5 THOUSAND Meters

I was seeded in wave D for the 5K swim. So I got to see waves A through C start. I walked into the water with group D and put myself toward the back of the group. I had no experience swimming in a pack and didn't want to risk getting kicked, elbowed, or tangled up with the other swimmers any more than absolutely necessary. We got the signal to go and I started off slowly, trying to stay behind the pack and follow them to the first buoy. I had looked at the course map plenty of times but I didn't really have any sense of scale. How long would it take me to get to the first turnaround? More importantly, how long would it feel like it took me to get to the first turnaround? How close would I need to be to spot the buoys? I didn't know any of these things. (as it turns out I guessed right about how close I need to be to spot a buoy: pretty close) Anyway my guidelines were go with the flow and keep the shore on my right.

I followed the pack to the first turnaround buoy and got myself around it without getting lost. A little bit after the buoy I got that horrible feeling. The feeling that tells me that there is no way I can keep this up and I may as well quit right now. It is pretty disheartening to get that feeling so early on in a race. On the other hand maybe it has to show up at some point and it's better to get it out of the way soon. Since that feeling has shown up a few minutes into every long workout that I've done since February I know it doesn't mean a thing.

I relaxed and completed my first lap around the course, navigating almost entirely by the other swimmers and the shore. By the second lap I was feeling a little more confident. I thought that since I had just gotten a swimmer's eye view of the course I would have an easier time navigating. Not so much. On the long stretch down the main part of the lake I spotted a buoy and started to turn around it. About six strokes past it I realized that it was not, in fact, a turnaround buoy. It was a stay-between-this buoy-and-the-shore buoy. Oops. So put myself back on the course and continued on my way feeling foolish and slightly annoyed. When I did find the turnaround buoy (by following the other swimmers) I thought that maybe it was bigger than the others. That was my new working assumption.

At the end of my second lap of the course I felt better than I had at the end of the first. By this time I actually was getting a little bit of a feel for the course. When I passed the last turnaround buoy I thought  I would try to pick up the pace on the long straight stretch towards the finish. It was exactly then that my calves told me quite firmly that if I tried to kick any harder they would cramp up and cramp up hard. My stomach then spoke up. It spoke of a cavernous, gaping, empty feeling, and threatened that if I did not do something to remedy this gnawing painful hunger it would instigate a work slowdown and my shoulders would definitely be on board with this. So I said to my stomach "look, there is food at the finish line. As much as we need. The faster we get there the faster we eat" 

I can't actually be sure that I swam any faster on the home stretch. I did pass a lot of other swimmers, but according to my calculations they might have been from a later wave on their second lap of the course.

I finished in good form, meaning I did not trip, or knock over any of the officials despite feeling slightly dizzy from suddenly being vertical.  Someone handed me a bottle of water, someone else took the timing chip off my ankle, a third person took a numbered bib out of my cap.