... who found me an EXCELLENT kayaker! It was a wonderful day, and I feel very blessed to have been a part of it!
Here's the website for anyone interested in swimming next year!
www.greatsouthbayswim.com/
The swim is for a wonderful cause and I absolutely love the organizers! They are very safety conscious and take great care of the swimmers! I just did it for my fourth time and I've never been disappointed!
Times for my swims:
2007: 3:25:12 (Made the mistake of not taking any nutrition early on... I kept thinking, "no prob! I'm on a roll!" ... until I got seasick around 3ish miles... um... Houston, we have a problem! But I was also determined to finish and figured I wouldn't feel any better if I stopped.
2010: 4:19 or 4:20--I forget... training wasn't as good and I went astray before I reached my kayaker.
First two times I did it, the distance was 5.25 miles. It increased a couple years ago--course adjusted a bit due to Hurricane Sandy. Now it's 5.44 miles.
2014: 3:41:21 (I think those seconds are right). Much better training! Got seasick--wave machine turned on about 3 miles--but see above! Guy in sweep kayak: "Are you okay?" "I'll be fine!" "But are you okay NOW?" (Whatever you need to hear to keep me in the race, my friend...) "Sure, I'm okay now!" And I (literally, I suppose) gutted it through.
2015: 3:20:11!!! PR!!! Things definitely came together this time! Great current assist, mostly easy swimming--in fact, felt as if I was swimming with a pull buoy! Only difficulty came around last half mile when conditions got choppier, but by then I was revved up to finish. Only one mild instance of queasiness, nothing significant. (No wetsuit--I find them too constricting, plus water was 80ish degrees!) Made sure to take sips of water, Perpetuem and energy gummies regularly--and my kayaker didn't let me get by with too little, bless her! Training even better than in 2014-- all through the winter, whereas in 2014, the training really only got going in April/May.
Will I do the swim again? God wiling I stay healthy and I'm free on the day of the swim, for sure! If not next year, certainly not going to stop!
The Great South Bay was the scene of many childhood swimming lessons, and summers on Fire Island--so it always feels like homecoming for me! It's not easy--my athletic experience as a kid was to be the last chosen on teams in PE and summer rec programs, but in my 30s, I tried an Outward Bound course and found out how much fun it could be to compete--I'd been a lap swimmer off and on, but got into running, completed seven marathons plus bunches of shorter races, and then joined a masters' swim group in 2005... and never looked back! Running and swimming bring out my inner kid--only better b/c that kid in the past was very shy about sports. The kid emerging now has fun with the whole process!
