raves and rants, your favorite, least favorite or most interesting ow swim from 07

Jim, Congrats on your Big Shoulders swim. I swam the 2.5k there this year as well. It was a nice way to end the season. I also did the LITH 2 mile and agree that they course was very well marked. I also did a 2 mile in Crystal Lake. maybe you can add that to your list next year. A very low key, fun swim. They also have a 1 mile distance. I regret that I got shut-out for the Alcatraz Shark Fest by not entering in time. I enjoyed it the previous year. next year I'll look for another travel swim. Thanks! I did know about the Crystal Lake swim but I had a scheduling conflict that weekend. I'm going to try next year! Looking at the times, CL seems like a much faster swim than LITH. Would you agree? I also want to do some kind of Alcatraz swim, next year. It doesn't have to be competitive, (though I think that is the easiest way). It's weird but I don't think I'll be able to consider myself a full fledged open water swimmer unless I complete at least one Alcatraz! :groovy: JIM

I had 5 swims this year. 1-Reston Lake Swim, Va 2-Swim for the Dolphins, NJ, Atlantic Ocean 3-Ocean City Masters Swim, Ocean City, NJ, Atlantic Ocean 4-Chesapeake Bay Swim, MD 5-Big Shoulders, Chicago, IL. Lake Michigan They were all great! I loved Alcatraz last year. I hope to do it again soon! Happy laps, everyone! Swimmy :cheerleader:

Swimmy and I travel around to swim together, but do swims on our own too. Here's my list: 1. Reston Lake Swims - 1-mile swim, 2-mile swim, and 1-mile USMS Championship swim 2. Great Chesapeake Bay 4.4 Mile Swim 3. Balboa-Newport Pier-to-Pier Swim (2 miles) 4. Seal Beach Rough Water Swim (5K) 5. Big Shoulders Swim in Chicago (5K) Alcatraz was fun last year. Big Shoulders was ok, glad to check that on my list of "swims to do" - but probably won't do it again. I highly recommend the beach swims in California - Newport Pier to Pier and Seal Beach Rough Water. And any time you can get to La Jolla - DO IT! I did some training swims there, and fell in love with the place. The Cove is amazing, great camaraderie and spirit there - even now after the fires, from what I hear from SDswimmer.

I went on the TI OW camp in Eleuthera, Bahamas last Dec and highly recommend it. They are repeating the trip in December. SF Bay swims are great too - there are several on www.waterworldswim.com Pedro O. runs great clinics and swims and they are a great source for many of the Alcatraz Crossings. Sharkfest is a very well run event - saw my brother compete in it in 06 and I'd like to try it in 08. Residing in Chicago I swim in Lake Michigan as much as I can and participated in the Swim Across America event last July - it's the same course as Big Shoulders, which I unfortunately missed this past Sept - I heard it was a lot calmer this year compared to 06. Was in a couple of events in a nice lake in a in Kenosha, WI the name of the lake escapes me.....its right off of 94. I'd like to try the Crystal Lake event and Lake in the Hills since they're not too far - does anyone have a link to the Lake in the Hills program? Lynn

it's the same course as Big Shoulders, which I unfortunately missed this past Sept - I heard it was a lot calmer this year compared to 06. It was much calmer than last year! It was beautiful! I heard one of the organizers say that he had been swimming it since it's inception and last year was almost the worst. The only one worse than that was maybe the very first or second year. He said conditions then were similar to last years. They only had 30 or 40 people doing it. They started and half of them quit after 200 yards! I'd like to try the Crystal Lake event and Lake in the Hills since they're not too far - does anyone have a link to the Lake in the Hills program? I have the link for Lake in the Hills but all it is is the link to the Village itself. It's: http://www.lith.org/ Right now I don't think they have anything, but check in the spring. The event is run through SignMeUp. Here's the link for last years: SignMeUp Hope to see you next year! The more the merrier! JIM

Thanks for the information Jim! See you there!

I think the Kirkland Triathlon would qualify for both "most interesting" and "least favorite" categories this year. The swim was in Lake Washington, where I have swum many times before. Never so late in the season though. There were a lot of choppy waves rolling into shore, which I didn't really notice or fully appreciate until I was in the water heading out to the first buoy. I had done lots of open water swimming this year in the ocean, so I was used to waves and chop. However, something about these particular waves made them hard to time - probably because they were unevenly spaced and I was swimming into them head on. The end result was that I swallowed and inhaled a lot of water. I had a couple of moments when I almost had to stop in order to clear out my lungs. I was truly hating the swim, hating swimming in general, and wondering why I do these types of races. Then, just as I was nearing the first buoy I looked around me and noticed that 1) everyone else was struggling and choking too, and 2) most of the people in my wave were behind me. I was further encouraged by the fact that after I made the turn, the waves were no longer impeding my progress and I could swim smoothly. So, I shifted gears and hammered the rest of the swim. It ended up being my most accurately sighted swim of the year, and I beat my goal time. The rest of the race was marred by other issues, namely my chain popping off twice while ascending two of the large hills on the bike course. Overall though, nothing as bad as the first few minutes of the swim course. Ironically, the swim is usually my favorite part of a triathlon. As it turned out, I wasn't quite through with Lake Washington. Two days after the race, I came down with a nasty case of cryptosporidium. Fever, chills, body aches, and the worst diarrhea I have ever had. If I hadn't guzzled Gatorade and water all day long, I think I would have been hospitalized from dehydration. Then it recurred a week later! I finally got rid of it by taking huge doses of goldenseal for 4 days. I checked the water quality reports on the web and sure enough, the beaches north and south of the race location were closed that day for contamination. What's more, the water monitors showed a huge spike in fecal coliform levels right around September (which was when the race occurred). Bad timing for a triathlon. It appears that we were swimming in diluted sewage. I wonder how many other times I have been exposed to similar levels, without feeling any ill effects. My guess is that the rough conditions which caused me to swallow more water than usual are the reason I got sick this time. Nevertheless, I have decided to boycott Lake Washington next year. There are plenty of other places to swim nearby that are not so close to large urban centers.

Steve, I'm a November swimmer. This is an interesting time of year. The light is always low. Water tends to get very clear. Here are my November pieces of advice (take em or leave em) Choose your days. Go with low winds, and sunshine if possible. NEVER alone. Parallel to shore, and not far off. 20 minute limit. Use someone on the shore, walking, with a cell phone in case of any trouble. I usually ask them to suit up with a wetsuit, in case they need to come out and pull someone in. (That means you need a real buddy on the shore.) It is a great feeling to swim in November but there are real risks. You should minimize them. :fish2:

I'm in Rhode Island. The temperatures get down into the 50s. Right now it's about 60, I've swum as low as 53 degrees.

i swam an alcatraz crossing with water world swim. it was totally cool, i loved it. i also swam big shoulders in chicago. i loved the chop last year, knocked the crap out of me a few times, but i thought, hey bring it on! my time sucked but i was happy to finish. can you believe some dude swam it, the 5k, butterfly, frickin amazing. this year was beautiful, calm. a great morning. the Great South Bay Swim looks very intriguing, a very neat swim and good cause. i'm keeping that one in mind. i had to look up brightwaters, nw. looks like that is on long island. i applied for a permit to swim the straits of mackinac in michigan, in the summer of 08. i think that is my goal for next summer, that should be a challenge. mark