Garmin tracks for my 20 Bridges attempt

Got home about an hour ago and of course had to sync my Garmin. Below is the map from my 20 Bridges attempt on 22 July.

So how about that pace? That’s the fastest you’ll ever see for Iron Mike. Of course, 1:10 per 100 meters over 9+ hours is a function of those little white areas among the blue. That first white area, from about 2:18 to 2:33, is when a boat came and picked up Agnes and her kayak and ferried her up to the Ward’s Island footbridge to meet me. (Recall that my Garmin was attached to her kayak.) I got there pretty quick from being picked up (I guesstimate at 2:13 or so) to getting to where I’d start again (a few minutes before Agnes showed up). I’ve heard a half-hour is how long I was out of the water, but not sure that is correct. Will have to wait and see when I get Hsi-Ling’s observer notes. Sometime after 2:33 elapsed time is when I put my head down again and re-started my swim (or started my second swim).

From the footbridge I am technically in the Harlem, but I really get the benefit of the current about 3:20 when my pace really speeds up. At some points I’m swimming at less than a minute per 100 meters! That’s probably the area where the Harlem thinned out and I saw the walls zooming by. What a feeling! Even into the Hudson, at about 6:30 I’m going super fast, around 0:47 per 100. The weird thing was that I didn’t feel like I was being pushed. Once you pass bridge #20 it is hard to gauge your speed. Plus the choppiness (Ari, jet skier #2, said the Hudson was calm my day. Oy!) made it feel like I was going incredibly slowly. Not true at all as the 11 miles in the Hudson sped by in about 3:30.

That second white area at about 7:26 was when the NYPD pushed over into the cove to await the cruise ship. That was longer than I thought, at about six minutes. Then it was the long drag into the finish, which I hit at about 9:14.52. Agnes kept the Garmin running for the quick trip back to Pier 25 where we got off the boat.

Total time on the Garmin was 9:34.04 with a moving time of 9:04.16. Not sure how much of that Δ is when I was swimming in place in the East river. I understand part of it is when I had to be moved up the East river (Google map estimate is that they moved me 1.5 miles up river), and the time waiting for the cruise ship, but otherwise I think it’s not too bad. Looking at it as two different swims, I did a little less than seven miles in about 2:13 before being moved. Then after starting up again, I swam 20 miles in about 6:40. I’ll take that.

Upcoming this weekend, I’ll go over lessons learned and way ahead if (when?) I attempt this swim again in the future.