Profile of an Ironman – Swim
For the end of year blog series, we're looking at two of our athletes, James Martin and Mike Galante. In the prior post, we reviewed their bios and training.
Coming up after this, we'll be looking at their Bike and Run segments.
James Martin
Be sure to take a close look at James' Swim in full detail.
I planned to swim 1 hour. My first IMFL swim was 1:01 in perfect conditions, my second was 1:03 in pretty rough conditions and I am in way better swim shape than either of those days, so I seeded myself with that in mind. I was about 1 person back when the cannon fired and we are off.
Seas were a little rough, but nothing gnarly and the water temperature was perfect. After I cleared the breakers, I notice that I am getting absolutely beaten down. I have never had this much contact before in a swim. For at least a couple hundred yards it feels like I can’t take a stroke without getting punched or kicked, HARD. Twice I roll onto my back to clear and reset my goggles from being kicked or punched in the in the face, most of the time, I just swim with water in them because I am just going to get hit again anyway.
...at least I don’t feel like I am in an MMA match
Around halfway to the first turn buoy, the contact becomes more of what I am used to. It is still something I don’t like, but at least I don’t feel like I am in an MMA match.
At first turn, the violence commences again and stays solid until we are headed back to the beach, then things finally start to loosen up some. I hit the beach at 30 minutes and feel pretty good considering the carnage. This year, the buoy setup is very clear and we are forced back in the water almost immediately upon passing the fresh water table and are swimming a diagonal to rejoin the rectangle around 100 yards of shore.
Second lap is less eventful, I feel like I am swimming strong, stroke feels solid; I am not fatigued at all. On the way back I feel like I am not sighting perfectly and maybe swam a little wide, but other than that, I am expecting to see something close to an hour. I hit the beach and see 1:04:45. I was unhappy about that, but there is little to do about it at this point. I guess my sighting was worse than I thought and that diagonal swim made the second lap a good bit longer than the first.
As I am heading up into the chute up to T2, I hear my little sister scream my name and I make sure that I wave at her so she knows that I heard her (so grateful for family support!)
Mike Galante
Be sure to take a close look at Mike's Swim in full detail.
My biggest worry for the swim was getting beaten up and thrown out of rhythm by the crush of other swimmers. Fortunately everyone spaced out enough that I could get going relatively smoothly. No doubt there were arm grabs and near foot-to-head collisions, but overall smooth going at the start.
My plan consisted of keeping an easy stroke and try to go as straight as possible. During the entire time in the water I felt like I was doing a good job sticking to that plan, but I had no real concept of how fast or slow I was moving. There were buoys set up every 100 meters, or so they said, but I quickly lost count of how many we passed.
The course heads east for the length of the lake about 1.2 miles before making two left turns and sending us back west toward the start. Other than bunching up at those turns, I swam my own race. Towards the end, as we were getting close to the bridge where we started, a lady kicked me in the goggles, filling up one eye with water. I decided to let it go and keep swimming rather than stop to readjust. With one final left turn, I increased my stroke rate a little to finish the swim as soon as possible.
Climbing out of the water was a huge relief, knowing that, although it was the shortest leg of the race, I was finished with my weakest part of the day. The big shock came when I glanced down at my watch to see my time. The first thought was that my watch stopped or broke; the second thought was that the course was short; and there was no third thought. I had to get to the bike course!
Next
We'll be looking at their Ride and Run segments.
Reference
Much of the race report comes directly from the athlete's own race reports. James Martin's is posted at SlowTwitch while Mike Galante is on his blog at blog.mikegalante.com.