A Brit in the USA: Lake George Swim

I really will make this one quick this time! As a birthday present to myself I signed up for a 2.5 km open water swim in Lake George. We stayed close by on Friday night, ate lots of pasta at the pre swim dinner and headed down to the beach at Hague for the swim early (~6.45) on Saturday morning.

Oh yeah and this was the first real outing with the new SLR camera I got for my birthday!!

Representing!

It was chilly in the morning but clear blue skies and it actually made the 72F water feel warmer. After a brief delay, I head in to the water, lined up (it was a standing water start) and we were off!

Getting in for the first time

The start - I'm in there somewhere

Headed out - can't complain about the view!

The water felt ok and there were about 60 people in the race so it started a little rough, but nothing I can't handle. After a few minutes I had some space - I thought I was near the front but wasn't quite sure. I felt good so I just tried to keep a constant speed and not get too off course. On the way out there were only 2 buoys and the turn around so I know I headed a bit off course a couple of times, but nothing too bad. I closed in on one person at the turnaround and had them in my sight on the way back but couldn't quite reach them! The way back felt ok for the most part, felt tired in the middle but powered through and got some energy back to pick it up at the end. The finish was on land so I just kept swimming until I practically beached myself (that's what it felt like anyway) and then stood up and sprinted. I knew someone was behind me so didn't want to get overtaken on land!

Finishing strong!

Apparently Matt didn't think I would be done so soon but he did get some pictures of my finish. As I put my timer in the container I saw that there were only a few in there - I must have done better than I thought. I finished in 42.44, which was faster than my goal time of 50 and my ultimate goal time of 45 minutes! I was happy with that!

Happy after finishing

It turned out I finished 8th overall and 4th female. I missed 3rd my 30 seconds - could I have caught her if I'd pushed harder I though to myself - maybe but I'm still happy with my swim. I came 1st in the 30-34 age group so got a nice water bottle as a prize.

Award ceremony

After hanging around at the beach for a while - it was a beautiful hot sunny day at this point - and watching the 10 and 5km finishers we headed out homewards with a couple of stops along Lake George.