Out Of The Water ...

... but nearly not. The ocean surf was so rough I don't think I would have liked to have been out on a boogie-board, much less swimming a quarter mile in it. Long story short: Rough surf had me swimming Tarzan-style, head out of the water, for what had to have been the first three minutes of an eight-minute swim. I wanted to keep my head up to make sure I wouldn't be slammed by a breaking wave unaware. If I did 100 strokes with good form through the entire swimming part of the race, it would surprise me. Luckily, we were pushed up the shore to the finish, making it pretty elementary once we cleared the break zone. Just swim, sight, swim, sight (more sighting than swimming), make the turn on the last buoy and wait until the waves pushed you onto the shore. The most impressive sight -- 100 red-capped swimmers rising a huge swell as they rounded the first buoy ahead of me.

On shore, a top 40 bike clawed me up to the pointy end of the race, and a top 30 run landed me a 30th place finish (though well down in the age group). Text file is here (no photos yet, but that should be pretty hilarious). I'll link directly to some individual stats tomorrow. Right now I want to have a beer and relax.


UPDATED: Forgot to mention--in the brief warm-up we were allowed, a wave yanked my heart-rate monitor off, so it's probably down in Davy Jones' locker. Should you be in Cape Henlopen, DE, in the near future, and come upon a Polar Coach watch, and it's still working, well, contact me through this blog.