SwimRace; Dave's Story
Ah, the Swim Race… [sorry, long post, not much humor -> a bit like the actually race!]
Saturday morning Kendra and I got up, ate breakfast, packed, and drove to the courthouse parking lot (we decided to park there b/c the lot is fenced and guarded 24/7, plus it’s free). We then walked ~1 mile to the sea plane, only to find out that our plane was at 10, rather than 10:45. Since we got there around 10:05, we missed our plane, but we were able to get on the next flight without paying penalties, and without too much delay.
The actual sea plane ride was a bit interesting. Everything is weighed (from big bags down to purses, people are asked their weight as well), then you proceed to a floating dock where the plane is parked. At the plane you hand over any bags that weren’t “checked”, including purses. I suppose this is so that they can balance the plane, and so that they can pretend to have some sort of security (as if it wouldn’t be hard to smuggle a gun under clothes… but whatever).
As this beautiful sketch shows,
the sea plane has cargo (“C”) holds in the nose and tail, a pilot and co-pilot, and 3 columns of passenger seats. There are 6 rows of seats total, 5 with 3 across and 1 with 2 seats; for a total max capacity of 17, but it seems that they usually have a few empty seats. The primary door is at the tail, and there are a few extra emergency exit doors plus the pilot’s door throughout the plane. Kendra and I sat in the last 3-seat row both times. The 2 seat row behind was empty on the way over, and had a big box seat belted in on the way back. The plane has windows that are much larger than standard airline windows, and they are inline with the seats, so everyone has a pretty good view. Taking off it felt like we were on a speed boat, except then the speed boat left the water. The flight over was pretty non-extraordinary, except for the fact that the plane is not pressurized, so there was plenty of ear popping despite our low altitude.
Once on St. Croix, we got our rental car, drove to the hotel, found out the room wasn’t ready (it was still pretty early ~11am), and drove out to the east end of St. Croix, called Point Udall. Pt Udall used to be considered the eastern most part of the US until somebody realized that Wake Island is technically more east. 
I suppose you could claim that Pt Udall is the easternmost point of the US in the western hemisphere. Anyway, after looking at the views, enjoying the fresh air and wind (I was sneezy all of Saturday, and the fresh air was nice), we started back to the hotel. We stopped at Smokey’s gas station in hopes of getting some “famous” pate that Smokey’s wife makes, but apparently she takes most of Saturday off.
On the way to and from Pt Udall the road goes past a radio telescope that is part of an array that stretches from St. Croix to Hawaii. Reminds me of scenes from "Contact".
After returning to the hotel, we checked in to both the race and the hotel. Our room was right at the front, with a nice (warning: sarcasm) view of the hotel lobby traffic circle, which was all torn up and under construction. At the race check-in, we saw (former) Olympic swimmer Misty Hyman, who did the race solo last year, and now works at the hotel. We got our goodie bags (which include the usual stuff… sunscreen, energy goo, PowerAde and advertisements, but also a small (1.5 oz) bottle of Cruzan rum), our lunch and taxi tickets, and our t-shirts.
We had a few hours to kill before the race, so we went back to the hotel room. Kendra read her book and I took a nap (my allergies were making me pretty tired). A few hours later, we went to one of the hotel meeting rooms for the pre-race meeting. The race organizers went through a PowerPoint presentation of the important race info, including the primary “land”-marks for the race including:
1st, the V-shaped valley for navigating the start of the channel crossing
2nd, the yellow buoy/transition boat (for relay swimmers) that marks the end of the channel crossing
3rd, Green roof house on a point
4th, Green Cay, which we swim on the St Croix side of
5th, Pointy roof house
Last, Final turn buoy
The race is also roughly divided into three parts (the 3 relay legs). At the end of each relay leg, there is a boat that has water. The first leg (channel crossing) is the hardest, as it is the longest (2 miles) and it has swells coming from the side. The next two legs around each roughly 1.5 miles, and have a current coming from the rear.
After the meeting, Kendra and I went to dinner at a good (but somewhat smoky) restaurant, then we went to the primary shopping center so I could get some allergy medicine. We went to bed early, and we had to get up early.
5:20am, Race morning
Woke up, ate breakfast (balance bar, PowerAde, homemade cookie/biscuit). Double, triple and quadruple checked that my backpack had sunscreen, water, goggles, and swim caps. I dropped off a room key and driver’s license at front desk for after the race and then we boarded taxis to go to Green Cay marina.
