Luckily, I was able to get in a few good swims with teammates Crystal and Tach at the new Sammons Park Indoor Pool. These workouts brought me joy on a number of levels. First, I had not yet gotten a chance to swim in the new pool since the Temple Parks & Leisure Services Department dedicated it a few months ago. Let me say, if you haven't given the new facility a try yet, I highly recommend that you do. It is really, really nice. Second, I was able to go healthy distances at a good level of intensity without fatiguing. Finally, this was the first time I had gotten to swim with Tach. Tach is a radiologist at Scott & White who had only been swimming for about a month. Yeah, you read that right. The dude had been swimming FOR A MONTH, and he was committed to swimming in a swim marathon. Obviously that dude is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S. Still, swimming in the lane next to him, I would have never guessed he was such a novice. His form was surprisingly good, and, more importantly, he was going several hundred yards at a stretch without huffing and puffing. Suddenly, I was feeling confident that our team might actually finish this thing in one piece.
The night of the race, I went to the captains meeting. This year's race was much smaller than previous ones. There were only 9 teams competing, down from 30 or 40. Still, we knew we weren't looking to win.
The morning of the race, we met at the dock and picked up our pontoon boat at about 6:30. The temperature outside was in the fifties. Luckily, I thought I was prepared. I'd brought multiple layers of hoodies and sweatshirts. I also had about 7 different towels. Unfortunately, though, none of that was enough.
We had to ride the boat for over an hour to the start at Mansfield Dam. My cousin Wesley, our ringer, was tasked with swimming the first 20 minute leg. I have never felt sorrier for someone that I did for him when he jumped into that cold water. You'd have never known he was uncomfortable, though, as he swam that first leg really, really well. I had expected to be in the back of the pack early on. Instead we were ahead of a few teams when my turn came up.
The rules of the relay stipulate that swimmers must tag one another out, so as Wes's leg came to a close, I steeled myself, jumped into the chilly water and swam out to meet him. All I could think of was how cold I felt. It took several seconds for me to warm up, and then I had to remember that I was here to swim fast. I did my best to turn it on, but all at once I was learning how swimming in open water is harder than swimming in a pool. As I turned my head to get a breath, a wave would bounce me up and down. Getting my wind was much more difficult that I imagined. It took all my focus just to keep moving forward.
That's the other way that swimming in the lake differed from the comfort of the pool. It turns out, I like lane lines. I enjoy seeing that line at the bottom of the pool. In all the years that I have swum laps, I have, not once, gotten lost or found myself swimming into the corner of the pool. My first leg, though, I found myself really struggling to go straight. I'd pull my head up occasionally, and get a look at another team up ahead. I'd use them as my lighthouse, but I needed to get my bearings a couple times a minute. The last thing I wanted to do was waste time and energy swimming off course.
Another way in which I missed the comfort of the pool was that I didn't have any idea how far I'd gone or how much time I had left. In the pool, I'm hitting a wall every few seconds. I know I've just gone another 25 yards, and, my extension, I know that I've probably swum another 20 or 30 seconds. In the lake, I had no concept of my distance, and when I heard my team call out, "Ten more minutes," I was shocked. I was only half way through my leg! WTF! I felt like I had been going for 20 already.
Luckily, I was able to stay mostly on course and finish up my leg. At the end of the twenty minutes, Crystal swam out and tagged herself into the race. After Crystal it was Russell's turn, followed by my dad and Tach the rookie.
Going into the race, I grossly underestimated how the open-water would affect our time. I had calculated all of our times and figured that we would be out of the water in about 6 hours and 15 minutes. That was not realistic in the least. In reality, the 12.1 mile course took us 6 hours and 58 minutes. This time might seem insignificant, but it isn't. You see, at 7 hours, our team would have been disqualified. This means that my team, my awesome team, swam its first open-water marathon, and finished fair and square.
To celebrate, we each enjoyed some beverages and fajitas at the finish line. We were cold and wet, but we were victorious!
That night we all went out together for dinner and, to my great shock, found ourselves talking about "next year." Sure enough, while there were moments of great discomfort, I am so happy that we did this, and I think I really might be up for doing it again. Hopefully next year the sun will shine.
