I'm not swimming this year since the registration filled up earlier than prior years. So instead I'll be paddling in a kayak, keeping an eye on the swimmers.
Here's the water report for madison beach park (the finish)
green.kingcounty.gov/.../BeachData.aspx
Former Member
That's a bummer! I wish they had capacity for more swimmers as I think it's definitely growing in popularity.
That's great that you are still helping out by kayaking though.
Looking forward to beautiful weather and a great swim this year.
I'm swimming this year but have a question. I haven't swum an OW event in a few years and I just received my Blue Seventy Point Zero3+ swimskin. I was planning to swim with a wetsuit but with the water temp (at least on July 14th) at 66 degrees, any thoughts on which choice I should go with?:)
at 66 F you can swim with out a wetsuit, but I personally don't think that it's too warm to no wear one.
I'd guess that you will have a faster time with a wetsuit, but tempwise it's not needed.
I agree that while it's "warm" enough to do swim lake washington right now without a wetsuit, it's still on the cooler side that a wetsuit will surely be fine and welcome.
If I was doing the 1 mile, then I might go with the blue seventy. But for the 3.2, it's wetsuit all the way for me :)
The water temp was perfect. It felt warmer than 66 to me. I wasn't even cold just standing in the water before the start.
I won the 3 mile non-wetsuit. Yay! Very fast time for me, too. Now I'm ready for a nap.
The high rise juts out into the water, so I'd say it's more like at the first o in Broadmoor. You're probably right, though. I always aim straight for the highrise, and that works good until you get right there, but then you have to do a slight course correction to the right. It probably would be better to aim just slightly right, but you'd hate to go too far right and then have to cut into shore too sharply near the finish.
Somehow every year I seem to swim completely on my own. This year I had a pretty fast swimmer in a wetsuit near me close to the start and I decided to draft off him. That worked well for a few minutes, but then he abruptly stopped! After that I was completely on my own for the rest of the race.
I managed to avoid taking a dip, and other than correcting their courses, didn't run into any swimmers that needed assistance. Congratulations to all the fat salmonites and to Kirk who won the 3-mile non-wetsuit this year. What are you going to do with that fish?
I was on the 'inside' or shore side of the race course. A lot of people seem to want to hug the shoreline or head straight towards the high-rise apartment building (which I did last year), but that is not the shortest route, as you can see from the map. The high rise is roughly under the 'm' of 'broadmoor' on the map. I think the best route is to aim slightly to the right of the high rise, and when the docks become visible as you get closer, aim for them.
www.fatsalmon.org/map.htm
I think a good strategy would be to stay on the right side of the pack so that there are a good number of swimmers to your left, and the kayaks are nearby on your right, and fight the tendency to creep in to shore. I've got my landmarks worked out for next year, which I think could be worth 30-60 seconds or more on the 1 mile race.
I'm meeting some of the other kayaks at the finish at 6:15 AM to paddle down to the 3-mile start in advance of the start of the race. Let's all hope for calm waters and no wind! I'm personally hoping to avoid doing any swimming.
