those teenagers are impressive for sure! They don’t kick hard or hardly do any kicking. Their body position is awesome; they just glide through the water with no effort at all. Very inspiring to see them swim. Swimming efficient by reducing drag is called streamlining, which I teach my athletes during Swim Analysis. After a while I looked up and checked where all the people are. I was in 4th position and no one else was in sight, but a big crowd about 25 yards behind us. That was a big surprise. I mean, those athletes are pure swimmers and last year I was somewhere in 10th place or so. I finished “unofficially in 4th place. Sweet. Having no expectations when racing is great!