Training Update: Harborfest Swim

Another Sunday, another early start.  This time for the Harborfest Swim--where I opted for the 1.2 mile course--at the Potomac River's National Harbor.

I was joined for this swim by my new swim friend and Team Goldfish supporter Christina who opted to swim the big one--the 2.4 mile course.  I met Christina at the Wave One Happy Hour Swims, and in addition to being a lovely person, she shares in my belief that tri-atheletes are nuts.  Here we are pre-race on the pier. 

As an aside, my shirt was created by the world's foremost unknown swim vloggers Eve and Candace in honor of Olympian and all-around awesome dude Anthony Ervin.  You can buy it--and see him modeling it--here. 

Okay, back to Harborfest.  After an afternoon and evening of rain, the sun was showing, the temperature and humidity were low, and the water was a perfect 78 degrees!  The only imperfect condition  was the wind which was whipping up a bit of chop on the water, leading the event coordinators to adjust the course from 1000 meters, to 500 meters, and requiring all swimmers to do more laps.

The 750 m swimmers on the Harborfest course

My goal for the 1.2 mile swim, since it was sans wetsuit, and there was some chop on the water, was to finish in around 45 minutes.  And I did.  My official time was: 46:41, finishing 28th of 57 swimmers--right in the middle of the pack.  My first two laps were pretty strong, and I clocked them in about 21 minutes, but I was slow on third--it took me about 14 minutes, however it also motivated me to do the last one in less than 12. 

All in all, it was a fun morning.  Proving yet again that every day is made better by a swim!