So coming off the brick swim/bike I figured that the trick to this swim was to just relax and focus on the breathing.

I started near the back of the swim and basically just mozied. I realize now that I need to jump to the front of the pack in order to get in front of the slower swimmers, but for some reason this seemed like the right thing to do.

I swam around a number of people before taking the turn. At the turn I had quite a few people bumping me out of the way. It was the roughest swim I have had to date in terms of physical contact. It really didn’t phase me, and I felt fine. About a quarter of the way back I ran into someone. I looked up and saw that they were doing the breast stroke. Between the flailing arms and legs I would say that they took up about 6 feet over from the rope.

I wasn’t going to let that phase me, I decided to swim around her. I swam left, and ran into another set of legs. Right beside the first girl was another girl, also breast stroking. Now I was about 12 feet from the rope line, and I was not going to let this girl phase me either. I swam left once more and…you guessed it, I hit another set of legs. What are the chances of 3 people all breast stroking side-by-side. At this point I actually said out loud, you have got to be kidding me. Just as I finished that sentence another person swam up my legs and pushed the lower half of my body into the water. I’m proud to say that I still didn’t panic or even freak out. I don’t actually remember what happened after that, but I do remember getting tired and being really glad I was out of the water. I also remember being pissed. I had a great swim, and now I was being dogged by these breast strokers!

The good news is that I had plenty of gas for the bike. I actually passed a few people, and was passed by a few people. It was more or less a wash. There was a big pileup of kids at the top of a really steep hill, but I manage to navigate that without much issue.

When I transitioned off the bike I noticed that there were very few bikes back. I didn’t think too much about it, but as I ran I passed another couple of people and held everyone else off.

I had two people ahead of me and I tried to close in on them, but I was out of gas. Just as I made my final kick they made theirs too. I never caught them.

In the end I finished 10th out of about 40. I’m really happy with that. I can’t wait for the next one.