Ironman Arizona Race Report-Part I

The day dawned cold. I dressed as warmly as possible, but I had to take off my outwear and put on my wetsuit at some point. I donned my wetsuit and jumped in the water. It was shockingly cold. It was 62 degrees, which was four degrees colder than the last 4000 meter swim I did in the lake. I made my way to the northern part of the field of bodies. I kept telling myself the water wasn't cold. The gun went off and the bodies surged forward.

I felt O.K. for a while. I kept telling myself that the water wasn't that cold. The sun was coming up and shining where I had to sight. I sighted off of the Rural Street bridge. I could see the orange light on the buildings on the bank when I turned my head to the side to breath. It was kind of pretty in a cruel way. The buildings seemed different than the last time I did an ironman swim. At least they didn't seem to go by so slowly as the last time I was in an ironman.

It was getting harder and harder to ignore the growing cold of the water. It was sapping the energy out of me and I had to stop and rest frequently, more so than my other long swims. It seemed to take forever to get to the turnaround, but not as long as the first race I did. My swimming didn't feel easy, and it was an effort to keep my stroke long. I could see the buoys now and I just tried to get to each one. I was very uncomfortable.

At some point my legs started shaking. I had never been this cold in a swim before and it was scary. I was damned if I was going to quit the race at this point voluntarily, but it felt like it was getting out of my control. I kept moving even though I was exhausted. If I got tired and rested, I got even colder. At one point, I caught someone's draft for a minute. I could only see the bubbles, but it helped.

Finally, I saw the turnaround for the exit. Usually at this point I can put some speed on. I was incapable of that. I finally got out of the water in 2:05. It was better than my last ironman race swim, but worse time than my 4000 meter swims.

I got my wetsuit stripped off and I started walking to transition when a medic snagged me before I could get away. I was fairly coherent, I thought, but I probably looked like crap. Luckily they were much better than the California half ironman medics and I got warmed up fairly quickly. They put warm saline bags under my arms and neck and got my wet shirt off. I shivered violently for a while, but I felt better after a while. I still lost about 10-15 minutes, something that I didn't plan or want to do.

This was one of the most difficult open water swims I have ever done and the day was just starting.