Deer Creek 5K Open Water Swim

On Saturday the 16th I swam the Deer Creek 5K Open Water Swim at Deer Creek reservoir. It's a pretty new event that was just started last year by Jim Hubbard. There were several distances available to swim: 1 mile, 5K, 10K, and 10 mile. I'm not sure exactly how many people entered, but I counted at least 20 boats. There were at least three people that tried for the 10 miles.

We woke up at 5:30am the morning of the race after a short sleep (thanks to Harrison) and headed up Provo canyon. It was really cold when we got there and I am glad that we all thought to bring jackets. I was worried that the water was going to be really cold since I didn't bring a wetsuit. Luckily for me the water was much warmer than I thought, probably around 70 degrees.

I didn't realize what a fast bunch of swimmers I was going to be swimming with. At the start they all took off and I was just taking it easy. My thought was that I would catch some of them when they got tired...well none of them got tired and I ended up finishing second to last with a time of about 1:44.

I felt fine for most of the race, but my arms started to get tired on the way back to the start. It also felt like the water was moving against me on the final stretch.

Each swimmer had to provide a "paddler"; someone in a kayak for support, navigation, safety, and feeding. Sabrina was my paddler and did a good job of encouraging me and of giving me gels and Gatorade while I swam. I have never swam with a paddler before so it took me a while to figure out exactly what I needed Sabrina to do to help me navigate.

Jod and B came up to watch me swim and to take care of Harrison while Sabrina and I were in the water. It's nice to have family that comes to support me in all the things I enter.

When we got home, all three of us crashed for an hour or so. When I woke up I had this song in my head by Midlake:



Here is a map of my swim thanks to my Garmin Forerunner 305 and MotionBased.com. You can also click here to watch the satellite view of my swim on MotionBased.

Here are some things that I learned about open water swimming from this event:

Training:
I need to do a lot more. Seriously, I think the last time I swam before this race was the 1 mile swim at Spudman (and that was down river). I wasn't worried about finishing the distance and knew that I would be able to since Jake and I swam about 2.5 miles a month or so ago. I need to work on my speed.

Navigation:
You can't really tell so much from the picture above, but I was zig-zagging quite a bit and I think, besides a serious lack of training, this was what cost me a lot of extra time. We finally figured out where I needed Sabrina to be to help me navigate with about 1 mile to go.

Chaffing:
This is so stupid. I bought a bar of Body Glide the day before and then I didn't use it. As a result I got some pretty nasty chaffing on my neck, armpits, and some other places that I would rather not mention...

I had a lot of fun and am planning on entering again next year. I would like to try for the 10K next time, but we will see how much training I actually do before then...

P.S. Pictures to come...