This was a 1 mile swim around the Santa Cruz Pier. This was also the National championship for the 2009 Masters Open Water swim, so there was going to be a lot of people showing up. Around 400 swimmers altogether.

The start was at 11am, so I drove down with plenty of time to find a parking spot and do the registration thing.

The registration line was long, and I got to stand behind an older lady that had just done a solo cross-Lake Tahoe swim. It took her 6 hours. The water up there is pretty cold, so I was impressed. I guess, me being a little worried about the frigid water here, was a little whimpy. After registration I hooked up with a group from the Santa Clara Swim Club.

The start was on the opposite side of the pier, and we all walked over to the starting line. There were three waves separated by 3 minutes. I was in the second wave. I had noticed that several of the swimmers had taken a little practice swim before the start. I figured it was unnecessary to get in the cold water and start freezing before absolutely necessary. When my wave started there was a mad dash to get in the water, and I kind of just followed along. When we hit the water and I started swimming, I realized that it was really really cold, and I could hardly breathe. I thought that there was no way I could stay in this water for 30+ minutes, so I stood up, took of my swimcap and started walking back with my head held low. I told myself a couple of times that if old women could do this, so could I, so I grinded my teeth and got in the water again, and after about 5 minutes, I was numb, and then it wasn't all that bad.

I ended up finishing in half an hour, which I was pretty happy with, especially since I came very close to not finishing at all.