The Two Percent

I was doing some calculations the other day.

Ironman is 140.6 miles long.  I'm hoping for a finish time this year of around 14-14:30.

If you take these numbers and calculate the percentages of distance or time for each sport (2.4, 112, 26.2 miles respectively), you come up with charts that looks something like these:

If you squint really really hard, you can see the
sliver of an Ironman that is the swim.

So, given how relatively small the percentages are for the swim, why the heck did I train for something that's nearly double the distance?  And, given that I was fairly sure as a child that I was going to die in the ocean, why am I planning on swimming this on Sunday?

This will be my view every time I sight for 3 hours on Sunday.
Is that the shore in the far far distance?

I guess some people just aren't particularly logical creatures.  I guess that 'some people' is me.

The Great Chesapeake Bay Swim is 4.4 miles long, and starts at Sandy Point State Park near Annapolis, Maryland.  The course runs directly between the two spans of the bridge, so as long as I maintain a regular distance from the right hand pylons (I breath to the right), I shouldn't need to sight too often.  Here's a better view of part of the bridge from near the starting point.

Doesn't look that far, eh?

For those of you in NZ, the distance (7km) is roughly from Queen's Wharf out to Matiu/Somes Island, from the ferry terminal around to Waikawa Bay, or Sumner to New Brighton.  And it's not even all that far for 'marathon' swimmers (crazy people who swim anything from this sort of distance, all the way up to 20 or 40+ km, not to mention the English Channel).  But as a starting long distance swim, it's plenty long enough.

Here's the map for reference.  Arlington is to the lower left of Washington, DC and the bridge is across the Chesapeake Bay to the right of the map.

Just for comparison, I could bike 4.4 miles in about 15 minutes at speed, 20 mins at a leisurely pace, and run it in about 45 minutes.  Swimming?  With currents and tides and chop, it'll take me anything from 2.5-3 hrs.  Again, I ask.  Why?

Actually, that's a good question.  I started thinking about training for something longer than the Ironman distance when I was training for Cedar Point in 2012.  After about 8 years of doing triathlon, I'd finally found myself sort of enjoying swim training (apparently there's a 'zen' that some people feel when swimming), so I figured that maybe I should take advantage of that.  And then at the end of last year, when the lottery for this race opened up, I found myself the subject of peer pressure hard sell from some friends who've done it before.  And since I'd persuaded one of those friends to sign up for Ironman Mont Tremblant AND Mountains of Misery this year, and since Mark is one of the aforementioned crazies who swim things like 27 miles around Manhattan, I figured I should toss him a bone and sign up.

I hope he's happy.

Of course, it took five rounds of the race lottery drawing for me to get in, and I'd started training by then, so I was pretty nervous about missing out for a few days.  But eventually I got the good news that I could spend an extra 45 hours in the pool over the next six months.

And so I did.  All in all, I was pretty good about keeping up the long swims according to the plan that my friend made for us.  Out of about 23 long swims, I only missed 2-3.  A SwiMP3 helped pass the time with some audiobooks, and my friend Teaka could always be guilted into joining me for the last 30 minutes or so and then coffee afterwards.  Giving birth to her baby girl only stopped her for a few weeks.  Having someone to be accountable to really helped.

I will say that the training has already paid dividends.  I got to the Ironman distance by the end of January (about 7 months in advance of where I'd get there with normal training) and my swim at the Kinetic Half Ironman was a breeze - and a 2 minute PR (apparently that's quite a lot at that distance, though I'll never be a fast swimmer).  How that will translate to Ironman, I don't know, but since I view the swim as the warmup for Ironman, I'm pleased that I won't be expending too much energy at the start of the day.

So, Sunday is the day.  I'm studying tide charts and anxiously awaiting the experts' analysis of the tides.  The water temps looks cool, but acceptable for a wetsuit.  Last weekend's practice swim along the shore of the bay was educational.  I realized that I hadn't swum in the ocean since my second ever triathlon in October, 2004, when battling the waves and ride so freaked me out I have stuck to lake swims ever since.  I got to swim with the current, and against it, and experience some fairly swirly chop.  I had flashbacks to bobbing around in the Sounds in a dinghy and tricking my parents to take me back to the shore because I was so afraid.  But my pace was decent and the experience invaluable.

And so now I'm getting quite excited.  It's been much more of a solo training effort than my other sports, but there are some great people doing the race with me and I look forward to a lot of support and hugs and high fives both at the start and at the finish.  And I wouldn't be surprised if I (literally) run into  a couple of friends along the way.

See you on the other side (of the Bay)!