Stephanie's Life Adventures: Friday Night Swim Race w/Raise The Bar (RTB)

On Friday night I swam in my first swim race in almost 12 years. The triathlon team I am on put on three swim races this summer and this was the last of them. I had a choice of the 1/2 mile, 1.2 mile or 2.4 mile race and chose the 1/2 mile since that is the distance of the sprint triathlons I'm planning on racing in this year. This was held in open water at Lake Meridian. My goal of course was to win my division (women in wetsuits) so I could win the apple pie, and I knew I had a good shot at it looking at the times of the previous races.

The same butterflies I had before high school swim races returned but I was very excited to get into the water and race! Well it ended up only being 6 swimmers in the 1/2 mile race. The other two distances were packed because there are a couple Ironman races coming up people were training for. I was happy to see one of my competitors in the 1/2 mile race was this guy Luis who I "try" to keep up with at Wednesday night triathlon training so I knew I would at least have some competitive motivation. I was able to keep up with him for the majority of the way and then on the last bit (or what I thought was the last bit) poured it all on and pulled ahead. When I got to the buoy where I THOUGHT the race was over I slowed down and heard the lady in the canoe yelling "Keep going to the shore! You aren't finished". At this point I did see the finish line was up on the shore...I should have paid attention at the instructions! So I had to pull the rest of my energy out to get to the shore. I swam until the water was too shallow and stood up to run to the finish line. Standing up and putting all your weight on your legs after swimming that much was a very weird sensation. I felt like I may just collapse! I ended up edging out Luis by 1 second! I finished the 1/2 mile swim in 13:12, which I will say is good for the first open water race I've done. Can only get better right?! So not only did I win my division I won the whole race! And the apple pie was DELICIOUS!

Thanks Mom, Dad, Ginger & George for cheering me on!

Before the first workout of putting on the wetsuit!