Click the photo above for complete event photos!!

Whew! You can all take a collective deep breath–I did not, in fact, drown on the 1.5K swim over the weekend. It was, however, a tremendous experience that has left me eager to do it again soon–only next time, with the bike and run as well.

The short, $2 summary for impatient ones: I finished the swim in about 35 minutes–5 minutes beyond my goal (for reasons I will explain shortly). Though I was disappointed by my time, I felt good about finishing the swim, and my teammate, Donna, kicked some serious ass on the bike/run part of the race. (She both biked the 36K and ran the 10K after I finished the swim.) We ended up in third place overall for the women’s relay teams. Not too shabby for a first “tri” for both of us. We have awesome sand dollar trophies to prove it.

So what was it like to swim 1.5K–about .9 miles–in the ocean? Incredible. If you’ve never competed in an open water swim before, the experience is like no other. For a well-trained lap swimmer, the chaos of fighting waves, currents and 50 other bodies for the best possible position is a pure adrenaline rush.

The weekend started out for me on Saturday. I drove out to Bethany Beach on Saturday afternoon to check in, get all my gear and hang out with the other athletes. But the real fun started about 6:30 Sunday morning–the time all athletes needed to report to the race for body marking.

In most triathlons, each athlete wears his or her number in several places, including on your actual body. Race organizers take a permanent black magic marker to you, writing your race number on both your arms and down your quads. Your age is displayed prominently on one of your calves. Even as the swim member of a relay team, I still had to be marked.

At about 7:30 a.m., all the athletes trekked down the beach to where the swim would begin. Walking out onto the sand and looking out over the “course” was enough to make any seasoned swimmer a little queasy. Out in the water, stretched in a long, daunting line were nine buoys, one bright orange at each end and seven yellows in between.

When I think about how long a mile is, I think in terms of laps in a 25-yard pool. Thinking about 68 laps doesn’t sound so frightening. But when you take those laps and stretch them out into a big, long line and mark them with buoys, it’s a long damn swim. It stretched out so far that I couldn’t even capture them with my camera.

I didn’t care. I was excited.

All the athletes, execpt the relay teams, were divided up into waves by gender and then age group. My friend Julie, who got me into this in the first place, was in wave 4. As a relay swimmer, I was in wave 7, the final wave. This also meant that there were both women and men in our section. We spread out across the sand, capped, goggled and wet-suited, ready for action.

The start of the race is the most stressful. When the airgun goes off, everyone rushes out into the water. Not only do you have to contend with the mass of people, but you often have to fight off a wave or two before you can swim out to where the water is calmer. When the airhorn went off, I sprinted out into the shallow water and ducked one or two waves before I could start swimming. I got kicked and swatted and did some kicking and swatting of my own. I just had to make it out to that first orange buoy so I could start the swim.

When I finally put my head in to start swimming, I was completely shocked to find that I couldn’t see a damn thing in the water. Not even my hands out in front of me. I don’t know why I assumed that just because I was wearing goggles, I would be able to SEE with them. Clearly, it was a miscalculation; the murky waters of the Atlantic are definitely not as pristine as the Gulf Coast. It threw me a bit, and instead of breathing every third or fourth stroke as I trained, I started breathing every two just so I could see where I was going.

Beyond the buoy, though still completely dark, the water completely calm. Race organizers had described it earlier that morning as a “sheet of glass,” and it was. Though occasionaly, a ripple would travel under you on its way to breaking on the beach. It was a strange sensation.

I tried to settle into a pace and to pull away from the pack that was still kicking and swatting around me. (Apparently, no one else around me could see, either.) I managed to pull away, not realizing that I had actually drifted much farther out to sea–almost to where the lifeguards and saftey boat were waiting to pluck overcome swimmers from the water.

Of course I tried to correct myself and swam back to my left, toward the buoy. But each time I got back in position only to find myself drifting back out to sea. Others later reported having the same problem. As our team captain, Earl, said later, “I looked up and I was in Portugal!” Ultimately, I think my zig-zag patterned swimming was what killed my time. Let’s just say I was trying very hard to swim more than a mile. I always have been an overachiever.

The swim seemed to drag on and on. Each time I passed another buoy, I was convinced it HAD to be the number 7 yellow buoy and the last orange would be next. I was tempted to peek at my watch to see how I was doing, but I kept plodding ahead. When I finally did see the orange buoy, I kicked up my stroke a notch and swam as hard as I could for it. I turned the corner and started sprinting toward the shore.

Coming in, however, is almost as hard as going out. You may be riding the waves, but it’s still unpredictable. When I got close to the shore, I tried to stand up. I found my footing just long enough to feel the strong pull of the undertow. I tried to hold on but couldn’t. The wave sucked me up underneath and smashed me hard into the sand, tumbling up toward the beach. Fortunately, it left me much closer, and I was able to scramble out of the water and start the run up the beach.

Once out of the water, there is a short run up the beach, up a flight of stairs, around a wooden deck, back down the stairs and through the parking lot to the “transition area,” or the place where the athletes are supposed to transition between the three different sports. My relay teammate, Donna, was waiting there for me with her bike, ready to go. It took everything I had to put one foot in front of the other and jog up the pavement. But I made it. I handed off our timing chip, which was strapped around my ankle, and she was off.

After I caught my breath and ate an apple, I stripped off my wetsuit and headed out to spectate for the rest of my team. I found Julie’s friends, Mel and Cheryl, and became part of their cheering section. We enthusiastically rooted on bikers as they passed. When Julie finally went by, we did a transition of our own. For the running part of the race, we became the Mobile Peanut Gallery, following Julie and others around in Cheryl’s cherry red Ford Explorer, hanging out the windows and sunroof and honking and cheering. Heading to the finish line, we watched many of our teammates cross over, exhausted but happy.

Although the swim completely wiped me out, just watching the rest of the race had a tremendous impact on me. The sheer guts it takes for each athlete out there is nothing short of inspirational. They endure not just one but three grueling races. And in most cases, they walk away plotting their strategy for how to tackle the next tri–faster, harder, more training.

Well, congrats team, you’ve passed the bug on. Next year I’ll see you at the finish line.