~6:10am, Green Cay Marina
We stood in line with the other race people, waiting to get marked with our numbers and to board boats for transit to Buck Island. Kendra and I got on the first boat going out to Buck. On the way out, we put on sunscreen and drank more water/Gatorade. The ride was a little bumpy, but not too bad… although as we approached Buck Island the 2 mile channel crossing started to look pretty long. At Buck Island, the boat came in close the island, and then the swimmers jumped off the back and swam to the shore. We left our bag for transport back to the finish line at the hotel.
Buck Island was very pretty in the morning light. The island is not developed, so all you see is the beautiful water, the white sand beach, and the green craggy hill that rises in the center of the island (and lots of swimmers and kayakers).
After a bit, the other boats showed up and we were given a 5 minute warning. About 5 minutes later (surprise surprise) the race was started with the sounding of a conch shell (and I thought they only did that in movies). Kendra and I hung back a little from the first rush, and then we started swimming.
It was only crowded swimming for about 10 minutes, and then the pack spread out quite a bit. There were ~3ft swells coming from the left, but they were gentle enough that I didn’t have to worry about eating too much water when I breathed left. After another 10 minutes or so I found my swim pace (not slow, but not fast), and started to pace with a 2 other swimmers. This is the part of the race that I remember the best, as I wasn’t tired yet, and the swells kept pushing me around, forcing me to be very aware of my heading (the V-valley on St. Croix being what I was aiming for). Time seemed to stretch out a bit, as St Croix didn’t seem to be getting closer, and I was still too far to see the transition buoy/boat that marked the first turn. The only discernable changes that happened while I was swimming were the positioning of the other two swimmers that were pacing with me, and the color of the bottom. (I could see the bottom during the entire crossing; at times it was white sand, sometimes darker coral, and sometimes even darker sea grass. In the lighter areas I could see many sea-stars on the bottom). Aside from the tossing about caused by the swells, this would have been a peaceful part of the race.
Eventually I could tell that I was approaching the turn buoy/boat, because I was able to better discern the details of the buoy and boat. Somewhere along the way one of the swimmers either went forward or dropped back, because by the time I [finally] turned the buoy, there was only one guy with me. We both swam near the boat. A guy on the boat threw each of us a water bottle (with water in it). I drank about 6oz of water, tossed the bottle back, and kept going. At this point I wasn’t hurting at all, just feeling a bit weird from swimming so long and being tossed around.
The next major landmark, the “green roof house on the point” (aka Pull Point), was visible from a long way off, so it seemed to take forever to get to. During this section, I started to get a bit tired. During the channel crossing I needed to worry about navigation/being tossed around, now I had to concentrate on keeping my stroke correct and my pace good. At this point I started to count strokes. I was breathing every three strokes, so I would count my breaths by counting:
1 [stroke], 2 [strokes], 1 [breath],
1 [stroke], 2 [strokes], 2 [breaths],
1 [stroke], 2 [strokes], 3 [breaths],
1 [stroke], 2 [strokes], 4 [breaths],
1 [stroke], 2 [strokes], 5 [breaths], ect…
After 5, 10 or 20 breaths, I would do 2 or 3 breastrokes to rest, stretch and get my bearings.
[Finally] I passed the green roof house point, and started to make my way between Green Cay and St. Croix. The water here became very shallow (~3ft), with coral on the bottom, so I didn’t swim too close to Green Cay for fear of scrapping on coral. Near green Cay I saw the only interesting sea-life of my swim, an eagle ray and a midsized (~2.5-3ft) barracuda. The race was starting to feel very long at this point.
When I reached the last transition boat, I stopped and drank some water. I was stationary (kinda… the current was pushing me (in the right direction at least)), at the boat for about a minute, then I started off again. There were a couple of more points to swim around, then a final buoy. This leg sucked. I was a bit tired, but worse, my underarms were chafing which made it painful to do a full extension on my stroke, which made my stroke less efficient and also made it so I didn’t have the glide (i.e., resting portion) of my stroke. I defiantly learned my lesson… next time I will use Vaseline to reduce chafing. Also, during this leg it became difficult to maintain pace due to being tired and the chafing. I could keep swimming without trouble; it was swimming with any sort of speed that was the issue. My stroke/breath counting became a bit arduous here too. I would plan to swim freestyle for 10 breaths, but then around 5 or 6 I would stop and do breastroke for 2-6 strokes. Switching early was due to a few things… 1) being a wuss, 2) being tired, 3) not thinking entirely too straight (I lost count on 2 or 3 breaths a few times).
