HalfSpeed wrote:
It was a tough day at the Maui Channel Relay. The first two hours were reasonably calm except for a couple wind fetched, churning up some 4 foot chop, of which the second one was during my leg.
Our savvy boat captain believed the would be a substantial northbound current so we aimed for south of Lahaina. Sure enough we hit it and fought the 6 knot current, trying to keep from overshooting the Kaanapali exit. We were the southernmost boat, but well behind the always fast Aussie team. They’re so fast, they missed the current and the fetches. All the other teams got swept past Black Rock and some well past it. The race director announced those teams that had no chance at a proper finish could have their swimmer touch any beach, swim back to the boat then motor to the finish. We finished legit, with me, on my third effort, took it to shore. We were the second of three teams that finished legit. However, because of the rule change, we saw several boats motor around Black Rock and finish ahead of us. So we ended up 8th overall and third in our division in 4:36. Kinda sucks!
In the 50 years or so the race has run, they’ve never had conditions like this. A few teams DNF’d as they missed all the beaches they could set foot on and were entering the Molokai Channel.
This sounds really epic and deserving of a full post and Q&A session in the main forum with an event/race report. This is exactly why I come to slowtwitch (to hear about endurance sport exploits). All the stupid talk of gear, and windtunnels gets really old (and i am trained as an engineer, and run an engineering company but its still gets old). Guys and girls crossing a channel having to predict currents and fight it is really cool stuff.
On my side I did my 5th Olympic tri of the summer yesterday. My swim times have been dissappointing...all of them in the mid 25's for 1500m except one that was 24.08. I swam 23:34 at swim nationals. In that I had turns every 25m, but in these swims I had a wetsuit. I figured I should have been breaking 24 easily, but never did. All of the swims however, were river swims out and back either single or double loop. It's hard to say what the current in the river was like (3 in the Saint Lawrence river two in the Rideau River, but its certainly non zero so that MAY explain it).
Next weekend, I am doing the Demi Esprit half IM in Montreal. With no current, if I can't break 30 minutes then something is wrong when I swim in wetsuit.
On a plus note on really windy days for all but one tri I am averaging almost 36 kph and I have broken 50 min (run time, some races include transition) in all but one. I just started jogging in March the week of swim Provincials. I was getting grief from Jason in May for the running I was doing in the lead up to swim nationals, but I was "hoping" that I would be able to do some tris after 4 years of zero. Now I have done 5x Olympic (got 1st, 4th, 1st, 3rd, 1st in my age group...local level stuff) and one sprint (1K-30K-7k) and I'm going to try my first half IM.
Along the way, I got some bragging rights in the Global Swim Series (King Wolf Crossing, Lac Tremblant 12km crossing, Riverkeeper 4km up current river crossing). It turns out I'm 15th in the world overall and 3rd in 50-59....its mainly a function of three races within 1:45 from home:
https://globalswimseries.com/...uit-global-rankings/: