Saturday, August 01, 2009

Good News, My First Ever First, VBLA Race Report

I know, delayed results. But what do you expect for a somewhat neglected blog?

Last week 5 of us girls from Richmond, drove to Virginia Beach to swim in the Virginia Beach Lifesaving Series 3k swim. Result: all of us had a great race! Three of the girls were testing out wetsuits for Ironman Flordia. Me, you know I'm not a huge fan of wetsuits, so I swam Plain Jane. Luckily, I did remember to put on sunscreen!

The water was perfect, calm, rolling waves, and a clear day. It was beautiful. No jellyfish. And, I had a pretty good swim. For the first time EVER I came in first in my age group in a race. Now, to fully understand this, you have to know I was totally excited about this even when I though I was the ONLY one in my age group! Imagine my surprise when I saw that there were actually 5 of us.

Here are my results:

Holland 3k, 40(overall) 1(age group)51:16:00 (3k time)26:04:00 (1.5k split)


I came in 40th overall of about 60 swimmers. And, I had a negative split!
They lost my registration, and had to write me in at the last minute -- so hence my botched name, but I'll take it anyway!

If anyone is looking for a well run open water swim, this is it! The 5k is August 23rd. I highly recommend it! When the race is over, the guards even drive you back to your car in the lifeguard truck. Nothing like riding down the beach at 20 mph with the wind in your face to realize, wow, that really was a long swim!