One thing that confused me at this point was that during the race meeting, it was said that you will think you are at the last buoy, but it is actually the 2nd to last buoy. Well, I thought the last buoy was the 2nd to last buoy, until I asked a kayaker if it was the last, and he said “yes”, which was a nice surprise, but I would have like to have known it was the last buoy before I started to go around it. Just prior to this, a swimmer had passed me. I decided that if I had enough energy to shout questions at a kayaker, I must have enough energy to sprint in the 1/3 mile or so to the beach, plus, I was almost done, and that was exciting (I had been fantasizing about eating a balance bar that was in my backpack for about 2/3 of the race… I could just about taste it now). So anyway, I sprinted (or did what passed for a sprint at that point), passed the dude (beat him by 6 seconds, yippee), stagger/ran up to the finish line, and that was that. 2:25:50 seconds after starting, I was done. I am happy with my time… I had hoped to swim 1 mile every 30 minutes (a scorching 2mph), so I’m glad I met that goal.
Oh, and I did eat that balance bar (2 actually), and boy did it taste good.
There were plenty of chairs around on the finish beach, so I found our backpack, and lounged about while Kendra was finishing. (My tongue felt very weird for about a day after the race… it was quite strange).
Once Kendra finished, (and rested a bit), we walked up the hill to our hotel room, took showers, packed up, checked out, and then went to the race lunch (also at the hotel). The lunch was a buffet/all you can eat (perfect for a bunch of starving swimmers), that was fairly good food (hamburgers, lettuce salad, pasta salad, potato salad, chicken fingers, that sort of stuff). Kendra and I stayed for the awards ceremony, and then we drove around St. Croix a bit before returning to St. Thomas on the seaplane.
[St Thomas on the seaplane approach]
I am looking forward to, and slightly dreading, next year’s swimrace. Apparently, this years race was fast (due to favorable currents) which is sad because it makes it less likely that I will beat my 2:25:50 time next year. Oh well.
Saturday morning Kendra and I got up, ate breakfast, packed, and drove to the courthouse parking lot (we decided to park there b/c the lot is fenced and guarded 24/7, plus it’s free). We then walked ~1 mile to the sea plane, only to find out that our plane was at 10, rather than 10:45. Since we got there around 10:05, we missed our plane, but we were able to get on the next flight without paying penalties, and without too much delay.
The actual sea plane ride was a bit interesting. Everything is weighed (from big bags down to purses, people are asked their weight as well), then you proceed to a floating dock where the plane is parked. At the plane you hand over any bags that weren’t “checked”, including purses. I suppose this is so that they can balance the plane, and so that they can pretend to have some sort of security (as if it wouldn’t be hard to smuggle a gun under clothes… but whatever).
As this beautiful sketch shows,
the sea plane has cargo (“C”) holds in the nose and tail, a pilot and co-pilot, and 3 columns of passenger seats. There are 6 rows of seats total, 5 with 3 across and 1 with 2 seats; for a total max capacity of 17, but it seems that they usually have a few empty seats. The primary door is at the tail, and there are a few extra emergency exit doors plus the pilot’s door throughout the plane. Kendra and I sat in the last 3-seat row both times. The 2 seat row behind was empty on the way over, and had a big box seat belted in on the way back. The plane has windows that are much larger than standard airline windows, and they are inline with the seats, so everyone has a pretty good view. Taking off it felt like we were on a speed boat, except then the speed boat left the water. The flight over was pretty non-extraordinary, except for the fact that the plane is not pressurized, so there was plenty of ear popping despite our low altitude.
Once on St. Croix, we got our rental car, drove to the hotel, found out the room wasn’t ready (it was still pretty early ~11am), and drove out to the east end of St. Croix, called Point Udall. Pt Udall used to be considered the eastern most part of the US until somebody realized that Wake Island is technically more east. 
I suppose you could claim that Pt Udall is the easternmost point of the US in the western hemisphere. Anyway, after looking at the views, enjoying the fresh air and wind (I was sneezy all of Saturday, and the fresh air was nice), we started back to the hotel. We stopped at Smokey’s gas station in hopes of getting some “famous” pate that Smokey’s wife makes, but apparently she takes most of Saturday off.
