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Long overdue Swissman 2018 Race Report (part 1)
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Travel / Prep
On June 20th we flew to Milan. The crew was myself, my wife Theresa, my brother Jon, and his husband Jared. We arrived the 21st, Thursday, in the morning, and drove to Lugano where we met our friends Becky and Christian (who live nearby) and picked up my rental bike for the race. I got it from Bike Switzerland (http://www.bikeswitzerland.com/) and they were fantastic to work with. They set it up pretty close to my regular road bike and it worked well for the race. I planned to ride a road bike for Swissman, and I think this turned out to be a good decision.
After we got the bike and had lunch in Lugano, we headed to Trarego for our pre-race stay in an Airbnb overlooking Lago Maggiore. It was beautiful and had some remarkably inexpensive Italian food in the tiny restaurant.

We drove back to Ascona for the pre-race meeting, and then had our pre-race meal Friday night in Cannero Riviera, where we sat next to a table full of other Swissman participants: Marcel and Andre from the Netherlands.



Race Day
This marks the earliest that I’ve ever had to get up for a race: 1:45am. Trarego is 45 minutes from Ascona, where we needed to be at approximately 3am, so 1:45 it was. It didn’t matter: I didn’t sleep much, nobody did that I talked to, and so we just got through it. Jon and Theresa went with me to help get T1 ready. After setting my bike up and putting my things out, we walked the 20 minutes down to the ferry departure and waited around with the rest of the racers. At 4:15 or so they invited us on board, so I said goodbye and boarded the ship. I sat in the very back and Marcel and Andre came and joined me, and we talked and joked over the 40-minute ride. A few people got concerned when the boat looped well past the Isola Brissago, but it came up from the back and dropped us off to start our swim. They didn’t waste any time, and right at 5 we set off across the lake towards a blinking light on the far shore.
Swim
https://www.strava.com/activities/1692223971
Time: 1:24, hoped for 1:10
The swim was really quite pleasant, the water was pretty clear and clean, and I coped well with the swells and what people complained to me after about: the current. I just thought I was slow. I took the swim quite easy, had to fiddle with my goggles about half a dozen times, and was able to keep in alternate breathing mode for most of it. By far the lowest effort IM swim that I’ve done, and I felt fresh and perky by the time the shore finally drew into view.

I got some serious chafing on my neck, despite the bodyglide, and I think it was because I could only see the blinking light on every 4th attempt to sight it, so I sighted a lot more than usual. I tried to sight off of features on the horizon, but it was very high above in the mountains, and the perspective changed a lot so it was difficult.


Part 2: https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...rt_(part_2)_P6704814
Part 3: https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...rt_(part_3)_P6704823
Last edited by: EricTheBiking: Aug 15, 18 15:59
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