Did the Pacific Open Water Challenge in Long Beach yesterday. Haven't been training long long yet, so opted for the 1 mile swim. They were still setting up the buoys as the RD was describing the course. "Are those big round ones the buoys?" "No, the triangular yellow ones....... waaaaaaaaaaaaaay down the beach." I've done a bunch of Half ironmans, Alcatraz, 2 mile pier to piers, that wasn't no mile we were looking at.
Ah well, no big deal, since everyone has to swim the same distance. I know OWS are often off, but almost double? Someone in an official looking shirt said she heard it was 1.7, and i also heard someone apparently had a garmin measuring 1,7, but since there was no buoy between the start buoy and about .75 of a mile, sighting was all over the place, so who knows. Looking at my usual 100 yard pace, it was somewhere between 1.5 and 1.7 miles.
I didn't time the swim, and didn't look at the clock when I got out, so other than "gee, this seems a little long," it didn't bother me much (and doesn't now). Looks like the guards lined the buoys up with guard towers, just the wrong ones. Lucky for the 5K swimmers they moved them way in, lined up with the next closer set of towers. Otherwise they were looking at a good 4-5 mile swim.
Winning time was THIRTY minutes for the "mile." Friend was 12 minutes off last year's time. I was happy, won 40-44 AG with a ridiculous 37!
1.7 versus 1 miles seems like a lot but I always expect a lot of variability in race distances--and time for completion. Even if the distance is correct, with water conditions, temperature and currents, you need to just swim the race and be glad its the same for everyone. I've seen races where the buouys floated even in precisely placed originally. One summer we had two races close together where my time was 30 minutes for both--one was billed as a one mile and one was billed as a 2 mile. I've done Waikiki several times and I think my times have varied from :52 minutes to 1:29--which is conditions effecting me more than my conditioning effecting me since that course doesn't vary from year to year.
I suspect from Steve's comments that FINA is less laissez-faire for their sanctioned events distances(which makes sense).
I don't mean to minimize your experience but I really find uncertainty to be one of the joys of open water swimming.
1.7 versus 1 miles seems like a lot but I always expect a lot of variability in race distances--and time for completion. Even if the distance is correct, with water conditions, temperature and currents, you need to just swim the race and be glad its the same for everyone. I've seen races where the buouys floated even in precisely placed originally. One summer we had two races close together where my time was 30 minutes for both--one was billed as a one mile and one was billed as a 2 mile. I've done Waikiki several times and I think my times have varied from :52 minutes to 1:29--which is conditions effecting me more than my conditioning effecting me since that course doesn't vary from year to year.
I suspect from Steve's comments that FINA is less laissez-faire for their sanctioned events distances(which makes sense).
I don't mean to minimize your experience but I really find uncertainty to be one of the joys of open water swimming.