On the way to and from Pt Udall the road goes past a radio telescope that is part of an array that stretches from St. Croix to Hawaii. Reminds me of scenes from "Contact".
After returning to the hotel, we checked in to both the race and the hotel. Our room was right at the front, with a nice (warning: sarcasm) view of the hotel lobby traffic circle, which was all torn up and under construction. At the race check-in, we saw (former) Olympic swimmer Misty Hyman, who did the race solo last year, and now works at the hotel. We got our goodie bags (which include the usual stuff… sunscreen, energy goo, PowerAde and advertisements, but also a small (1.5 oz) bottle of Cruzan rum), our lunch and taxi tickets, and our t-shirts.
We had a few hours to kill before the race, so we went back to the hotel room. Kendra read her book and I took a nap (my allergies were making me pretty tired). A few hours later, we went to one of the hotel meeting rooms for the pre-race meeting. The race organizers went through a PowerPoint presentation of the important race info, including the primary “land”-marks for the race including:
1st, the V-shaped valley for navigating the start of the channel crossing
2nd, the yellow buoy/transition boat (for relay swimmers) that marks the end of the channel crossing
3rd, Green roof house on a point
4th, Green Cay, which we swim on the St Croix side of
5th, Pointy roof house
Last, Final turn buoy
The race is also roughly divided into three parts (the 3 relay legs). At the end of each relay leg, there is a boat that has water. The first leg (channel crossing) is the hardest, as it is the longest (2 miles) and it has swells coming from the side. The next two legs around each roughly 1.5 miles, and have a current coming from the rear.
After the meeting, Kendra and I went to dinner at a good (but somewhat smoky) restaurant, then we went to the primary shopping center so I could get some allergy medicine. We went to bed early, and we had to get up early.
5:20am, Race morning
Woke up, ate breakfast (balance bar, PowerAde, homemade cookie/biscuit). Double, triple and quadruple checked that my backpack had sunscreen, water, goggles, and swim caps. I dropped off a room key and driver’s license at front desk for after the race and then we boarded taxis to go to Green Cay marina.
~6:10am, Green Cay Marina
We stood in line with the other race people, waiting to get marked with our numbers and to board boats for transit to Buck Island. Kendra and I got on the first boat going out to Buck. On the way out, we put on sunscreen and drank more water/Gatorade. The ride was a little bumpy, but not too bad… although as we approached Buck Island the 2 mile channel crossing started to look pretty long. At Buck Island, the boat came in close the island, and then the swimmers jumped off the back and swam to the shore. We left our bag for transport back to the finish line at the hotel.
Buck Island was very pretty in the morning light. The island is not developed, so all you see is the beautiful water, the white sand beach, and the green craggy hill that rises in the center of the island (and lots of swimmers and kayakers).
After a bit, the other boats showed up and we were given a 5 minute warning. About 5 minutes later (surprise surprise) the race was started with the sounding of a conch shell (and I thought they only did that in movies). Kendra and I hung back a little from the first rush, and then we started swimming.
It was only crowded swimming for about 10 minutes, and then the pack spread out quite a bit. There were ~3ft swells coming from the left, but they were gentle enough that I didn’t have to worry about eating too much water when I breathed left. After another 10 minutes or so I found my swim pace (not slow, but not fast), and started to pace with a 2 other swimmers. This is the part of the race that I remember the best, as I wasn’t tired yet, and the swells kept pushing me around, forcing me to be very aware of my heading (the V-valley on St. Croix being what I was aiming for). Time seemed to stretch out a bit, as St Croix didn’t seem to be getting closer, and I was still too far to see the transition buoy/boat that marked the first turn. The only discernable changes that happened while I was swimming were the positioning of the other two swimmers that were pacing with me, and the color of the bottom. (I could see the bottom during the entire crossing; at times it was white sand, sometimes darker coral, and sometimes even darker sea grass. In the lighter areas I could see many sea-stars on the bottom). Aside from the tossing about caused by the swells, this would have been a peaceful part of the race.
