Louisville IronMan - Race Narrative Part One - The Swim

The Swim

Yes, I was nervous. But so was everyone else. The day began with a long wait in the darkness, along a line that ran about a mile in a car parking lot. People waiting to swim were parked with chairs, friends, family, side by side, for what seemed like forever, along lines of porta potties, along dark silhouettes of trees, along damp grass, in the cold. The dock at a local restaurant, Tumbleweeds, was the jumping off point. Triathletes would run down through a tunnel of people, down a zig zag ramp, one by one, to two platforms. One by one, after crossing the mats, we’d jump in and swim up river. And, so, by 7:20, I was in the mix and, after a pause to set my watch, in the mix. Off we went.

The upriver swim was between two banks, about 900 meters apart. It was a churn, with swimmers knocking into you, stirring up the silt from the bottom. You couldn’t see your hand in the water. The only way to tell if I was making any progress was to site on something large on either side: a tower, a dock, a large tree. There were few buoys, and they didn’t matter. The upstream swim made it hard to stay horizontal, as each pack of swimmers who passed me would turn me this way and that. But the water was warm, and after about 10 minutes, at least a rhythm unbroken by five minute stretches helped to ease the nerves.

However the mouth of that channel opened to the larger river, I couldn’t say. Somehow it became brighter, not underwater, but on the next site. And, there was a buoy, and just after that, the tiniest red buoy you could imagine for the turn. Once we passed it, people jamming to the nearest inch around the buoy, fighting to turn, the river opened wide and we all began to cruise down the river. At times, the current just felt like it was moving under you. The swim was immediately over. Sure, people swam across me. At one point, I realized I was getting pushed out into the middle of the river, and had to swim back to the buoys on the left. But there was no panic. And it was over, literally, before I realized it. Again, all of a sudden, the end dock, transition, and off on the bike.

There was a changing tent for me and for women. The volunteers brought your clothes, helped you change, wished you lick, and turned to help someone else. I had put my food for the bike, 4 peanut butter sandwiches, in my run gear bag by mistake. When I saw they weren’t in the bike gear bag, I begged the volunteer to go back and get them. She hesitated, and then took off. So I waited a few extra minutes for her, but when she rounded the corner with them, I could have kissed her. They slathered us with sunscreen when we left the tent; a thick, white goo. “You look like a football player,” the volunteer said as she swiped my face before I headed off to find my bike.