CONEY ISLAND 5k

Chaos It had been 20 years since I raced in a rough water ocean race, but I have been back racing (open water) for the last 2 years. One thing that surprised me was how much quicker the top finishers were than the rest of us. The posted results had me 10th overall but a half hour back. I know they winners were much faster, but that spread seems way too big. ( 3 weeks ago I finished 12/142 in a 4K lake swim and only 5 minutes back. There were a lot of triathletes inthe race, but the top finishers were fast. I was in at 54 min.) I was surprised by the speed of the current and had never swam at the beach before. In retrospect I am curious if the correct strategy would have been to swim a line from the point of one jetty to the next and not further off shore? It seems that might have moved me into calmer waters on the up current leg and made it easier to sight as well. Is this a secret that you locals were holding back? :-) Also what was it with the white buoy? It was nearly impossible to see except at the start. Special thanks to the kyacker. Who yelled and pointed it out to me and the guy I was racing to the finish we both had stopped and were looking all aound for it as we approached the finish. the white buoy was hard to see going into the sun. i followed the buoy/kayak line pretty close even though as you noted, the current was less severe inside the jettys. (there was a DQ for someone who swam inside the jettys, so even the locals were held to a high level of honor! lol)

Chaos It had been 20 years since I raced in a rough water ocean race, but I have been back racing (open water) for the last 2 years. One thing that surprised me was how much quicker the top finishers were than the rest of us. The posted results had me 10th overall but a half hour back. I know they winners were much faster, but that spread seems way too big. ( 3 weeks ago I finished 12/142 in a 4K lake swim and only 5 minutes back. There were a lot of triathletes inthe race, but the top finishers were fast. I was in at 54 min.) I was surprised by the speed of the current and had never swam at the beach before. In retrospect I am curious if the correct strategy would have been to swim a line from the point of one jetty to the next and not further off shore? It seems that might have moved me into calmer waters on the up current leg and made it easier to sight as well. Is this a secret that you locals were holding back? :-) Also what was it with the white buoy? It was nearly impossible to see except at the start. Special thanks to the kyacker. Who yelled and pointed it out to me and the guy I was racing to the finish we both had stopped and were looking all aound for it as we approached the finish. the white buoy was hard to see going into the sun. i followed the buoy/kayak line pretty close even though as you noted, the current was less severe inside the jettys. (there was a DQ for someone who swam inside the jettys, so even the locals were held to a high level of honor! lol)