Because my life is a joke. The idea among all my friends is that I need to write a book because absurd things always happen to me - or us if we all hang out. They find it fascinating haha

Prairieman 2010 (I think). Water temperature was in the range of >80 degrees, and the course was long. Not a great environment for a weak swimmer's first 70.3. I think it took me over an hour, it was brutal.

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the world's still turning? >>>>>>> the world's still turning

Swam races when I was 10-12 years old. At the first training practice the coach asked if I knew what butterfly stroke was. I said yes. "Good", he said, "go do 100m" (in a 50m pool). After 10m I felt like I was drowning, that was a loooooong 100m.

The next worst one was at Bournemouth oympic tri in 2017. Sea swim, it was choppy, but that didn't bother me. What did bother me was that they changed the course from a triangle to a rectangle, but didn't shorten the sides. The swim took forever. I've swam half distance swim legs around 30 min, but this one took nearly 40 min. When I finally came out of the water and looked at my watch it showed over 2,000m.

Hawaii Kona 2018 majior google malfunction. Two things lead to this. Bought new zoog googles before leaving for Kona. I did not know they changed the predator but should off because they did not come in 2 sizes. Sometimes they would let water in the back of my throat like a breath rite.. Not good in salt water. If I screwed with them I could get it to stop. I worked with on practice swims thought race day they would be ok. No at the start of the race I had trouble. Worse was yet to come. At the expo there was an anti fog booth. Decided to buy a small amount give a try. It was a paste you put on your finger and put on the inside of the lens then take a clean rag and polish out. Did a pool swim seem to work. So one thing lead to another. Guns goes off googles leaking trying to fix them must of rub the inside of lens leak stopped vision screwed up. Swim out to turn boat bad had trouble picking up buoys. Coming back into the sun could not see jack shit nothing. Already way back in the field must caught the eye of a Saftey guy on a board. Must of been swimming all over place because he asked if I was having trouble. Told him what was happening he said stay along side I will guide you back to the pier. He saved my race. I could not see the king Kam til I was right on top of it. I mean it was a 2 hour swim of pure frustration. To far back for podium but still finished. Zoog went to the predator 2.0 one size. Got on line bought a whole bunch of the old ones. Anti fog might of worked til I got my fingers in there. Think I will just stick to spit.

I would be curious on what others say on this, but my backup plan has always been to take off my goggles (or pull them down around my neck -- happily, I've never had to implement the backup plan.

Fresh fine not salt water

County Championships my Senior year in High School. I qualified first in prelims in the 100 Breast. In the finals I was leading after the 50 and started choking.....literally choking....at first I thought that's ok, I will still win this thing....then I thought well maybe podium, but couldn't stop choking. Took 30 plus seconds to stop coughing. Got last and then was DQ'd for holding onto the lane rope. Half the school was in the stands. Never had another good race. Still dream about it.

Masters swim. I went in for a flip turn and my trunks just detonated. Not tore, but completely gone to ribbons. I tend to keep things longer than I should, particularly clothes.

So I'm sitting at the end of my lane completely naked. Fortunately, I was with some buddies. So I motion to one of them to bring me a towel. He's about to hand it to me when he realizes what's up, then immediately retreats and starts removing all nearby towels from my grasp.

By this time the masters class have all started to figure it out. And even better, the 30-40 ladies in the adjacent seniors aqua aerobic class all stop and turn. And the instructor gets on her PA system and makes some crack about it's their lucky day because "Michael Phelps had a wardrobe malfunction", and they all start to titter.

I look at the masters instructor and aerobics instructor imploringly. Nothing.

So I gather my junk in my one hand, press myself out of the pool, then do the junk-in-hand jog of shame to the locker room. And of course that takes me past the entire pool, where I get applause the whole way. I did not "own it" which I should have. But that's not me. I'm shy.

Ok, that may take the cake-thank goodness you didn't slip while running!

 
Yeah, I'd like to think I'd own it. But, nah... I'd do exactly the same.

Identical - why?

My first tri, in the spring of 2002. It was just a sprint but I hadn't practiced in my new longsleeve wetsuit before, and I didn't warm up (plus, I didn't have a lot of freestyle training under my belt). When my face hit the *cold* water, my breathing locked up. I couldn't freestyle due to being unable to breathe (plus a lack of freestyle fitness and lack of strength to overcome the wetsuit's resistance) so I went into survival mode and breaststroked the entire way while swallowing a bunch of nasty water (see below for more on that). Some lady in a wave behind me swam into me and I inadvertently frog kicked her in the face. Good times.

In addition to all that, the race was held in the nasty water of Newport Beach, California's Back Bay. It doesn't get much tidal flushing (and the little nook where the race took place gets even less tidal flushing) so the water's brackish and mucky and disgusting. The "sand" at the swim exit was more like silt and everyone got out of the water super muddy from the knees down.
But I killed the bike leg. That was the funnest bike leg I've ever had.

And then all the water I swallowed made me cramp like hell on the run, despite its little 5k length. I had to walk a fair bit of it.

Later, because I swallowed so much water, I got really gassy for the rest of the day and they smelled just like the stinky bay water. It was nasty.