Eventually I could tell that I was approaching the turn buoy/boat, because I was able to better discern the details of the buoy and boat. Somewhere along the way one of the swimmers either went forward or dropped back, because by the time I [finally] turned the buoy, there was only one guy with me. We both swam near the boat. A guy on the boat threw each of us a water bottle (with water in it). I drank about 6oz of water, tossed the bottle back, and kept going. At this point I wasn’t hurting at all, just feeling a bit weird from swimming so long and being tossed around.
The next major landmark, the “green roof house on the point” (aka Pull Point), was visible from a long way off, so it seemed to take forever to get to. During this section, I started to get a bit tired. During the channel crossing I needed to worry about navigation/being tossed around, now I had to concentrate on keeping my stroke correct and my pace good. At this point I started to count strokes. I was breathing every three strokes, so I would count my breaths by counting:
1 [stroke], 2 [strokes], 1 [breath],
1 [stroke], 2 [strokes], 2 [breaths],
1 [stroke], 2 [strokes], 3 [breaths],
1 [stroke], 2 [strokes], 4 [breaths],
1 [stroke], 2 [strokes], 5 [breaths], ect…
After 5, 10 or 20 breaths, I would do 2 or 3 breastrokes to rest, stretch and get my bearings.
[Finally] I passed the green roof house point, and started to make my way between Green Cay and St. Croix. The water here became very shallow (~3ft), with coral on the bottom, so I didn’t swim too close to Green Cay for fear of scrapping on coral. Near green Cay I saw the only interesting sea-life of my swim, an eagle ray and a midsized (~2.5-3ft) barracuda. The race was starting to feel very long at this point.
When I reached the last transition boat, I stopped and drank some water. I was stationary (kinda… the current was pushing me (in the right direction at least)), at the boat for about a minute, then I started off again. There were a couple of more points to swim around, then a final buoy. This leg sucked. I was a bit tired, but worse, my underarms were chafing which made it painful to do a full extension on my stroke, which made my stroke less efficient and also made it so I didn’t have the glide (i.e., resting portion) of my stroke. I defiantly learned my lesson… next time I will use Vaseline to reduce chafing. Also, during this leg it became difficult to maintain pace due to being tired and the chafing. I could keep swimming without trouble; it was swimming with any sort of speed that was the issue. My stroke/breath counting became a bit arduous here too. I would plan to swim freestyle for 10 breaths, but then around 5 or 6 I would stop and do breastroke for 2-6 strokes. Switching early was due to a few things… 1) being a wuss, 2) being tired, 3) not thinking entirely too straight (I lost count on 2 or 3 breaths a few times).
One thing that confused me at this point was that during the race meeting, it was said that you will think you are at the last buoy, but it is actually the 2nd to last buoy. Well, I thought the last buoy was the 2nd to last buoy, until I asked a kayaker if it was the last, and he said “yes”, which was a nice surprise, but I would have like to have known it was the last buoy before I started to go around it. Just prior to this, a swimmer had passed me. I decided that if I had enough energy to shout questions at a kayaker, I must have enough energy to sprint in the 1/3 mile or so to the beach, plus, I was almost done, and that was exciting (I had been fantasizing about eating a balance bar that was in my backpack for about 2/3 of the race… I could just about taste it now). So anyway, I sprinted (or did what passed for a sprint at that point), passed the dude (beat him by 6 seconds, yippee), stagger/ran up to the finish line, and that was that. 2:25:50 seconds after starting, I was done. I am happy with my time… I had hoped to swim 1 mile every 30 minutes (a scorching 2mph), so I’m glad I met that goal.
Oh, and I did eat that balance bar (2 actually), and boy did it taste good.
There were plenty of chairs around on the finish beach, so I found our backpack, and lounged about while Kendra was finishing. (My tongue felt very weird for about a day after the race… it was quite strange).
Once Kendra finished, (and rested a bit), we walked up the hill to our hotel room, took showers, packed up, checked out, and then went to the race lunch (also at the hotel). The lunch was a buffet/all you can eat (perfect for a bunch of starving swimmers), that was fairly good food (hamburgers, lettuce salad, pasta salad, potato salad, chicken fingers, that sort of stuff). Kendra and I stayed for the awards ceremony, and then we drove around St. Croix a bit before returning to St. Thomas on the seaplane.
[St Thomas on the seaplane approach]I am looking forward to, and slightly dreading, next year’s swimrace. Apparently, this years race was fast (due to favorable currents) which is sad because it makes it less likely that I will beat my 2:25:50 time next year. Oh well.
posted by Dave at 11:26 AM
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