New Balance Aquathlon 2005 : Part 2, The Swim & Transition

As the call went out for my event, I made my way to the beach. It was a wet start; meaning we get into the water, tread water for a little while, then start when the horn blew. I made my way to the start of the crowd just before the starting buoy. When the horn sounded, it was a real adrenaline rush to stay ahead of everybody. Being at the front of the crowd meant fewer bodies to fight with. It also meant leading the way. Seeing as how there are always the more enthusiastic ones around (and there was plenty yesterday) I still managed to draft behind a few swimmers along the first length of the swim.

Going into the 2nd length of the swim (total 3 and a half), I had a nagging feeling of a cramp coming on in my left sole. But I wasn't kicking at all!! And to make things worse, my shoulders were starting to ache!! I decided not even to stop and stretch it but to continue swimming. Thank goodness both the cramp and the shoulder ache went off by the end of the 2nd stretch.

The 3rd stretch saw alot of us in the last wave catch up to the swimmers in the earlier wave. The "body avoiding" started and this is the time I think I slowed down a little. By the end of the 3rd stretch of swim, I could really feel the oxygen-deficiency rising in my body. I decided to ignore it and went all out for the final stretch. But along the swim, knowing as how running is my weak point, I decided to slow down a little when I came in sight of the Swim End.

As I exited the water, I recorded 31:54 on my watch. This improvement of almost 7 minutes over my last race in the Navy Biathlon on March was due to the guiding ropes along the swim route. Whereas it was an open water swim in March, this time we just have to look out for the floating line and swam along it without going off-course. This definitely helped to cut the time down.

Going into the transition area, I only had to put on my glasses, my cap, my shoes and socks and belt with my bib number. I had bought a full tri-suit earlier and this was the first time I was trying it out. It had felt a little strange during the beginning of the swim but it was easy to get used to. The excitement of the moment definitely helped too. :) I exited the transition area with a time of 1:30 - another improvement of more than 1min over the March time. I definitely believe that the tri-suit helped to cut the time down as I did not have to worry about shorts and shirt this time round.

So I started running.....