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War is god

Some great stories including the opening post

My worst swim experience involved getting attacked by a gull off Alcudia, Spain. It was low season and we had walked a couple of miles out from the resort along some cliffs, and it got pretty remote and lonely.

The sea looked inviting so I climbed down a path then swam out towards a rock maybe 100 metres out. As I got near the rock a nesting and very large bird went psycho and took to the air. It started calling, swooping and diving. It pecked me several times on the head causing some deep cuts. I had to go underwater and try to swim back but every time I surfaced for air the gull came again.

Second worse swim experience involved standing on a sea urchin in Kona

These sort of things can put you off nature. Now I just swim in the pool

I was/am just curious. Since you were identical, it was much harder for you to never let her beat you again. JOOC, did you both keep swimming through HS??? And college???

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Similar, first OWS tri, third tri overall. Was an Olympic in the early spring. Now, I'm cheap, and I had been into wakeboarding and other board sports so I had a wetsuit for that and thought, I'll just wear it.

Ready for the start, I'm wading in thinking this is going to be great, I'm nice and warm, lets go. About 100m into the swim I'm struggling, little bit of panic, try to relax, then by about 300m I realize that the darn suit is pulling me underwater, it is so heavy. Back stroke for a bit, breast stroke for a bit, then back to freestyle (btw, I had been swimming no more than 6 months at this point). Had a kayak stay with me the last 700 or so to make sure I didn't die. Started in one of the earlier waves, but was darn near last out of the water.

Finished, and afterward the RD (also a friend) sees my wetsuit and starts laughing. I learned the difference between open cell and closed cell.

To this day, that is still my favorite race shirt... misprint on the distances it said 1500K swim 40K bike 10K run. Yes, that was the longest swim of my life.

As a HS junior we won our league meet and were one of three teams in the running to win state. Naturally, after winning league we had a party. I got shitfaced and went stair diving. Fractured two ribs and jacked up intercostals. I went home and pretended nothing had happened all the way through Sunday and when I got home from school Monday told my parents I had slipped on the ice outside school.

State was two weeks after league. I was slated to swim 100 fly and back and should have won the back and had a damn good race for the fly. Had to bail in the fly, just couldn’t do it, and swam the 50 free instead to sort of preserve myself. Barely made the consolation finals, which cost my team significant points.

I put everything I had left into the finals of the back. I had already let all my teammates down and since it was my last event fuck it, what happens happens. It hurt. A lot. That race was easily the worst swim experience of my life, I got second, but probably should have won. The guy that won was a club teammate and friend and he and two of the timers had to push/pull me out of the water because I couldn’t climb out of the pool.

Team got third. If I hadn’t screwed us, we probably could have climbed into second, but as it turned out first was unreachable. Lots of jokes and inuendo at the team banquet regarding my injuries, all of which I deserved. We won the following year, but the seniors obviously weren’t around anymore for that.

I didn’t tell my parents the truth about what happened until I was 30.

Marin County Triathlon (Sprint) -

We arrived at McNear's Beach (a County park) at 6:00 AM. I was about the tenth car in so got my pick of the bike corral and I lined up right next to the bike exit, facing out. My friend and I walked over to the water which was about 61 degrees. We watched the sun rise which was a beautiful orange with light clouds. However, as the sun continued to rise, we had a low overcast set in and the wind started blowing from North to South. Our age bracket was slated to start at 8:20, so we started to suit up at 7:30, in order to be ready for the race briefing at 7:40. We even had time to jump in the water and swim a few yards to acclimate to the temperature.

A bag piper started at the top of the hill behind us and marched down the hill to the race director playing the entire way (and warming my Scottish heart). As 8:00 AM hit, we all joined in the countdown from 10 and watched the first wave of youngsters head out. The swim was 500 meters, set up in a one loop triangle, for a counter-clockwise swim. We saw the first group all drift right as they neared the first corner, and not just a little to the right, but a lot. The next groups fared worse and all attempted to offset their direction to the left of the buoy to be in the right position for the turn. Unfortunately, there were few who managed to pull it off. This was certainly one of my most difficult swims ever.

As I headed out with a wide left heading, I found myself drifting with the rest of the pack to the right. As we neared the first orange buoy, the current went from mild to wild. I oriented myself left and then swam in place for a long time., just like an endless pool. I'd swim eight or ten strokes, lift my head to sight and see that I hadn't moved any closer to the float. Ten more strokes, sight, despair, ten more, despair more.

Many swimmers were boated in. I realized my freestyle just wasn't strong enough to overcome the current, so I switched to my right side and side-stroked my way past the float with aggressive, strong scissor kicks.I thought I would swim inwards a bit to see if I could mitigate the current a bit, but it was still rough going to the second corner. I was exhausted as I neared the second buoy, but remembered a comment the announcer had made early on when told swimmers to stand up if they got tired.

