Date Night

Thursday night was the first Aquathon of the year. I convinced G to sign both of us up for the series. Seemed like a good excuse to get out of the house and get some open water swim practice in as well.

Let me preface this report by saying I've had no thought of ever being able to beat G in one of these races. With her swimming background she is simply too fast in the water, and I'm really not any faster by foot. Soooooooo......

Prerace
I arrived at the race site straight from work about two hours early. Had the bike in the truck so I went for an easy 1 hour ride along the lake. Nice ride, but I really don't like riding in Madison. Way to much traffic. Back to the race site I checked in and got body marked. Had no desire to get in the water, it was f'ng cold.

G arrived not particularly happy about the situation, cold water, not exactly warm day. Mentioned multiple times how crazy this was. To her credit, between the two of us, she was the first one in the water, actually swimming a couple hundred yards. I on the other hand got in with about ten minutes left, did just a couple of strokes, and pretty quickly got out. Cold water, somebody told G 58 degrees.

Swim
Beach start, waded in rather slowly while all the crazies ran in ahead of us. The first 3-4 minutes were the worst. The cold completely took my breath away, apparently my brief dip earlier did not acclimate me to the water. So it was swim a couple strokes, stop to breath, repeat.

Hands fairly quickly went numb (feet were numb before the start), but I was able to get the breathing under control and swim. Drank way to much lake water, as it was just choppy enough to be a problem. Sighting was actually not to bad, I swam wide for most of the race, but felt I at least was swimming in a straight line.

Coming into the beach I noticed a lot of people walking in so after a bit more swimming I joined them, stood up, and began the wetsuit peeling process. Was good to be out of the water. According to my watch I touched land at 18:12, my fastest swim at this race ever. I'm convinced the course was short, I never swim that fast, much less 1/2 frozen. I've been meaning to look at average swim times at last years races for comparison, but haven't got around to it yet.

Transition
Anyway, heading into transition is where it hit me. G's running stuff is still here. Oh shit, something is seriously wrong. No way I beat her out of the water. Look at the lake (without glasses), useless. Finish getting ready to run, still no G. Now I'm really starting to get worried.

Stand around and wait, finally after about 3 minutes she walks into transition. Panic attack is how she put it, the combination of congestion and cold (and lack of much open water experience in my opinion) was too much. She mentioned holding onto a kayak at several points and doing the backstroke for most of it. Tough swim, it reminded much of my first experience at this race last year.

Run
I left G in transition after a brief conversation and went out to run. Had bad side stitches for the entire thing. I'm guessing too much lake water. Stopped at the turn around to retie my shoes (read, excuse to stop) then ran it back in, passing G shortly after the turn. On the home stretch I looked down at my ankles and noticed I didn't have a timing chip. Shit, shit, shit. Not that I was going to win it or anything, but it's nice to have official results. Crossed the line at 49:30 after a 27:00 minute run. Not a stellar effort, but I'll take it.

Post Race
Headed downtown and ate at Restaurant Muramoto for what was easily the best meal we've had in a long time. Highly recommend it, if you're willing to try some things that may be a bit close to the edge.