The Lake Berryessa swim today was awesome!  The lake is beautiful, the water clear, clean, and warm (69 degrees!)  While this is obviously way, way warmer than the Channel, it was a fun chance to have fun and race.  The sun was shining, and it was super warm out. 

A ton of my friends showed up – members of the Dolphin Club, South End Club, San Mateo Master Marlins, and Mountain View Masters were there, and I met some really nice people from Santa Cruz.  I also managed to get my friend and former Princeton swimmer Fernando out to swim.  What can I say, swimmers have a tendency to rock. 

The Davis team did a fanstastic job running the event, and they used a really nifty timing system.  They had us all wear electronic bands on our ankles that recorded times as we ran up the beach.  Very high tech, and it made turn around time on the results very fast. 

I entered both the 2 mile and 1 mile events.  The 2 mile went off at 9:45, and it was this race that was my focus.  I got out fast, and once I was in the lead, I started freaking out that someone was going to catch me from behind at the finish (it’s happened before).  Since open water swimming has no turns, I had no idea where people were behind me, so I kept ramping up the effort through the whole race.  It paid off, and I came in as the first female age 18-39(11th overall if you include the men).  Later in the day, Suzanne Heim-Bowen, a fellow Dolphin Club member, would surpass my time by 35 seconds to claim the 5th spot overall.  Well done her!

I was feeling tired, and the 1 mile was set to start what seemed like almost immediately.  I decided to just have fun on the 1 mile – just enjoy the warm, clear water and the chance to swim with other people.  But 30 seconds after the start, I found myself at the head of the pack again.  Well, I figured, if I’m ahead now, I may as well try to stay there! 

The 1 mile seemed to be over almost as soon as it started, but once again, I finished first out of the women age 18-39. 

I had a great time, and I’m definitely going to be back next year!  Hope to see you there, too! 

PS.  Loved the shirts!

The Davis Aquatic Masters are hosting what promises to be an awesome open water event this weekend! There will be a 1 and a 2 mile event (and if you enter both, there’s a discount), as well as age group events.

It will be held at the beautiful Lake Berryessa in Napa, California.  If you haven’t got something fun to do on Saturday morning, you should definitely come out and swim!  And maybe hang around for some wine tasting in the afternoon. 

Info at http://www.damfast.org/berrywelcome.html