I had forgotten that San Pablo Bay is pretty shallow, so I stopped and sure enough set my feet down on the thick, silty bottom. I caught my breath as I walked the 10 yards to the second corner, before getting to swim with the current (finally!) on the way in. One 77-year-old swimmer I was chatting with at the corner said she swam there all the time and couldn't ever remember the current being like that. Race personnel later announced that the first corner float was actually dragged out of position by the strength of the current, anchor and all. I finally made it in after 27 minutes and about 200 extra yards of swimming in place. Just miserable.

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Jim Lane
Rohnert Park, CA

Wow, my heart is racing just reading through that. Sounds like everyone survived!
And I guess it's important to pay attention to pre-race meetings; glad you remembered the tip of standing in the shallow water!

I'm a glutton for punishment. I have had multiple bad swims. Here are a couple about my brothers and one from me.

1. One of my older brothers was swimming a summer league meet as a roughly 8 year old. He swam under one of the lane lines and ended up in another kids lane. He told my parents afterwords "I would have won that race but the other kid got in my way". Classic family lore.

2. My oldest brother was legit. He's swimming at high school states back in 1972. Beats the defending state champ in the 100 fly to win it all. Or so everyone thought. He got dq'd for an illegal kick. Only time in his entire career he has every been dq'd . According to family legend the ref that did it was from the defending champs hometown. I know it haunts him to this day nearly 50 years later.

3. I'm swimming at high school states in 1985 trying to qualify for YMCA Nats in the 100 fly. I put a cap on. Which I rarely did. I dive in and it goes straight over my eyes. Can't see a damn thing for 100 yards. Don't qualify and I think I was dead last or next to last of all swimmers that year. Uggh. And that's only one of many swimming disasters I've had....

I have a couple to give you guys from my teenage years. First one as Jr lifeguard we took a trip up the coast to Santa Cruz for a competition. I swam the wharf in nothing but my swim suit and I think the water was mid 50s. I laid in the sun shivering for a long time trying to warm up afterward. I think I was about 5 8 and 120 lbs at the time. Next one lifeguard tryouts winter of 1983. I think it was held in 8-10ft surf and I wasn’t even on the swim team at the time and it was in winter so the water was freezing I didn’t place high enough to get into training. I did another tryout a couple weeks later with the city and made training week. And I remember a training swim in huge surf raining and windy with a ripping side current. We were doing a pier swim and we ran way up the beach to offset the current but still got pulled through the pier. I think they made us do it again to prove a point. Crazy now to think we did the swims with no wetsuit or fins.

My two most memorable swim experiences...

The best first.
This is when I was about 10 or 12 years old. At my Dad's company picnic at the local country club (we were not members) they had a father and son relay race. The dad's went first, 50 yards I think, then the kids. My Dad was a strong swimmer and looked trim in the speedo he always wore. He had half a length on the field when he touched the wall and I finished the deal with a blistering split. I turned around to look and the second place kid had not reached the 25 yard point yet. Victory!


The worst.
When I was in my 40's the family went to Cayman Brac for a much needed vacation. My son was about 8 at the time, a good swimmer and very confident in the water. The plan was to just do some shore diving and snorkeling for a few days. I was certified SCUBA at the time but this was more of a casual trip with the wife and kid. If you've not been to Cayman Brac there's not much to do on the island but the diving is legendary. What we didn't realize however is that nearly all of it is accessible only by boat and there's not a whole lot to see if you just start from shore.

We spent a day behind the resort which was fun but it was all inshore stuff, turtle grass areas and broken reef. So the second day we ventured out in the rental car to check out the rest of the island. We ended up at a little public beach with a nice lagoon and some small waves breaking on a shallow reef about 500 yards off the beach. There was a break in the reef with a channel directly off the empty parking lot. So with the kid we snorkeled across the sandy bottom to where it got more interesting. Almost like magic it was the real deal, huge brain corals and stuff that you never see in the FL keys. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves until it was time to head back...

The shallow reef extends a couple of miles in each direction and though the waves were quite small, you could see them spilling across the coral heads and into the lagoon. What we didn't realize is that all that water has only one way to get out - through the pass. We had been in the water for about an hour and when we turned around it took about 20 seconds to know that we were in big trouble. We were going no where. I was kicking as hard as I could and I can see that we're getting pulled out to sea. Also it's getting dark. My wife had my Son's left hand and I had his right, he was still enjoying himself as we drifted rapidly out of the pass.

I've surfed since I was 12 and have been comfortable in some pretty big waves and swam miles and miles after my surfboard but never with my family in tow. The only thing to do was to try to make it back over the reef after making our way west for a few hundred yards. Those small waves weren't so small when they were thrashing us on top of live coral. I was 100% at my limit when we got separated by a wave. Lucky for everyone the wife had super human powers that I lacked and dragged herself and the boy over the reef to the lagoon. We were all scraped up but feeling much better that we weren't on our way to Jamaica. It took another 30 minutes to get back to the beach and it was almost completely dark by then.

To this day I wonder how I got my family into such a dangerous position and still feel guilty for letting my son's hand go. It could have been so much worse... To top it off I came down with the flu on the flight back, I had a temperature of 104 as I was going through customs, they almost took me into custody because I was being such an asshole. Again, my wife took charge and got me the hell out of there.

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"They know f_ck-all over at Slowtwitch"
- Lionel Sanders