2 mi Cable Championships

Yesterday was the USMS national 2 mi cable Championships at Chris Greene Lake. Heidi and I drove up together and as soon as we got there, we saw a great omen.



Apparently, angel Yogi had summoned a local Newfoundland named Teddy to visit the lake with his humans. I told Teddy I thought he was handsome, Teddy gave me some kisses, and I knew it was going to be a great day.

Cable swims are a kind of hybrid between pool and open water swimming and always make for intense races. We would swim four laps around a quarter mile cable. There's not much sighting involved, but drafting and pack swimming are inevitable.

In the beginning, I focused on trying to cut the most direct course possible. I did this by drafting off of the leader and hugging the cable. A pack of about 6 of us stuck together and I kept getting slammed into the cable (that's me in the white cap below):





Yowza! That hurt

I began to realize that all this slamming was slowing me down. Then, I remembered from Marty Gaal's open water swim clinics that the most effective place to draft is actually beside a person's hip. So, I swam out a bit from the cable to swim on the other side of the lead swimmers. This made cutting tight turns around the buoys more difficult, but it was nice not to keep hitting the cable.

There were two heats, one starting at 8:30 and one starting at 10:30. Heidi and I swam in the 10:30 heat so that we could drive up that morning. I ended up getting 1st out of the ladies and 3rd overall out of the 10:30 heat. More people beat me from the 8:30 heat though, including 2 ladies. The first heat is usually a bit faster than the second, so I might try to get up super duper early next year.

Heidi and I won our age groups and got to add to our collection of national championship patches. Kacie Wallace placed in her age group as well.







It's clear that Teddy brought us some very good luck. Thanks for sending him, Yogi!