ROUND CHRISTIANSBORG
=============
1900m (46:51)
In the weeks prior to the swim I hadn't been training much, or rather not at all. I managed to get into the pool and do some serious swimming one time while I was on the vacation in the US - one month before the race.
Two weeks before the race I did some testing with the wetsuit I received for my bithday and I discovered it wasn't going to be comfortable enough for the distance. As the water temperature had been mearused to 21 degrees that day, I wasn't worried and decided to swim without it.
I was terribly nervous on race morning, cold grey weather and only 18.5 degrees celcius in the water. About 75% of the participants had wetsuits and I started to get worried...
Did a full body insulation with vaseline and decided not to chicken out. Water was cold at first, but not too bad. After a nice easy start and passing the harbour I was finally warmed up. However I discovered that vaseline and goggles don't mix...they started sliding on my face and filling with water. After treading water and adjusting them twice they were so covered with vaseline that I couldn't see anything. Considered just dumping the damned things in the canal, but swam with them on my forehead instead. Suddenly things were a *lot* more visible and it was much easy to stay oriented in the water.
Soon I saw the heat that started 5 minutes before me, and started passing the green swim caps one after one. I stayed mainly on the right (wide berth) to avoid swimming collisions. About 3/4 of the way through the race, I knew that I could pull off my original plan of swimming butterfly for the last few strokes before the finish line.
But as I approached the finish my plans changed. Suddenly there was a woman with a white cap (a heat or two after mine) on my left, and there was no way I was going to let her pass me. So the race ended with an all out sprint between the two of us! I was pretty sure I touched the floating pontoon before she did (even if her time was 5-10 minutes faster than mine) until I actually saw the pictures.
Here's a play to play with images!
My heat right before entering the water. The race start was in the water with one hand on the floating dock. I'm the 2nd from the left in the image. I decided to take a wide berth to stay away from the traffic as it narrowed in to take the first corner (route was counter clockwise). Happy I did that - turned out I was in the middle of the field following the first corner, but was convinced that I was at the tail end of the heat.
Around the first bend...
Gotta get ahead of all of these silver caps.
Green caps ahead, better pass them.
Easing in to the finish.
Fast forward to the last 200 meters of the race...
Ooh...look at all of those green swim caps I just passed. (green heat was prior to silver heat). Wait, oh no! What's that! A white swim cap! And it's approaching fast.
Oh..oh..she's gaining on me!
Can't let her get by!
Tension mounts! Who will get there first!
Aargh...I think she did!
Anybody who finishes this race clearly needs their head scanned!
Goggles (quite clear (or not so)) why I had to remove them, swimcap and medal!
