Just keep swimming, just keep swimming......

You know when you need to improve on something so you start making or putting yourself ‘in the line of fire’ to push yourself forward.

That was the thinking about 4 weeks ago behind signing up for the Fat Salmon 1.2 mile swim race this past Saturday and the swim portion of the Seafair Triathlon on Sunday.
Two days of swim racing, I was going to emerge a better swimmer or else......

It was actually pretty fun?!?! AK was my swim support cheering section!!!




I’ve always been good at the swimming part of the tri’s, but the up coming olympic distance is a .9 mile swim and I wanted to do something before, in a group/competitive/pack type situation that had that arms and legs every where feel to it, then bike a bit after to see how that felt.

Fat Salmon was a great event! - aside from only having one bathroom at the finish area and one at the start area. 150 people with just two cans?

I felt great for the race that morning, loose and surprisingly not nervous!!! AK and I couldn’t help but notice the low key, mellow vibe of the whole event. Plus, I had already had the talk with myself about this not being a race, but more of a supported training swim, with 150-300 extra people along, most of which were real full time swimmers. So I was under strict self governing rules not to start racing with someone next to me. My biggest fear was to start doing that at .25 mile mark and run out of gas at .8 miles, with a whole lot of water to still cover : (

So I headed out pretty steady and even for the first 15-20 minutes, also I was kind of worried when the other shoe might fall...........

The day before-

On Friday I set out for a quick 20-24 mile flat workout on the bike, just wanted to get the legs moving and get some time in on the bike. I park at Matthew’s Beach and headed towards Red Hook Brewery, but got lost on the way (Always in the same spot) and ended up off the trail heading east. I crossed a 7 Hills painted direction marker on the road that I knew headed up Norway Hill, I knew it wasn’t flat, but the legs felt good so I thought I’d do a few hills and circle back around. I ended up taking the route out to Willow’s Run and taking 148th up to what I thought would be the south end of Kirkland. By the time I stopped for directions I was at the Microsoft Campus in Redmond miles away from where I thought I’d be.


My 24 mile ride turned into a 42 mile 2.5 hour ride that couldn’t end soon enough, with Juanita Drive in between me and my car no less. It wasn’t the miles that I was worried about, it was where the ride was going to leave me for the following days swim. I had a packed week of training and Friday was a soft day, or was suppose to be, because of Saturdays swim.

......the shoe never seemed to fall as I hit a really comfortable pace and rolling well after each stroke. The water temp was nice and there was only about 2 minutes of heavy waves about mid way that was really hard to swim in.

I kept to my game plan until about the last qtr. mile then I pushed a bit harder until I was about 100 yds out, then I didn’t redline I just upped the pace and swam hard and aggressive to the finish. I popped out of the water and felt really, really good. Finish time was 39:56, 41st out of 88ish? I’ll post actuals later. AK waiting there waving and yelling made it worth it.....

Overall a really great event, one down, one to go.