Wild Fish Open Water Swim in Salem, Mass [Iron Mike's Marathon Swims » Iron Mike's Marathon Swims --]

Yesterday spent a beautiful day up in Salem swimming in a cove for a couple miles. The Wild Fish open water swim took place in Collins Cove, a nicely enclosed area which connects, through many twists and turns, to the Atlantic Ocean. The water was gloriously warm, probably in the 72-75F range. The air temp was in the mid-80s but according to Weather Underground, it felt like 92. Despite this, the majority of people wore wetsuits. Incredible. Can’t imagine how boiling hot those folks must have felt by the time they were done.

This swim used a timing system I hadn’t used yet. Instead of velcroed red plastic chips, we were all given a paper strap with a soft, black cushiony lining. It wraps around your ankle. You can see it in the pic above. I must say, it was so comfortable. Totally forgot it was on the body. And at the end of the swim, no one has to remove it from your ankle. (I don’t know about you, but leaning over to remove the red velcro chip after swimming…whoa, head rush.)

The half-mile swimmers started first. And within a minute, some poor woman started swimming seriously off course, almost in a circle. While we 2-mile swimmers waited to start, we saw her start swimming to the left. We tried to get the attention of one of the SUP volunteers, without success. Finally, the race organizer noticed her and used his public address system to direct the SUP over to help her. His final comment before starting us off was “Wow, that woman has a serious pull to the left!”

We started next, shortly followed by the 1-mile swimmers. We wore blue caps while the half-mile swimmers wore green and the 1-milers yellow. Our course was a one mile loop, with a large number of very big buoys. Really, this course was one of the best marked ever. The half-mile mark for us was at the end of the cove and was a large orange and red pyramidal shaped buoy. The other buoys were large and orange, easily seen over a long distance. There were three of those between the start and the pyramid! Then another three plus a large yellow-green one (half-mile swimmers used it) on the second half of the loop. I never had an issue spotting the buoys and I think my navigation was pretty good. (Can’t wait to get my GPS watch!) Here is roughly the route as the organizers don’t have a course map available.

As I was approaching the third buoy, at about the 0.4 mile mark, I saw a green cap ahead of me. Poor woman was way off course. (The half mile swimmers swam to the first orange buoy, then cut 90* to the left across the cove then back to the start.) She was breast-stroking her way toward my buoy #3 and I was fast approaching. I thought I’d stop her and help her back on course, but then I saw a SUP coming up. I asked if he’s gonna help her and sure enough he was. I put my head down and got back to work.

The swim went smoothly. I kept next to someone with a half-sleeved type wetsuit, continually trading the lead with him. We were about 10 meters off of each other most of the time, till we got near the buoy where we’d merge. This continued for the first mile and a half. After I passed the pyramid buoy the second time, I never saw anyone else again. I started to worry. I had a small pod of blue caps with me during this second mile, but then none the last half. I passed another yellow cap, poor guy. Wetsuit and still finishing his mile. Probably boiling hot. But I just kept my head down and swam hard. I really pushed this last mile, especially the last half. I even kicked! Six-beat kick the entire last half mile. Swam till I saw the bottom was shallow enough and got up and ran. Came in, got my medal and found my wife. Totally forgot to look at my time so ran back down to the beach to look and at that point it said 1:10. Dang. Felt so good that last mile thought I might actually come in under one hour. No such luck.

I also saw two guys come in right after me wearing halfsy wetsuits; one of those guys must have been the guy I was swimming with all that time. A woman came up to me and said we swam together for a while; she knows because she recognized my suit. I do like the weird Dolfin Uglies suits.

When I came in the organizers were handing out awards for the 1-mile swim. We had an event later that day for my daughter (dual swim meet with another YMCA), so the plan was to leave as soon as I was done. However, they started the 2-mile awards only about 10 minutes after I was done. I thought we’d stick around just in case.

The organizers made an announcement a couple days prior to the swim that was poorly worded. What they posted led me and a couple others to protest. It looked like they would not separate results by wetsuit and skins.

…there will be no specific awards for wets or non wetsuits…no wetsuit / non wetsuit categories

I had a conversation via messenger with one of the FB folks about how wetsuits give advantage and results should be split. They seemed to understand what I was saying and in the end, they rewrote it:

Wetsuit or not that is the question?! UPDATE: We will be doing Top male and female NON wetsuit in each distance!

I misunderstood that to mean they would do that for each age group. Nope. Only the top male and female for each distance. Just like they wrote. And wow did those two swim fast. The male did it in 42:38 and the female swimmer, in the 50-59 age group, swam it in 50:25! That garnered her a first place in the age group as well. Good job, ma’am!

Surprisingly, I was called up during awards. I got third place in my age group with a time of 1:06.43. And the award? A pint glass! Yes! Something I can use. (The last time I placed was years ago in Texas, 2nd place our of 7 in my age group, but that race was its first year and the organizers said they only had awards for first place.) I had no idea the times of #1 and #2, so I figured I’d wait till results were released. Plus, I secretly wanted to see if those two wore wetsuits or not. Unfortunately, they did not separate suits and skins in the results. I had hoped they would have at least done that! It’s not that hard.

I’ll have another swim in Salem at the end of August which I’m greatly looking forward to. As for the Wild Fish swim, I can recommend it with two thumbs up!