82nd Labor Day Oceanside Pier Swim

Lynn Kubasek, Marta Gaughen, Lexie Kelly

It rained last night!  Is this an omen?  The waves are supposed to be less intimidating than they've been this last week and the water temp around 65F.  As I drove into Oceanside, lightening was lighting up the gray skies and rain began to fall again...hmmm, and I didn't bring my swim parka.  Oh well, gonna get wet anyway.

Having missed last year's races, I've been eager to swim as much as I'm able.  Today was the Oceanside Pier Swim (one of my favorites).  Met up with Lynn and Tanya.  Ran into Gary.  Chatted briefly with Chuck, Roger, Jill, Vickie and Mark and finally met Lexie.

Compared to the last Oceanside race (RSP3/SurfMonkey), there were lots of people entered in today's race...maybe it was the $500 prize money. My heat (50-54 old nekkid ladies) was stacked with really fast women.  Wait, that didn't come out right LOL.  Anyway, you get the picture.  They offered an 'elite' heat for the super fast peeps, but these ladies felt compelled to enter under the regular Masters heat.

The start was running about 25min late due to swimmers being pulled from the race and timing the start between wave sets (or trying).  The horn finally went off at 9:25am.  The waves were big, even by my standards!  The water was a brisk 62F and the current swift.  I let the dynamos zip out in front down the beach...I am so not a land animal.  Once in the water, we got thrashed a bit and a few had to get 'escorted' out by the lifeguards for one reason or other.  Because of past experience with this race location, I knew that the currents typically run south to north, so I ran south before getting into the water and then swam straight, letting the current drift me over to the first buoy.  It sure didn't smooth out at the end of the pier.  Once past the pier's end and past the last buoy, the current, swells and waves carried me swiftly into shore whereupon standing, found there were tons of rocks under foot (ouch!).  A run up the beach and over the timing pad in 0:33:30:00.  Not bad for just getting back into the game, but came in 8th out of 10!  Like I said, the heat was stacked.  Even Lynn, who nearly always medals, came in 6th!  I think the gal that got 1st in our division did it in 20min!

I need a coach!  Maybe I should start by getting back in the pool 1st (haven't been in a pool in 2yrs!)

Here's a video of our start: