I appreciate the fact that he is not presenting this as something that it isn't and that he seems to have a great attitude about it with seemingly no ulterior motives ( like self promotion). I hope he gets it done and enjoys the journey.

Now that is a good, difficult but reasonable event to follow.

Ummm, but it is barely, just barely a three discipline event. I mean, a 7 mile swim vs 2350 mi on bike and 850 mi on the run??? That's just ludicrous.

sounds like another swimmer with a gripe about the unfairness of the proportion of the swim distance

Ummm, but it is barely, just barely a three discipline event. I mean, a 7 mile swim vs 2350 mi on bike and 850 mi on the run??? That's just ludicrous.

Ummm, but it is barely, just barely a three discipline event. I mean, a 7 mile swim vs 2350 mi on bike and 850 mi on the run??? That's just ludicrous.

I know you probably had tongue firmly in cheek but my sick little mind immediately started pondering whether it's even possible to do a swim leg that's all at the start, at a distance proportionally comparable to an Ironman, and makes actually progress west to east or east to west (so not just swimming up the Chesapeake or up the Pacific Coast). You'd need to swim at least 60 miles to get in the proportional ballpark.

So what's out there? For starters there is the Salish Sea in Washington. A swim from Neah Bay to Fort Casey is about 90 miles. I know people have swum across the Salish Bay but swimming the length of it seems pretty fraught both physically and legally due to currents and shipping and orcas.

Then there's the Columbia River which definitely can give you all the distance you want. There was a guy in 2003 who supposedly swam the full length of the river but he did it in sections and with the current. Here too current and shipping as well as pollution would be a problem, but probably not orcas.

East to west the obvious answer is the Long Island Sound. You'd have lots of problems with shipping and currents and pollution. I know people have swum across LI sound but I doubt anyone's ever swam a significant length of it.

I know you probably had tongue firmly in cheek but my sick little mind immediately started pondering whether it's even possible to do a swim leg that's all at the start, at a distance proportionally comparable to an Ironman, and makes actually progress west to east or east to west (so not just swimming up the Chesapeake or up the Pacific Coast). You'd need to swim at least 60 miles to get in the proportional ballpark.
So what's out there? For starters there is the Salish Sea in Washington. A swim from Neah Bay to Fort Casey is about 90 miles. I know people have swum across the Salish Bay but swimming the length of it seems pretty fraught both physically and legally due to currents and shipping and orcas.
Then there's the Columbia River which definitely can give you all the distance you want. There was a guy in 2003 who supposedly swam the full length of the river but he did it in sections and with the current. Here too current and shipping as well as pollution would be a problem, but probably not orcas.
East to west the obvious answer is the Long Island Sound. You'd have lots of problems with shipping and currents and pollution. I know people have swum across LI sound but I doubt anyone's ever swam a significant length of it.

I was thinking since he is here and started in CA< he could have done the Catalina Channel crossing. That is a standard event held every year, and is held in pretty high regard to those that do well there. Its about 20 miles and done almost entirely in the dark. Does cost some money though, boat, crew, officials, but it would have been a cool start to this thing vs just swimming a few miles in SF bay..

I also was gonna say the swim was short, swimmer bias and all.
The swim is a good stand alone swim.
Though maybe he could have gone closer to the Coliseum to make it a ballpark to ballpark swim.
Maybe he could have swam across Tahoe and one of the Great Lakes?

But, I'll give him a pass as it's his event and he went to my high school. (Though he is friends with he who is not to be named)

He lives in Redmond (according to wikipedia)...so swimming across the SF bay is basically like jumping off his back porch. I'm sure overall logistics came into play. Probably a lot easier to find a friend or neighbor with a boat follow you for a couple of hours starting at 10 am rather than packing up the van and driving all the way down to SoCal to do this event where he may not have as many connections to find a support crew.